Jackson really didn’t like trains.

He had eaten breakfast at home. Barry hadn’t done that for a while, usually downed a quick cup of coffee and left for Millgarth. Barbara used to fret when he did that, you need a breakfast inside you, everyone knows it’s the most important meal, yackety-yak. Not any more.

‘I fancy bacon and eggs,’ he said.

When she set it down in front of him he said, ‘Aren’t you going to have any?’ and she said, ‘Not hungry,’ but she sat opposite him and had her usual breakfast of Valium and tea. She was dressed in a smart two-piece, her hair teased and backcombed.

‘Thanks, love,’ he said when he’d wiped the plate clean with a piece of bread. He stood up and drained his coffee down and then said, ‘Well, I’ll be off then.’

‘He gets out today,’ she said in an emotionless voice.

‘I know,’ he said. He attempted to kiss Barbara goodbye, something else he hadn’t done for a long time, but she successfully feinted the move and instead he ended up patting her on the shoulder. ‘Bye then,’ he said.

It was two years since Barbara had invited Amy and Ivan to dinner, spent all day making complicated Delia recipes and then Barry had spent all evening telling Ivan what a waster he was. He was losing his business, going to be declared a bankrupt, the man who had promised to protect and support his daughter.

‘Barry? How’s it going?’ he said when Barry opened the front door to them. He hated the way Ivan called him ‘Barry’, as if they were mates down the pub, as if they were equals. ‘You can’t expect him to call you Mr Crawford,’ Barbara said. ‘He’s your son-in-law, for heaven’s sake.’ In fact, Barry thought, he would have preferred it if Ivan called him Superintendent.

‘A little aperitif?’ Barbara said when she’d taken their coats and they’d parked Sam in the cot upstairs. Barbara had bought duplicates of everything – cot, car seat, high chair, buggy – for their own house, imagining a lifetime of babysitting.

‘Lovely, Barbara,’ Ivan said, rubbing his hands, ‘I’ll have a white wine.’ Barry knew he made him nervous but he didn’t care. Before Barbara had even got as far as taking the Chardonnay out of the fridge Barry had started muttering sarcastic comments under his breath. ‘Dad. Don’t,’ Amy said, touching his arm.

Ivan looked apprehensively at Amy over Delia’s chocolate ricotta cheesecake. He had the look of a man about to jump off a cliff. Cleared his throat, said, ‘We were wondering, Barry – Amy and I – about a loan, ten thousand pounds, to help get us back on our feet?’

Barry wanted to belt him one right there at the table. ‘I’ve worked hard all my life,’ he said, all patriarchal bluster, ‘and you want me to hand over my money to you because you’re a useless tosser. Why not just cut out the middle man and piss it straight down the drain?’

Amy jumping up from the table, ‘I’m not staying to hear my husband insulted, Dad,’ running up the stairs to get Sam out of his cot.

Before Barry knew it she was outside, strapping his grandson into his car seat. ‘Honestly, Dad, sometimes you are such a shit.’

Barbara standing on the doorstep, face set in concrete, staring after the car. ‘He’s over the limit,’ she said. ‘He shouldn’t be behind the wheel of a car. This is all your fault, Barry. As usual.’

He would have given his daughter anything and he had baulked at a measly ten-thousand-quid loan. He could have said yes, they could have opened a bottle of something fizzy to celebrate and eaten the chocolate ricotta cheesecake. Barbara could have said, ‘Oh, you can’t drive like that, the beds are all made up, you’d better stay over,’ and Barry could have gone upstairs and kissed his sleeping grandson goodnight. Didn’t happen like that, did it?

When he walked into Millgarth he nearly fell over Chloe Pallister, as agitated as a disturbed anthill. ‘My mum’s gone missing,’ she said.

‘Missing?’ Barry said.

‘Since Wednesday night. I went round to her house, no sign of her, she hasn’t been into work, no one’s seen her.’

Barry remembered how Amy had tossed her bouquet, aimed it directly at her best friend, but Chloe managed to fall over her own orange-satin feet and a more competitive girl caught the flowers.

