Rachel laid out the contents of the bags on the back lawn, like a macabre jumble sale.

The first was full of Lola’s clothes: not the durable denim and corduroy of Rachel’s own childhood, but flouncy, sparkly dresses and shoes in pastel colours, white tights, a shrug made from white marabou. There was a grotesque studded white leather jacket and mini skirt, like a scaled-down version of what a streetwalker would wear. These were clothes for a human doll, not for climbing trees or riding a bike.

The second sack contained toys: mostly dolls and stuffed animals, though Katy Bear was still not accounted for. There were some girlie sets of pink Lego, child’s make-up and hairstyling kits, a bead-encrusted mirror, nail polishes in candy colours, flecked with glitter. There were DVDs, and the CD player that Rachel remembered seeing in the photos of Lola’s room. So Michelle was in the process of clearing it out.

Brickall phoned. ‘She went to the nail salon where she works. Looked like there was a client waiting for her, and she put on her pinny thing and got on with it. All legit. How about you?’

Rachel paused for a few seconds.

‘Am I calling for backup?’

‘No, nothing like that. But it’s a bit odd.’

‘On my way back.’

The car screeched to a halt on the kerb a couple of minutes later, and Brickall appeared in the garden. ‘What have we got here?’

They looked at Lola’s belongings together.

‘This lot has got to be her best stuff. Her favourites. So why get rid of it, unless…’

‘Unless you know she’s never coming back.’

‘Could be too painful to look at if you fear the worst,’ Brickall suggested.

Rachel was shaking her head. ‘But you don’t give up hope if you’re not certain. You act as though your child’s coming back. And if they’re coming back, they’re going to want their prized possessions waiting for them.’

Brickall put on gloves too, and they returned the morbid jumble sale to its bags and heaved them onto the back seat of the car. ‘Let’s drop these at the Surrey Police evidence store before we head back,’ Rachel told him. ‘I can’t see Patten wanting them back at the office somehow.’

Brickall was subdued as they drove away. Eventually he ventured the obvious. ‘So if she knows Lola’s not coming back to the house, that means…’

‘That she knows her daughter’s dead.’

---

Two days later, Nigel Patten chaired the promised review of Lola Jade’s case in one of the meeting rooms at the CEOP building in Vauxhall Bridge Road. Giles Denton and a female colleague were there, plus a representative from the surveillance team, and Rachel had invited Leila Rajavi to attend from Eastwell CID. Rajavi was now only a few weeks from giving birth, her body bulky and her ankles puffy.

‘We’re actively following up any new tips that come in with regard to Lola Jade,’ said Giles Denton. ‘And we’ll continue to do so, and to liaise with DI Prince.’

He gave Rachel a warm smile and, unless her hormones were making her imagine things, the faintest wink. Brickall scowled and started tapping his pen rhythmically on the table.

‘Those of you who know me are aware that I like to rely on visual aids…’ Rachel gave the room a smile of apology as she walked up to the whiteboard, wrote Lola’s name in large red letters at the centre and started filling in a spider’s web of arrows and circled words. There was a circle with Gavin in it, and she drew an arrow leading to Andy, and another to the deceased baby Oliver. She drew a large question mark next to his name and wrote ‘COT DEATH??’ She talked the others through Gavin’s arrest and the revelations from his divorce papers. Michelle took up another large circle – a purple pen seemed fitting – and Rachel outlined the findings from the Lewises’ camera, the financial angle and the recent discovery that Lola’s clothes and toys had been cleared out.

‘That wasn’t part of the covert surveillance,’ said Patten. ‘Which I was just about to come on to.’ He flapped the file. Rachel coloured slightly. Carrying out your own rogue operation in the middle of the night was not sanctioned by the chain of command.

‘It was part of our investigations,’ said DS Rajavi, covering smoothly. ‘We’ve got Lola’s possessions in our exhibits room.’

Rachel shot her a grateful look.

