Gina stepped out of the car, closely followed by Jacob. As the cold air hit his throat, he began to cough. She passed him a pack of lozenges. ‘Thanks,’ he said, as they reached the door and Gina pressed the buzzer. The grey industrial unit stood at the top end of the estate. It was surrounded by leafless trees that were crowned by the heavy grey winter sky.

A crow squawked as it landed on a branch. ‘They’re taking their time to answer,’ Gina said as she checked her watch and rubbed her cold arms. As she pressed the buzzer again a woman opened the door. ‘DI Harte,’ Gina said, holding up her identification. ‘We called earlier.’

‘Please come in. I’m Lynne Hastings, we spoke on the phone.’

Gina had originally interviewed Lynne when Debbie had disappeared. The woman was now hobbling along and looking frailer than expected, considering she was only in her mid-forties.

‘You’ll have to excuse me; osteoporosis is a destructive condition. Some days good, some days not so good. Today, not so good – but less about my problems. You’ve come about Debbie, is that correct?’

‘Yes.’ The two detectives followed the woman past the workshop, up some metal stairs and along a mezzanine. The main office of Avant Conservatories was in front of them. Lynne opened the door to the left and led them into a small boardroom. The tired furniture filled the middle of the room. A picture of one of the conservatories they made had been left at a wonky angle. Gina felt her fingers twitching as her desire to realign the picture built up. Jacob pulled a tissue out of his pocket and blew his nose.

‘I’m glad. Debbie’s disappearance has haunted us all. We talk about her often.’ The woman grabbed a walking stick that was leaning against the wall and used it as she headed to the door. ‘Can I get you a drink?’

Jacob shook his head. ‘Coffee, please,’ Gina replied.

‘How do you want to do this? Shall I gather up the staff you previously interviewed and bring them all in or do you want them in turn?’ Lynne asked.

Gina opened her file. ‘I’d like to speak to a couple of them separately. Are they all still here?’

Lynne pulled open the door to the main office and the corridor and boardroom were momentarily filled with the hum of ringing phones and people talking. ‘Ah, Gabby, can you please get DI Harte a coffee?’ Gina remembered speaking to Gabby before. Deborah had worked with her in the office, handling the administration.

‘Will do,’ the woman replied as she walked away.

Lynne hobbled back towards them and sat at the head of the conference table. Gina and Jacob took out their notebooks and pens.

‘We are currently going over statements made in relation to the disappearance of Deborah Jenkins on the twentieth of December 2013. The last people to see her were her work colleagues.’ Gina glanced at her notes. ‘She’d been working late, making up time as she’d watched her children’s school play earlier that day—’

‘We told her she didn’t need to make the time up,’ Lynne said. Gina remained silent, listening for what was to come next. ‘I’ve lived with this for a long time. If only I’d been more insistent that she went home, but Debbie was headstrong. She always paid her dues, as she described it. She wasn’t one for having something for nothing, which is why she insisted on making up the time. We left her on her own. Not one of us wanted to stay that night. If I could change things, I’d stay, maybe even drive her home. I can’t believe—’

‘Mrs Hastings, it’s not your fault. Can you remember anything else about that day, any small thing?’ Gina asked.

Lynne stared at the table before shaking her head. ‘From what I remember, it was just a typical day. Production was going at its regular pace for the time of year. There were no absences. I think we told you all that at the time. No one looked out of place or troubled. I’ve wracked my brain since, trying to make sense of it. Keeping an eye on things in case anything or anyone seems out of place, but nothing stands out at all.’ Lynne began rubbing her wrist as she looked up.

‘Thank you, Mrs Hastings. Can we just ask about your current staff? Has anyone left since?’

The woman glanced aside and looked back as she recalled the information. ‘Oliver Stain in production sadly passed away six months after Debbie’s disappearance. Leukaemia.’

‘I’m sorry to hear that,’ Gina said.

‘It was a sad time for all of us here. What with Debbie too. In production, we still have Callum Nelson and Lukas Bosko. As you can appreciate, many have come and gone, but I think the rest were eliminated from your enquiries at the time.’

Gina glanced at her notes. The rest of the production team had alibis for the evening in question. One had stopped at a petrol station, a group of four had gone to the pub together straight after work and the others had arrived home on time, long before Deborah had left. The time of her leaving had been confirmed by the setting of the company security alarm and the CCTV that showed her walking away, across the car park and down the path. Lukas had been picked up by his girlfriend and she’d provided his alibi. He’d been home by five thirty and had been Skyping his mother in Poland at the time Deborah left work. She’d placed a question mark next to Callum’s name. ‘Can we speak to Callum Nelson first?’

‘Of course.’ Lynne lifted the receiver on the phone and pressed a single number. She requested that they send Callum up. ‘He’s on his way.’

‘Could we ask you to leave while we speak to Mr Nelson?’ Jacob asked.

‘Is he in trouble?’ Lynne asked as she stood.

