Gavin Harper was now represented by an experienced criminal solicitor called Robert Neeley, but for Rachel’s purposes, this made little difference. He still wasn’t saying very much.

‘I’ve got nothing to tell you,’ he insisted. ‘Not above what I’ve already told you. I was freaking out from all the attention and I legged it to Portugal. To get away for a bit. There’s nothing wrong with that.’

‘Apart from the tiny matter of using a false passport,’ Rachel said drily.

‘Because I knew if I used my own there’d be hassle. After stuff that Michelle said about me.’

‘Why didn’t you tell anyone?’

‘I did though, didn’t I? I told Andy.’

‘Why didn’t you tell anyone else?’

‘Why should I? Not like I was on bail, or house arrest.’

‘All right. So what about the night when Lola was taken?’

Robert Neeley leaned across. ‘My client has already made a statement to police about that.’

They went round in circles like this for a while, with Gavin alternately mulish and aggressive, until Neeley said that he wouldn’t be answering any further questions but would instead provide a prepared statement definitively setting out his position. It was a classic stall from the criminal-law playbook. Reluctantly Rachel left them to it and went to join Brickall in Willow Way.

---

‘Why am I not surprised? No one here.’

Rachel and Brickall were seated in an unmarked car outside number 57, and once again there was no one answering the door, despite Rachel having left a voicemail for Michelle Harper telling her they’d like to speak to her again.

‘You never know, she may have just popped out to the shops,’ suggested Brickall. ‘Give her a minute or two.’

But Rachel was shaking her head. She reached for her phone and pulled up the photos that WPC Nicholls had taken.

‘What am I looking at?’

‘The wheelie bin. Completely empty apart from a few bits of junk mail.’

‘So? The bin men had probably just been.’

She shook her head again. ‘No. The bin men were just about to arrive.’

‘Come off it, Prince; she might not have got round to taking stuff out to the dustbin. We’ve all done it.’

‘Ah, but…’ Rachel grinned, ‘I made sure I chucked a takeaway cup into the kitchen bin so I could get a good look inside it. It was empty.’

Brickall’s expression was still blank.

‘Come on, Detective Sergeant. If you’re living somewhere, the kitchen bin is full of tea bags, eggshells, kitchen towel, food packaging… there was nothing. And what about the dog?’

‘The dog?’

‘She’s supposed to have a dog, but there’s been no sign of it on any of my visits.’

‘If she’s not here, it’s hardly surprising in the circumstances,’ Brickall said mulishly. ‘She could have been staying with a relative or friend for a few weeks. God knows it must be hard enough for her being alone in that house.’

‘Maybe. Either way, we haven’t got all day to sit about. We’ve got the CEOP case conference this afternoon.’

‘You can’t wait to get back up to Pimlico to see your hunky Denton.’

Rachel flicked her seat-belt buckle at him, as though swatting a fly. ‘You’re a cock, Brickall.’

Just as he was about to retaliate by balling up a sweet wrapper and flicking it at her, the familiar white BMW drove up and Michelle Harper climbed out.

‘So how are we going to play this?’ Brickall asked, before they got out of the car. ‘We don’t want to get her hopes up, nor do we want to spook her.’

‘Keep it low key. It’s not like we can say we know for sure what’s happened to Lola Jade. Not yet.’

‘Better do the same at this afternoon’s case conference,’ affirmed Brickall, with a wry grin. ‘Can’t swagger in there claiming we’ve cracked it when the kid’s still missing.’

---

Michelle’s body language had changed, Rachel thought.

She’d dropped the bravado and the thinly veiled passive aggression, seeming listless, flat. The black leggings and plain top were unassuming, the make-up low key.

‘She’s not dead, is she?’ was the first thing out of her mouth, even though Rachel had given no indication on the phone that this was the case.

‘No.’ Rachel shook her head. ‘Not as far as we know. But I did find your husband.’

Michelle’s eyes widened. ‘He was in Spain?’