Patten spoke about the thoroughness of the surveillance done by the NCA operations team, and the fact that it had thrown up no new information but merely confirmed what they currently knew about Michelle Harper’s situation, and that she definitely didn’t have Lola in her care.

‘To sum up, I’m going to recommend the following actions: that Michelle Harper is re-interviewed and her son’s death looked at again; that friends and neighbours not spoken to already are identified and interviewed. Also, in the light of Michelle throwing away her daughter’s things, that another search for Lola’s remains is conducted in the local area, with as much manpower and as many canine units as we can source. DS Rajavi, are you happy to liaise on this?’

Rajavi nodded.

‘Then there’s the media angle. We need to prepare an update, keep the press vultures quiet while reassuring the public we haven’t given up the search. There’s been inevitable speculation since the search in Portugal made the news. The usual gubbins about pursuing several new lines of enquiry should do.’

Patten rubbed his hands and passed round the hot drink flasks and chocolate biscuits like a vicar at a tea party. ‘Excellent. Let’s continue to work together, and do all we can to move this forward.’

---

Rachel had no idea what to wear for the girls’ night.

She was assuming the others would be more practised at this, so she texted Louise, a former colleague from the Met and the organiser of the evening, to canvass her opinion.

Full-on glam! xx

The reply made her heart sink. She pulled out the black dress she had worn to dinner with Stuart, but decided it was a bit too restrained, too formal. She had a sleeveless checked sundress that she quite liked, but it was all wrong at the end of November. In the end, she dressed in black velvet jeans, a loose ruffled shirt in dark red silk and – reluctantly – black suede high-heeled ankle boots. After adding suitably vampy make-up, she viewed herself in a full-length mirror. Ridiculous. She looked like an expensive call girl.

She scrubbed off some of the cosmetic excesses, but by then she was running late and there was no time to change her clothes, so she called a taxi and headed straight to the Flirty Martini cocktail bar near St Paul’s. Even the name was enough to fill her with dread.

There were seven other women in the group. Since Rachel was late, they were already assembled, all sporting short tight dresses and strappy shoes. She had worked with a couple of them in the past but didn’t know any of them well apart from Louise. One of them, a redhead, definitely wasn’t a former colleague but looked vaguely familiar. Disconcertingly, every time Rachel turned her head in that direction, the redhead was shooting her dirty looks.

The noise level was already high, and as more of the rainbow-hued cocktails were consumed, the shrieks and giggles rose to a glass-shattering pitch. Rachel reached into her bag and stealthily texted Brickall.

Girls’ night = exactly as awful as I predicted

These women were all roughly her contemporaries, which meant they were in their late thirties or early forties, with husbands or partners and children. And that was what they talked about. It made no sense to Rachel: these women planned a night out as an escape from humdrum domesticity, yet once they were out talked about nothing but their humdrum domesticity. She hovered on the edges of the conversation and immersed herself in a steady flow of vodka martinis.

When everyone was excessively tipsy, there was a lengthy debate over splitting the bill, and then more shrieking as the group tried to negotiate a path through the other customers to the front entrance. Alcohol had erased collective memory of how to walk in heels. A couple of the women had babysitting curfews, but the remainder were going to go on to a club.

‘My husband’s borrowed a friend’s minivan and he’s going to drive us,’ said the redhead. ‘We’re probably all too pissed to organise taxis.’ She and Louise sniggered.

‘That’s extremely nice of him,’ said Rachel.

‘Oh, he’s a diamond,’ affirmed a woman called Becky. ‘Her Howard’s the best, isn’t he, Julie?’

Howard. The penny dropped in Rachel’s vodka-muddled brain. That was where she had seen the redhead before: at the pub with Howard. She was Julie Davison. Rachel walked up to her, attempting to start a friendly conversation, but was again greeted with a disdainful look.

‘Hi – Julie? I’m Rachel Prince. I know Howard,’ she said, attempting to initiate a friendly conversation. ‘He trains me at the gym.’