‘We just need to speak to him,’ Jacob said, giving her a reassuring smile. The woman seemed more at ease and returned his smile as she left the room.

Jacob grabbed another tissue out of his pocket and proceeded to hack up phlegm. He pulled out a lozenge from his pocket and popped it into his mouth. ‘Nice one Gov. I wish you’d be more like O’Connor and share some cake instead of your diseased bacteria.’ Gina smirked as Gabby entered with a coffee. She worked in accounts administration; Gina had interviewed her the first time around.

‘I’ll just pop it here,’ Gabby said as she placed the chipped and stained mug in front of Gina and hurried out of the room.

‘I think I’m about to be infused with more dodgy bacteria from this cup,’ she said as she reluctantly took a sip. ‘Good coffee though.’

The door knocked again. Callum entered and sat opposite the two detectives. ‘I never did anything, you can’t still be trying to pin this on me,’ he said as he stared at Jacob.

‘We were never trying to pin anything on you, Mr Nelson, just trying to get to the truth of what happened to your colleague and friend Deborah Jenkins,’ Jacob replied as he sucked on the sweet. The scent of cherry menthol filled the air.

‘Sorry. Most people who know me know I’d never harm anyone. I mean, I can’t even run a spider down the plughole.’ He rubbed his stubbly chin and looked away.

Gina leaned forward. ‘Mr Nelson, can you please go over what happened on the day of Deborah’s disappearance? I know we have your statement, and it was a long time ago, but I want you to think back. Did anything stand out to you? Please tell us again about when you left.’

The man leaned back in the chair and ran his fingers through his greasy hair. ‘I’ve already told you everything. Do you think I can remember like it was yesterday? It was years ago. You have my statement.’

‘Please try, Mr Nelson,’ Gina said.

The man looked up at her and dropped his shoulders. ‘It was a really miserable night, that much I remember. I got soaked. Debbie was working away in the main office when I left. I poked my head through the door and said bye. I left and that was it.’

‘You say you left on foot,’ Jacob said.

‘I always walk home. I don’t live too far away. Takes fifteen minutes. In the summer I cycle. You haven’t pulled me in here to check out my damn travel habits, have you?’

‘Calm down, Mr Nelson,’ Gina said. ‘We are doing this for your colleague, Deborah. Anything you can tell us may help.’

‘Have you found something? Please tell me you’re going to find her?’

Gina looked at the man. His finger-tapping, the show of anger and the look of despair in his every feature all led her to believe that Callum had a thing for Deborah. It was an angle she was going to press.

‘Did you and Mrs Jenkins have a personal relationship?’

‘No. I already told you that at the time.’

‘I know what you told me at the time. Look at me.’

Callum lifted his head and looked over, his gaze darting from hers to Jacob’s.

‘Did you and Deborah Jenkins have a personal relationship of any kind?’

‘No, I mean, it’s nothing.’

‘Let me decide that.’ Jacob sat poised to write as the man began to speak.

‘Bloody hell. You lot just won’t leave me alone. I haven’t done anything wrong. Look, I know she was a lot older than me but I had a thing for her. It was just a crush, that was all. She knew, but it was light-hearted. I didn’t say anything because I knew you’d think it was me. She was married and I didn’t try to make a play for her. I just liked her, that’s all. Look, I’m married now,’ he said as he pointed to his wedding ring. ‘I love my wife and I don’t want this brought up. Besides, not a thing happened, nothing, zilch. I left her that night. I walked down the path outside the building, in the dark. You saw me leave on the CCTV footage. That was the last I ever saw or heard of Deborah.’

Gina scribbled a few notes in her pad. ‘Did you see anyone when you left?’

‘A couple of cars passed, as I told you at the time. There was a van but I can’t really remember the type. It was a small van – white, I think – but it passed quickly. I don’t remember any more and I’m not even sure about the van. There was no one on foot, just me. It was raining, I had my hood up and I couldn’t even hear much. I practically jogged home.’

‘You never mentioned a van back then.’

‘I forgot. Vans come up and down every day around here. I didn’t think it was important.’

‘What’s important is for me to decide, Mr Nelson. It may have been just a van, but it was just a van on the night that mother-of-two Deborah Jenkins disappeared. You withheld information that may have helped the case.’

‘I didn’t know and I can’t really remember. Maybe I didn’t see a van. I don’t know anymore. Can I go now?’ Callum ran his fingers through his hair again.

‘Have you ever been in the Angel Arms in Cleevesford?’

‘No. Well, only once. I got pissed there when I turned eighteen. Puked beside the bar. I was too embarrassed to ever go back. Why do you want to know?’

‘Do you know the landlord or any of the staff?’

The man stared at them. ‘No.’

‘Do you have a dog?’

‘A dog? No.’

‘Thank you, Mr Nelson. I’ll get someone at the station to contact you to make an official statement later. We need to update our information relating to your relationship with Mrs Jenkins and the van. That will be all. You can go for now.’ Callum stood and slammed the door as he left.