‘Did you notice if anything was missing?’ he asked.

‘Her passport.’

‘Her passport,’ he said. ‘Well, if her passport’s missing she’s most likely run away.’

‘Run away? My mother?’

It did sound unlikely, Linda wasn’t the kind to run away, still he persisted with this easy explanation. ‘Given up this crap life and gone to live on a beach in Greece,’ he said. ‘At this moment she’s probably sitting in a taverna somewhere, making eyes at a waiter, hoping for a bit of Shirley Valentine.’

‘Not my mum,’ Chloe said stoutly.

‘Well, we can all surprise ourselves sometimes, pet,’ he said. His head felt woolly. Didn’t have the energy for this. Had things to do. Take no prisoners, leave no bodies. Led Chloe Pallister into an interview room and said someone would come and take a statement. Left her there and forgot to tell anyone.

Gemma Holroyd put her head round the door to his office and said, ‘Fyi, boss, the lab matched the DNA at Kelly Cross’s murder scene to what they found on the Mabgate whore.’ Fyi, Barry thought, how he hated words like that. Not even a word. ‘What about this third one?’ he asked. ‘The Cottage Road Cinema one.’

‘Results aren’t back yet.’

He went to his office, sat at his desk, turned his computer on and began to write his last testament.

Just dotting the i’s and crossing the t’s when there was a knock on the door. It opened before he had time to say, ‘Come in.’

‘You,’ Barry said. ‘I’d like to know what your game is. What do you want exactly?’

‘The truth?’ Jackson Brodie said.

‘Superintendent. Come in.’

Harry Reynolds held the door open, a tea towel in his hand, the picture of contented domesticity.

The greenhouse heat of his house hit you as you walked through the door. And the aroma of coffee, overlaid by the smell of apples and sugar. ‘Making an apple pie for Sunday lunch tomorrow,’ Harry Reynolds said. ‘What happened to your face?’ he asked Tracy.

‘Got into a fight with an airbag.’

Glancing down at Courtney, a tattered and torn fairy, he said, ‘Hello, poppet, you look a bit the worse for wear as well. Magic not working too well? Your “mummy” will have to buy you a new wand, won’t you, Mummy?’ he said, raising a sarcastic eyebrow at Tracy. Then in a different tone of voice he said to her, ‘You can’t travel looking the way you do, “hedge” and “backwards” come to mind. You and the ugly duckling need some decent clothes. You don’t want to attract attention.’ She could imagine, only too easily, what it would be like to get on the wrong side of Harry Reynolds. Frightening. Tracy was way beyond being frightened.

Ugly duckling, how dare he. Should have decked him, right there in his overstuffed, overheated living room. Stuck him in his expensive koi pond, let Harry Reynolds swim with the fishes. Instead she said, ‘Yeah, thanks for the advice, Harry. Unfortunately I had to leave my Louis Vuitton luggage behind and all my Gucci gowns were in it.’

‘Are you in trouble, Superintendent? More than before? If that’s humanly possible. I don’t want trouble at my door, make sure you keep it away from me.’

‘Is that a threat?’

‘Just friendly advice.’ He looked at the ugly sunburst clock on the wall and said, ‘Susan’ll be here soon with Brett and Ashley. They’re popping in on their way to Alton Towers.’ Stated as a fact, meant as a warning. No offer of scones this time. Strictly business. ‘And I’ve got a funeral to go to,’ he added.

He took a large, stout manila envelope from his sixties G Plan sideboard. ‘Everything’s here. New passports, birth certificates. An address in Ilkley – no point in pretending you’re not from Yorkshire, open your mouth and you’ll betray yourself – utility bills to that address, you’ll be able to set up a new bank account wherever it is you’re going. France is it? You should go somewhere that doesn’t extradite. New national insurance number as well, and as a little extra, you’ve got a profile on Facebook and you’ll be pleased to hear that you have seventeen friends already. Welcome to the brave new world, Imogen Brown.’