‘Oh don’t worry, darling, there’s a whole army of you. All of them throwing themselves at my husband. It’s pathetic, really.’

As she spoke, Howard himself loomed in the doorway, looking handsome in a navy reefer coat and waving car keys. The jolt of surprise when he saw Rachel was visible, to her at least. She hadn’t planned on going to the club anyway, since she had to interview Michelle Harper the next morning, so no one paid much attention when she slipped past the group into the street.

All except for Howard, who turned and watched her as she walked away.

---

Back at her flat, she tugged off the ankle boots, made herself a herbal tea and started the process of removing her call-girl make-up. All that effort putting it on, only to scrub it off a couple of hours later: one of many reasons why girls’ nights out were a ridiculous concept. She was slower and clumsier than usual, thanks to the three martinis. Or was it four? It could have been.

The intercom buzzed, making her jump. At 11.30, the only person it could be was Brickall, wanting to do an informal case review over a pizza or a curry.

‘Hello?’

‘It’s Howard.’

She buzzed him up.

‘I’ve got time to kill before I go and pick up your friends,’ he explained, pulling off the reefer coat to reveal a navy sweater that strained over his substantial biceps and pectoral muscles. ‘I said I’d go back to the club and collect in…’ he looked at his watch, ‘an hour and a half.’

‘Actually most of them are your wife’s friends,’ pointed out Rachel. ‘Your wife who was about as friendly as… as a rattlesnake.’

‘Ah.’ He had the grace to look embarrassed. He was also sober, and therefore would be able to tell that Rachel was not.

‘Cup of tea?’ she ventured.

‘Do you have anything stronger?’

She found a bottle of single malt and poured him a shot. He smelt of clean wool and expensive aftershave, and she found herself leaning in to inhale deeper as she handed him the whisky. He did not pull back; in fact he came and stood so close to her that their thighs were touching. After a hasty gulp of his drink, he set his glass down on the kitchen counter so that both hands were free, and placed them lightly on the small of Rachel’s back.

She gave an involuntary shiver. ‘So, according to your wife, I’m just one of many women who are throwing themselves at you.’

He raised an eyebrow. ‘Throwing themselves, eh? How does that work?’

‘Well now… let me show you…’ Rachel leaned in, flattening herself against his broad chest. It felt wonderful: both exhilarating and somehow comforting. Howard reached for his glass again, draining the last of his whisky in one mouthful, then lifted her up as though she weighed nothing. They kissed furiously as he carried her into the bedroom, and continued kissing as he pulled off her trousers and shirt with a speed that bordered delightfully on roughness. And Rachel did not protest even though she knew she should, all sense and discretion washed away by one vodka martini too many.

---

‘Oi, Cinderella, your carriage awaits!’

When Brickall phoned from the lobby of her apartment building the next morning, Rachel was grateful that Howard had already been committed to returning to the nightclub to collect Julie and her friends. It meant that there was no awkward scene when she woke, hung-over, the next day, and no walk of shame in full view of her detective sergeant. Nevertheless, she had a pounding head, which she richly deserved. She came downstairs and met Brickall wearing sunglasses and clutching a Thermos mug of strong coffee.

‘Big night, was it? With the girls.’

‘Don’t ask.’

‘I just did.’

Rachel silenced him with a glare, and was mute for most of the drive to Eastwell. The arrangement was that DS Rajavi would collect Michelle Harper and bring her to the local police station, where Rachel and Brickall would conduct an informal interview. Taking her to the NCA interview rooms in Great Queen Street, where criminal investigations were processed, was judged to be too heavy-handed on this occasion.

Rachel was in no mood to deal with a bolshy suspect, but Michelle seemed compliant and subdued, almost eager to please. She was dressed in a skirt suit and blouse and nude platform heels, as though attending a job interview. Her hair had been freshly boosted by extensions, and her gel manicure was immaculate.

‘So, I wanted to start by asking you about these.’ Rachel pointed to the bags from Willow Way, which had been brought into the room. ‘For the purposes of the tape, I’m pointing to exhibits HAR/16/232 and HAR/16/233.’