‘I think we touched a nerve there,’ Jacob said. ‘Do you think he knows more?’

‘He has no alibi, but we came up with nothing at the time after searching his flat and checking his phone records. Not a thing. The only thing we have is that Callum, twenty-two at the time, had a bit of a crush on Deborah. I’ll get Wyre to give him a grilling though. If he does know more, we’ll press it out of him and get him on tape.’

‘Why didn’t he mention his crush back then?’ Jacob asked.

‘That’s a question to consider.’ Gina ringed Callum’s name on her pad. She also noted down the words ‘small white van’.

Jacob turned a page in his notepad. ‘Do we really need to speak to Toby Grove, Clive Henderson or Vernon McGuire?’

‘No. I’ll instruct Wyre and O’Connor to call them in just to make sure we’ve covered all angles. They can speak to them after dealing with Nelson. We looked into their whereabouts thoroughly four years ago. They were all in the pub with the other workshop staff. But we need to know if any of them know Avery. And I suppose we should talk to Gabby Dent; she was Debbie’s closest friend at work. We may be able to delve a little deeper, see what she knows about this so-called crush that Callum Nelson had on our missing person.’

Lynne knocked and entered. ‘Are you finished here?’ she asked.

‘Almost. Can we just speak to Ms Dent and we’ll be off?’

‘I’ll send her through.’

A moment passed and there was a tap on the door. ‘Come in,’ Gina called. The tall, dark-haired woman sat in the seat that Callum had left sticking out. Her hunched posture told Gina that she wasn’t confident in wearing her height.

‘Have you got any news? Is that why you’re here?’

Gina flipped to a fresh page in her notebook. Jacob crunched down on a lozenge, breaking the silence. ‘Due to new evidence, we’re just going over statements to see if we can shed any new light on the case.’

‘I’m glad you haven’t given up on her. I’ve always said I think she’s still alive. Everyone here says she’s probably dead, killed by some psycho, but I don’t know. You guys have never found a body.’

‘You were good friends with Deborah. Did she tell you of anything in confidence that may have bothered her?’

‘What like?’

‘Relationships, good and bad, maybe,’ Gina replied.

‘She told me lots of things. We spoke every lunch break. We spoke between jobs and we occasionally spoke on the phone after work.’

‘Did she ever mention Callum Nelson?’

‘I know she thought it was funny and sweet that Callum had a crush on her. I suppose that was one of the personal things she told me. It was obvious to us all though. He looked at her with puppy dog eyes and took more than his fair share of turns to make the coffee, but he meant no harm. I know you guys ransacked his flat at the time but he hasn’t got it in him. He’s a sweet boy, he really is and he was devastated when Debbie disappeared.’

Gina made a note. It would be easy to investigate Callum again and look deeper into his affairs, but he wasn’t coming to the forefront of her mind as the person that could’ve snatched Deborah. The old case notes flashed through her mind. Maybe Nelson had lured her to his home, but why was her shoe left in the road, not far from where she worked? Would Deborah walk a further ten minutes in the rain, wearing only one shoe, to go to Callum’s flat? Callum had no transport, and she was sure Deborah had been taken in a motor vehicle. Could Avery have sourced a van for Nelson to use? She noted that question on her pad.

‘Was there anything else on her mind?’ Jacob asked.

‘I did tell you guys at the time. That bloody Avery bloke at the pub she played pool at, he attacked her. I’ve never seen her so jumpy at work. She was worried that Luke wouldn’t believe her and that Samuel would spin what had happened and say that Debbie was sleeping with him and coming on to him. Vile man, he was. I wouldn’t be surprised if that tosser had something to do with all this. He sexually assaulted her, you know.’

Despite being at the airport, Samuel Avery certainly was cropping up everywhere in this case. Gina realised she’d been so tense at the mention of Avery’s name, she’d made a hole in the paper with her pen.

---

‘Was the visit really worth it?’ Jacob asked.

‘We need to get back and find out where we are with all this. I didn’t expect to dredge up much that would be of any use, but that damn Samuel Avery keeps cropping up like a dose of herpes,’ she said as they both got back in the car. Hailstones began to fall, bouncing off the roof and bonnet of the car. A message came through on her phone. It was Wyre, telling her that Luke Jenkins’ DNA results were back.

She opened the email, read it and gave her a call. ‘We’re just leaving Deborah’s workplace,’ she said. ‘Can you call Callum Nelson in and interview him again? We’ve just confirmed he had a crush on our Deborah Jenkins. He also thinks he recalls seeing a white van on the night of her disappearance. While you’re at it, call in Toby Grove, Clive Henderson, Lukas Bosko and Vernon McGuire. I just want you to go over their stories. I didn’t want to disrupt the company any further during working hours… Thanks. See you in a short while.’

Jacob shivered. ‘I feel dog rough.’ Gina put the car into first and drove out of the car park.