She had success on her second try. A sweet-faced little white-haired woman answered the door and blinked up at her.

“Excuse me,” said Gemma, “but do you know where I could find Mrs. Blakely?”

The woman stared at her so blankly that Gemma wondered if she might be deaf, or senile, but at last the woman said, “Oh, is it Agnes Bletchley you’re wanting? That’ll be next door, and good luck to you.” She slammed the door before Gemma could reply.

After that reception, Gemma tried the cottage next door with some trepidation. She could hear the television blaring even through the closed door, so she knew someone was at home. She knocked, waited, then knocked again more loudly.

She’d raised her fist to try once more when a voice shouted from inside. “Just hold your damned horses, will you?” The door swung open and a woman leaning on a stick scowled out at her. “What do you want?”

“Mrs. Bletchley?”

“What’s it to you?” She was tall and angular, with short hair dyed a lifeless brown, and a long face scored with hatchet lines of perpetual discontent.

Gemma showed her warrant card. “I’d like to talk to you about Harriet Novak.”

“What’s the little brat done? Robbed a bank?” Mrs. Bletchley snickered at her own humor, then added ungraciously, “I suppose you’d better come in, then.” She turned away, leaving Gemma to follow her into a dark little sitting room dominated by the still-blaring television. The remainder of the room was stuffed with a three-piece suite covered in a flowered moquette fabric. The furniture clashed horribly with the threadbare carpet, and the acrid smell of cat urine made Gemma flinch. What on earth had Laura Novak been thinking to leave her child here? she wondered in horror.

“Mrs. Bletchley,” she said, trying to pitch her voice above the noise of the telly, “can you tell me when you last saw Harriet?”

The woman lowered herself onto the settee but didn’t invite Gemma to join her – not that Gemma was at all eager to sit on the furniture, but standing made it difficult for her to look Mrs. Bletchley in the eye.

A yellow cat as bony and angular as its mistress slunk in from the kitchen, stared balefully at Gemma, then began washing its paw.

“When did you last see Harriet?” Gemma repeated, shifting her position until she was blocking the woman’s view of the television.

With a grimace of irritation, Mrs. Bletchley lifted the remote and muted the telly. “No need to shout. Bloody nuisance, that child. Always complaining about this and that. Missy doesn’t want fish fingers for her supper, she wants beef burgers. Missy doesn’t want cornflakes for her breakfast, she wants frozen waffles. Does she think I can afford those on my pension?”

Her patience rapidly deteriorating, Gemma said, “Mrs. Bletchley-”

“If you want to know when I saw her last, she was getting into that car.”

Gemma’s heart seemed to dive into her stomach. “What car? When was this?” She sat down in spite of herself and leaned closer to the old woman.

“Well, it was on the Friday morning, when else would it have been? I’d come out with the cats, after she left for school. I could see her across the yard, hanging about by the school gate. Then a car pulled up and she got in.”

“Are you saying that Harriet stayed with you on Thursday night?” asked Gemma, trying to find a solid point of reference.

“What else would I mean? Her mother had to work, rang me at the last minute. Bloody inconvenient, wasn’t it, as I had nothing to suit little Missy’s taste. In my day-”

“Mrs. Bletchley, did you see Laura Novak on Thursday night?”

“She didn’t stop except to pay me. Cash, I always ask for, so as not to have to bother with the bank.”

“What time was this?”

“Nearly ten, it must have been. The news was coming on as she left. At least I didn’t have to feed the child supper.”

“Did Laura say anything to you about going away?”

Mrs. Bletchley looked at her as if she were daft. “I told you she didn’t stop. In and out, always in a hurry, that woman.”

Gemma was beginning to feel desperate. “Did Harriet say anything about going away?”

“What’s all this about going away? Why should she talk to me about going away?”

“Mrs. Bletchley, Harriet and her mother appear to be missing. Can you tell me about the car you saw Harriet getting into?”

The woman shrugged. “It was dark. Newish. Blue, maybe, or green.” She frowned and the hatchet lines deepened. “I think it was green.”

“Dark green?” Gemma’s heart plunged a little further as she took in the implications.

“Are you deaf?”

“I’m sorry. I just need to make sure. Could it have been a Volvo?”

Rolling her eyes, Mrs. Bletchley didn’t deign to answer.

“Did you see the number plate?” tried Gemma.

“Do I look like I could see the number plate across that yard?”

“Okay.” Gemma took a breath. “Could it have been Harriet’s father who picked her up?”

Mrs. Bletchley glared at her with undisguised dislike. “How would I know? Never seen the man, have I? And the windows were dark. She got in from the school-yard side, so I never saw inside the car at all.”

Gemma realized then that she’d insisted on pursuing this case partly out of concern for Harriet Novak, but partly in hopes that a positive resolution would ease her conscience over the child she’d failed to find. Now she felt as if she were caught in a repeating nightmare. “Mrs. Bletchley,” she said, and it seemed to her that the words were weighted with lead, “I’m going to need a description of the clothes Harriet was wearing on Friday morning.”

Kincaid found Doug Cullen leaning against the watercooler outside their temporary incident room in Borough High Street Station, grasping a paper cup as if his life depended on it. Cullen looked pale, and behind his spectacles, his eyes were puffy and red-rimmed.

“Whoa, mate,” Kincaid said, grinning. “Night on the tiles?”

“I wish.” Cullen straightened up, draining his cup and tossing it accurately into the waste bin. “Clubbing, yes. Fun, no. I got the names of some spots where Chloe Yarwood hangs out from Tia Foster. Thought I might find the boyfriend. This Trevelyan bloke’s got no phone number listed, and no driver’s license.”

Kincaid would have been more impressed with his sergeant’s sacrifice of his evening if he hadn’t suspected Cullen of wanting an excuse to ring Tia Foster again. “No luck, I take it?”

“No. And I wish they’d make bloody smoking illegal,” Cullen added, rubbing at one eye, just as Maura Bell came up to them.

“So who died and made you king?” she asked, giving him a defensive glare. She’d livened up her black suit that morning with a deep pink sweater, and her hair looked freshly washed. Kincaid wondered if the effort had been made for Cullen’s benefit, and if Cullen had failed to notice.

“I did find out something, though,” Cullen continued, ignoring the barb. “A bloke at one of the West End clubs recognized Nigel Trevelyan. Said the guy’s a real sponger, always coming up with schemes to separate people from their money.”

“Including Chloe Yarwood? Or Chloe Yarwood’s father?” Kincaid suggested. “That could prove interesting, if it’s true. Maybe he convinced her that her dad needed to collect the insurance on his warehouse.”

“Then they torched the place together?” said Cullen, looking brighter.

“Aren’t you overlooking a few things?” asked Bell acidly. “How does that account for the body, unless Trevelyan killed Chloe and left her there, and in that case how would he gain from Yarwood’s insurance settlement?”

Cullen absently rubbed at his eye again, knocking his glasses askew. “What if Chloe came up with the idea herself? Maybe she needed money, and she thought that if Dad had a sudden cash infusion, he’d help her out. And it backfired on her.”

The comment brought Kincaid a sudden clear vision of the charred body, and of Chloe Yarwood’s young face in the photo he’d found in her bathroom.