Michelle gave a good-natured shrug. ‘What is there to tell, really? I went back to the house to pick up my post and tidy round and I decided to have a bit of a clear-out.’

‘This is more than a bit of a clear-out,’ interjected Brickall. ‘This is most of the stuff from your daughter’s room.’

Michelle frowned, but her tone remained level, reasonable. ‘I wouldn’t say it was all of it. There’s still stuff in her wardrobe. I just find it hard, you know, to have so many reminders.’ She bit her lip, which was wobbling decorously, and pulled a tissue out of her bag.

‘All right then, what if Lola Jade is found and comes home wanting her stuff? I imagine she would want her stuff.’ Rachel took a swig of coffee, wincing at the jackhammer behind her temples.

‘I’ll get her all new, of course. I get her new stuff all the time. Got her new stuff,’ she corrected herself, glancing down and inspecting her manicure. ‘Kids grow out of clothes and shoes anyway. She’s still growing.’

‘So you didn’t chuck her clothes and toys because you know she’s not coming back?’

‘Definitely not.’ Michelle was firm, and quite unruffled. ‘I’m still hoping you’ll find her. You know, one day.’

One day. This struck Rachel as an odd choice of words, but she decided to change tack. ‘Can we talk about the funds raised on the JustGiving page.’

‘It’s to help find Lola Jade.’

‘Obviously,’ said Brickall. ‘But why would you need to withdraw £30,000 in one go? In cash.’

‘Someone said to me I should hire a private investigator.’

‘Really?’ Rachel checked her notes. ‘A few days after Lola disappeared, when the police investigation was still in full swing? Wouldn’t that be something you would do when other lines of enquiry had failed?’

Michelle narrowed her eyes defensively, but Rachel could tell she was trying hard not to seem truculent. ‘All I know is I was desperate. And when you’re desperate, you’re going to try anything.’

‘So who was the PI?’ demanded Brickall. ‘And how much did you pay him.’

‘He’s called Mike Booker. I found him on the internet. I paid him fourteen grand, but it was a total waste of money. He was useless.’

‘And the rest of the money?’

‘I’ve still got it. Of course.’

‘Not according to this. For the purpose of the tape, I’m showing Michelle exhibit HAR/16/219.’ Brickall showed her the log from the second search of 17 Jubilee Terrace. ‘Nothing written on here about a bloody big bag of twenties.’

Michelle scowled at him, but kept the same level, reasonable tone. ‘I don’t keep it at my sister’s, obviously. It’s at the salon where I work, locked in the safe.’

‘And you’d be happy to let us verify that?’

Michelle smiled sweetly. ‘Of course.’

‘And what did you intend to do with the rest of the cash? Why take out 30,000 if the investigator was only charging you fourteen?’

‘I was afraid he might get going with something… you know, find some proof or whatever, and then say he’d run out of money. I thought it was best to have the other fourteen grand ready, you know: in case.’

So plausible. So reasonable. Rachel smiled calmly. ‘I thought you said the investigator charged fourteen thousand? That would leave another sixteen.’

For the first time, Michelle lost her composure, picking repeatedly at her right thumbnail with her forefinger. ‘Booker could have charged more; I honestly can’t remember the details.’

‘Such a big sum of money, and for something so important: you’d think you’d remember.’ Brickall folded his arms across his chest in a textbook ‘don’t believe you’ tell.

‘I can’t remember stuff like that: my head’s all over the place!’ Michelle folded her head into her hands and started to cry; jagged breathy sobs. She straightened up and dabbed her face with the tissue. ‘You’ve no idea how awful this is for me. It’s literally a living nightmare. I just want my princess back, my little princess angel.’

The sobs were met with silence, and petered out. Michelle sniffed and raised her head, groping again for the tissue, which this time she used to dab at her nose. Her eyes, Rachel noticed, were completely dry.