‘No,’ said Rachel. ‘Not in Spain, in Portugal.’

‘Portugal?’

Brickall glanced at Rachel, and she knew what that particular look of his meant. That the shock seemed a little overdone.

‘He doesn’t have Lola Jade with him.’

‘He’s lying.’ The grieving-mum mask slipped a little as she spat the words.

Rachel shook her head. ‘I don’t think so. But he’s now back in the UK, so we’ll be able to keep a close eye on him. For now, I wanted to ask you about this.’

She showed Michelle a photo of the nightie with stars on.

‘It’s Lola’s.’ She corrected herself. ‘It could be hers, I mean. She had one just like it.’

‘Did your husband take Lola on holiday last summer?’

Michelle nodded. ‘Yes, he took her to Wales. His cousin – the one I told you about – has a static caravan in Rhyl.’

‘So this nightie was among the things you packed for her? Only he says that’s why it was still in his possession when he went to Portugal: that he forgot to unpack it.’

Michelle shook her head firmly. ‘No. Definitely not. I’d have remembered, because Lola Jade prefers pyjamas.’

Rachel and Brickall exchanged a glance. ‘And is there anyone else, anyone at all you can think of, who might have had reason to take your daughter? Anyone with a grudge against you?’

Michelle appeared to be thinking about this. ‘There was someone I fell out with once: Joanne Keen.’

Rachel took out her notebook. ‘Go on.’

‘Her husband, Danny, put in the kitchen for us. Only he made a right mess of it, so we refused to pay him all the money. We paid around half, I think…’ Michelle picked at the polish on her fingernails, which was cracked and peeling. ‘Anyway, there was a massive row about it: they threatened to sue and everything. Joanne got involved and picked a fight with me at the school gates.’

‘A physical fight?’ asked Rachel.

Michelle coloured slightly. ‘I may have slapped her in the heat of the moment, but she gave as good as she got. It was mostly a screaming match, and when her friend dragged her away, she said she was going to get me. I remember that clear as day, her shouting: “I’m going to get you, you bitch!”’

While Rachel was playing good cop, Brickall had stood up and walked into the kitchen, opening cupboards and looking inside drawers. ‘So,’ he said, in his best-bad cop voice, pointing to the open cupboard, ‘d’you mind telling us about this, Mrs Harper?’

‘What d’you mean?’

‘There’s nothing in the cupboard apart from some sugar lumps and out-of-date instant coffee that’s as hard as a rock. Are you actually living here?’

Michelle pulled out a tissue, shaking her head. ‘I can’t stand it,’ she said simply. ‘I can’t stand being alone here at night, walking past the door to my princess’s room.’ She gulped, and blinked hard as though she was either trying to keep back tears or force them to start. ‘So I’m spending most of my time over at Lisa’s.’

‘Your sister?’

Michelle nodded.

Rachel closed her notebook, which was a cue she knew Brickall would understand.

‘Right. I think we’ll leave it there. It might be helpful if you let us know where you are next time we get in touch.’

When they reached the car, Brickall asked, ‘Are you thinking what I’m thinking?’

Rachel nodded. ‘Time for a bit of vehicular reconnaissance.’

They pulled the car into a perpendicular tree-named close, positioned just out of sight, and waited until Michelle’s BMW drove past, then followed at a discreet distance. She drove three miles due west, to the Albert Park area on the far side of Eastwell, a grid of Victorian workers’ brick cottages, and parked outside an unassuming flat-fronted terrace. The door was opened by a square woman with pink hair. Lisa Urquhart. Her face remained impassive as Michelle went inside, then the door was closed.

‘We’d need to cross-check her statement on the file, but I’m pretty sure that’s Lisa’s address.’

‘So her story about staying at her sister’s is true.’ said Brickall. ‘I told you: she just can’t hack being alone.’

‘Given we have to look at the entire family, I still reckon we should search the place,’ Rachel said.

‘Sounds like a waste of time to me.’ Brickall started the engine and turned the car back towards London. He caught sight of Rachel’s expression. ‘Right you are, boss: I’ll apply for a warrant.’

