Jessica winced at the use of the word ‘Ms’. She hated it and had long figured you were either a ‘Miss’ or a ‘Mrs’. Or an idiot. She wondered if he had said it to deliberately annoy her.

‘It’s Sergeant Daniel,’ Jessica replied. She hardly ever asked anyone to use her title but the man’s directness had annoyed her.

‘Why are you visiting Anthony Thompson, Sergeant Daniel?’ he asked.

‘Detective Sergeant Daniel.’

Jessica could hear the click of one of the cameras behind her as she locked eyes with Sebastian. She was annoyed with herself for noticing how attractive he was. He had long dark eyelashes, his eyes an intoxicating mix of brown and black. His high cheekbones and blemish-free skin only added to the impression with his short dark brown hair stylishly pointed to one side. He stared back, expecting an answer. ‘Detective Sergeant Daniel,’ he added sarcastically.

‘None of your business,’ Jessica replied loud enough for the small crowd of photographers to hear. She motioned to stride past Sebastian but, before completely passing him, she stepped close enough so she could hiss in his ear. ‘Stop stirring this up.’

Before he could react, Jessica strolled past him towards her car, forcing herself not to turn around to see if his suit fitted him as well at the back as it did in the front.

5

Blending in was something Andrew Hunter had always felt able to do. Some people turned heads when they walked into a room, their natural charisma drawing people towards them. Others would attract attention for negative reasons, exuding a lack of confidence as strongly as somebody else might exert natural magnetism. Andrew knew he fell almost exactly in the middle of those two extremes. He first realised it at school when he was eleven. His form tutor, who had been his teacher for eighteen months, couldn’t remember his name one morning. She had asked a question and, when Andrew had raised his arm, the teacher pointed at him. She stuttered and, as her face turned to confusion, the woman reached across her desk and checked the register book. Eventually she looked up and said, ‘Yes, Andrew’. Some students didn’t understand what had happened but Andrew did. She had simply forgotten who he was.

Keira was the first person who saw him in a different way. For whatever reason, she saw something in him most others didn’t.

Andrew was thinking of his ex-wife as he leant back into the chair and tried to avoid touching the armrest, which he had discovered rather disgustedly had a distinctly sticky coating. He glanced sideways towards where Sienna Todd was staring at her mobile phone and chatting to her friend, seemingly oblivious to the film playing on the cinema screen in front of them.

If Andrew had any interest in the movie, he might have been annoyed by the distraction but he was more interested in keeping an eye on Sienna. He had followed her unnoticed from the college she attended to her friend’s house, then to the more-or-less empty cinema for an early-evening screening. The first thing that struck him about the young woman was how striking she was – although how much of it was natural he didn’t know. She had long bright blonde hair and a glow to her skin that most likely came from either a sunbed or a bottle. Despite that, she possessed that invisible attraction that didn’t just come from her looks. If anything, her friend was the more physically eye-catching of the two with her tighter clothing and loosely tied black hair – but Andrew would have felt more drawn to Sienna even if he wasn’t being paid to find out who the father of her aborted baby was. Despite being just eighteen, there was something about her that seemed older. He figured it could come from the growing up she had to do after discovering her pregnancy and the subsequent termination. Either way, there was something alluring about her that went far beyond her looks.

Sienna started giggling as she held the phone up for her friend to see. Even through the darkness, Andrew could tell there was something about the laugh that was forced. Someone towards the back shushed loudly but the young women didn’t seem to notice as Sienna dropped it into the large bag she had been carrying all afternoon.

Andrew glanced towards the screen where something apparently funny was happening. A man towards the rear of the cinema, possibly the person who had made the shush noise, was laughing hysterically to himself as the character on screen said something that Andrew didn’t think could have amused anyone.

The investigator was across the aisle, five rows behind the two women. He switched his eyeline back towards the pair, who were leaning in close whispering to each other. Because of the way the screen flickered, it was hard to tell exactly what was happening but what seemed like light-hearted chatter moments before now appeared to be becoming a little heated. Their whispers grew in volume until Sienna uttered a perfectly clear and taut, ‘Right, well, fuck off then’, only to be shushed by the person at the back again.

Sienna stood and, for a moment, Andrew thought she was going to storm down the aisle out of the room. That would leave him in an awkward position considering how tough it would be to follow her without being obvious. As he held his breath, Andrew watched the young woman straighten her loose-fitting tracksuit bottoms, and then sit down again. He realised that not only had she been talking into the phone rather than to her friend, but also that he had been oblivious to her taking it back out of her bag in the first place.

Focusing back on the women instead of the film, or the laughing buffoon at the back, Andrew watched them lean in and begin whispering – this time definitely to each other. The friend put an arm around Sienna’s shoulders and pulled her closer, seemingly consoling her about whatever had been said on the phone.

Apart from Andrew wondering if the man at the back might have some sort of medical condition that made him laugh at incredibly unfunny situations, the final hour of the film passed without incident. As soon as the credits began to scroll and the lights came up, Andrew heard shuffling at the back and turned to see a massively overweight man in a blue uniform bounding down the aisle with a dustpan and brush. The middle-aged laughing man from the back was brushing a mass of uneaten popcorn from his jumper and trousers. In a snap judgement Andrew decided he probably worked in insurance and had a wife and two kids. He didn’t know why those things seemed true – or why that might equate to the type of enjoyment he had apparently taken from a bad movie. Either way, Andrew followed him out before stopping to one side and untying his laces.

As he crouched on the floor slowly retying them, Andrew watched Sienna and her friend walk past, both talking on their respective mobile phones. He waited until they had reached the corner that led back to the foyer and then stood, walking briskly in the direction they had gone in. Sienna’s powder-blue tracksuit was hard to miss and her friend’s skirt was so short, the two of them were attracting looks from both males and females as Andrew followed around thirty metres behind them. They walked through the heavy front doors, before stopping to talk to each other. Andrew had little choice than to carry on past them but he took his phone out of his pocket and held it to his ear, speaking to a non-existent person as he passed.

As well as his interest and degree in criminology, Andrew felt it was his ability to blend into his surroundings that made him a good private investigator when he was doing something that motivated him. He wasn’t bothered who the father of Sienna’s aborted child was – but he was engrossed enough in her father’s story to take the man’s money and trail his daughter.