---

‘We’ve passed the Harper file on to our Victim Identification team.’

Giles Denton, director of CEOP, was leading the case conference in the ground-floor meeting room of the department’s offices in Vauxhall Bridge Road. He was around thirty-five, swarthily handsome in the Black Irish mould, with a face shaded with stubble and eyes so dark it was almost impossible to discern that they were blue. Rachel gazed at him admiringly whenever no one else was looking. She couldn’t help herself.

‘… they’ll cross-check pictures of Lola Jade with images from sites frequented by online abusers, and liaise with the Victim ID community in other countries.’

His North Sea-blue eyes were directed at Rachel and she looked quickly down at the cup of tea that had just been provided from a trolley wheeled in by someone in Catering. Brickall was already on biscuit number four. ‘So you think Lola Jade has been targeted by a paedophile ring?’

‘I think it’s a strong possibility, given that there’s still no body, and evidence points to her having been removed from the home alive. She fits the “shopping list”…’ He made air quotes. ‘She’s Caucasian, blonde, under the age of seven. Highly saleable in this market.’

Rachel screwed up her face in distaste, before debriefing the team on her trip to Spain and Portugal, keeping her eyes focused on the fire-drill instructions fixed to the wall rather than on Giles’s stubbled jaw.

‘We’ve re-interviewed Gavin Harper – without much success, I’m afraid – and we’ll speak again to friends and family, but this time round try and cast the net beyond the original witness list. The hope is that a few months on, someone will remember something or mention a detail they didn’t think important before. Make the passage of time work for us. Gavin had a cousin who apparently took a keen interest in Lola and holidayed with her: we’ll need to speak to him and his wife.’

‘And I’ve applied for a warrant to search the aunt’s house,’ Brickall chipped in through a mouthful of chocolate digestive. ‘Lisa Urquhart. We know Lola’s mother, Michelle, has been staying there. It’s a long shot, but it could throw up some fresh forensics.’

With a consensus that they would convene for an update in a week, the meeting was adjourned, and Rachel and Brickall gathered their belongings and drove back over the Thames to the Tinworth Street site in Lambeth.

‘A whole week.’ Brickall’s expression was suggestive. ‘Sure you can wait that long, Prince? For another sighting of Boyzone.’

‘Behave.’

After they had parked the pool car, they walked in through the lobby, heading up to their third-floor office. Rachel’s knee was stiff from sitting and Brickall had to wait for her to catch up, with exaggerated sighs and eye-rolling.

‘You go up,’ she told him as they reached the lift. ‘I’m going to go straight home and put my leg up for a bi— Oh, shit.’

The colour drained from her face. Brickall followed her gaze to the reception desk to where a man was standing. A tall, distinguished-looking man with thick sandy hair streaked with grey. Stuart Ritchie.

Brickall tipped his head in the same direction. ‘That him?’

But Rachel had already turned on her heel and ducked through the fire-escape door. She headed back down the stairs to the underground car park, moving as fast as her injured leg would allow.

‘Hold on, you plank!’ Brickall ran after her. ‘Let me drive you home. Jesus, what a head case! All this fuss about avoiding an ex.’

Rachel turned to face him as she reached her car door. ‘He’s not just an ex. He’s my husband.’

---

‘You really are a puzzle wrapped inside an enigma buried in a… however the stupid saying goes.’

Brickall spread himself over Rachel’s sofa, not attempting to hide the smug smile of triumph that lit up his face. He had insisted on coming up to the flat with her, even though the coast was clear: ‘Just in case your old man’s beaten us to it and is waiting outside your front door.’

He wasn’t, but Rachel asked Brickall in anyway, poured them both wine and opened a packet of crisps. She rarely cooked, and this was the only food she had in stock, other than salad and greens in the fridge. Brickall liked to tease her about her preoccupation with healthy eating, just as she poured scorn on his love of junk food.

‘Done loads with the place since last time I was here,’ he said sarcastically, indicating the bare white walls, the sterile kitchen surfaces and general absence of clutter or personal memorabilia. ‘So…’ he went on around a mouthful of half-chewed crisps, surprisingly still hungry after five biscuits. ‘You’ve been married all this time and you never said a word. Quite the dark horse.’

‘It’s not what it looks like.’

‘Said the criminal to the copper.’

Rachel reached for the pack of tramadol and swallowed one with a deep draught of wine. It was the first she’d taken all day, but after running down the steps to the basement, she needed it. ‘I mean, I’m legally married, but only because I haven’t got round to a divorce.’

Brickall put down his wine glass and stared at her. ‘How long have you been married? Jesus, Prince. I mean, I’ve known you at least five years and you’ve never once mentioned a husband. Why the secrecy? Not like I haven’t seen an endless line of men traipsing in and out of your bedroom.’

She ignored this last remark. Her dysfunctional yet eventful love life was an endless source of entertainment to her detective sergeant, but she knew better than to rise to the bait. Besides, this was a subject she did not want treated with jocularity or subjected to scrutiny. ‘It was a long time ago. I was twenty-two, and it only lasted around a year.’

‘He in the force?’

She shook her head. ‘Pathologist. Dr Stuart Ritchie. Actually, he could even be Professor Ritchie now.’

Brickall calculated on his fingers. ‘So if it was… about seventeen years ago, why the need to avoid him? Water under the bridge. You’ve moved on, and presumably so has he.’

Rachel flushed slightly. ‘Because… I didn’t behave very well.’

‘Go on.’

‘I was very unhappy. I suppose I was still pretty immature, and I couldn’t cope with being married. So one day, without saying anything, I went home, packed up all my stuff and ran away. Disappeared. This was before social media and online footprints, so he had no idea where I was.’

Brickall squinted at her as he drank his wine. ‘What a little cow! But surely, after the dust had settled, he’d have been able to track you down. Clearly he has, finally.’

Rachel sighed. ‘That’s what I’m afraid of. I really hurt him.’ She looked at her fingernails ‘Badly. He was distraught, I know for a fact he was, because he went to my family: pleaded with them to intervene on his behalf. But I forbade them to tell him where I was. It caused a lot of bad feeling… particularly with my sister, Lindsay…’ Rachel sighed again. Bad feeling between Lindsay and herself had become the norm. ‘But they did what I asked and kept silent. I hid from him for so long that eventually he gave up. And I pretended it had never happened.’

‘But you’re a big girl now, Prince. Time to come clean. Well…’ He shovelled in more crisps. ‘Arguably that time has been and gone.’

She sighed. ‘I’d buried it. All of that period in my life. And I don’t want to rake over it now.’

Brickall was grinning. ‘Whoever would have thought the cool, always-in-control DI Prince could do something so deviant?’

‘And you’re the only one I’ve ever talked to about it, so for Christ’s sake keep it zipped.’ Rachel helped herself to more wine, then stuck her right leg up on the coffee table. ‘How are things going with the lady barrister?’

He pulled a face. ‘I asked her out, but she wasn’t too keen. Said maybe coffee some time, blah, blah… usual kiss-off.’

‘But she’d given you her number when you were on the trial together?’

Brickall shook his head. ‘Not exactly. In fact, since we’re having a confessional session, I’ve got one to make.’

‘Go on.’

‘I used our access to DVLA records to check where she lives. Then I contrived to bump into her on her street.’

Rachel froze, slopping her wine. ‘Mark! You know how risky that is.’ Using a police database to access someone’s information for personal reasons was a disciplinary offence.

He shrugged. ‘No one’s ever going to find out. And I know I can trust you, just like you can trust me: Mrs Ritchie.’

‘I’m not Mrs Ritchie; never was. I’ve only ever called myself Rachel Prince.’

He paused with his head tipped back to swallow another fistful of crisps. ‘Let’s face it: you’re just not wife material.’