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Gary could have been a tie, perhaps. Although he had lied to her.

But he could do one more thing for her. She tapped out a quick text to him:
Sorry I rushed off. Going to meet Daniel from CupidsWeb. Got a lead on Becky. Tell no one. But if you haven’t heard from me again by
… She hesitated. How much time should she allow?
…
6 p.m., then call the police.
After thinking about it for a second, she forwarded the message from Daniel too. Then she had another idea. She sent him a second text with her iCloud login, which would give him access to her Find My iPhone app, which was provided by Apple to make it easy to find a lost or stolen iPhone. All you had to do was log in to your Apple iCloud account and you were shown a map that pinpointed the exact location of your iPhone. She’d had to use it once before when she’d lost her phone, and had been able to locate it at a café she’d been in an hour earlier.

For a moment, she considered calling the police, but Daniel’s message expressly forbade it. It wasn’t worth the risk.

The train pulled into Richmond Station and Amy checked the map on her phone to see which way she needed to walk to get to the car park behind the college.

The time was 12.47.

Walking across the zebra crossing outside the station, it all felt like a dream to Amy, as if the past week had stretched out into at least a year, people and events moving in and out of focus as if underwater. The only person in sharp focus now was Becky. Amy kept her mind’s eye firmly fixed on her.

Her legs began to shake as she could see the car park ahead, but she made sure she walked with just as much purpose. It took a few moments to find the bit of it that backed onto the college – it was round a corner and in a quieter annexe of the car park. She looked around her, but all the stationary cars were empty and silent. There was nobody around. She sat down on a verge, her heart pounding like a jackhammer in her chest. It was 12.54. Gary hadn’t replied to her messages yet. She felt sick. If she’d been the praying type, she would have prayed.

At 12.59 a black Range Rover with tinted windows drove slowly into the car park. Amy stood up uncertainly, and gritted her teeth to stop the fear showing on her face.
Think of Becky
, she repeated to herself. She wondered if Daniel would look like his CupidsWeb photographs and she thought again that it was a bit suspicious that he had only had ‘private’ photos on the site. She had seen them when she logged in as Becky, but not when she first contacted him under her own made-up name, which meant that he had given Becky specific permission to view them. It was a classic ploy by anyone worried about being seen on Internet dating sites, and it usually indicated that they were already spoken for, or nefarious in some other way.

She couldn’t see through the tinted windows. She scrunched up her toes in an effort to stop her legs shaking. All her instincts told her to turn and run, but she had to do this, for Becky.

The car pulled up next to her and sat idle for a few moments, the engine falling silent. The passenger door popped open an inch.

Trembling, she approached it, and pulled the door fully open.

A man – Daniel – sat in the driver’s seat, his face turned away so she couldn’t see it. All she could tell was that he had brown hair and was about six feet tall.

‘Jump in, Amy,’ said the man mildly, and she climbed in, pulling the door shut behind her.

‘Where’s Becky?’ she said.

There was an odd, chemical smell in the car, like air freshener mixed with cleaning fluid.

He still had his face turned away from her, though his voice sounded familiar. She wanted to grab him, make him look at her.

But she didn’t need to – he swung round and faced her.

‘You!’ she said, recognizing him but still not being able to place him. ‘Where’s Daniel?’

He smiled, the cruellest smile she had ever seen, and she instinctively went for the door handle. But he was quicker – the locks clunked shut. The smell intensified and, like a cobra, he struck suddenly and silently, lunging for her face with something white and toxic. Chloroform.

The last thing Amy realized – as the planes circling in a holding stack in the sky above her contracted into tiny, shiny dots, then vanished – was Daniel’s true identity. But by then it was far too late.

Declan hurried towards the SIO’s office with the photo of Amber Corrigan in one hand and a picture of Becky Coltman in the other. He’d hardly slept, despite his exhaustion, imaginary conversations playing out in his head all night. The first conversation he needed to have was with the SIO, DCI Anthony Fremantle – and here he was, not in his office, but walking purposefully towards the exit.

‘Sir,’ Declan called.

Fremantle turned his head but kept walking, and Declan hurried to catch up, wishing this fucking sweltering summer would end so he could stop sweating whenever he exerted the slightest bit of energy.

‘I need to run something by you, sir,’ he said.

‘Is this about your cesspit woman?’ the SIO replied, still walking.

Declan fell into step beside him. ‘Yes. Amber Corrigan. Look at these photos – the picture on the left is a woman called Becky Coltman who was reported missing by her sister last week. The resemblance is startling, don’t you think?’

‘Hmm. They do seem a little like each other.’

He hadn’t stopped to look at the photos properly, and Declan felt like grabbing his elbow and making him stop, telling him that this was more important than whatever meeting he was heading to.

‘I think they look like sisters,’ he insisted.

‘Is that possible?’ They turned a corner, the exit only a few metres away now. He needed to be quick.

‘No, the Corrigans only had one child. But that’s not the point. I don’t think they are sisters – but what if the person who murdered Amber is doing the same now? What if he goes after women who look alike – and his latest victim is Becky Coltman?’

‘That’s quite a leap,’ the DCI said. They were at the exit. Declan put his body between Fremantle and the double doors, causing Fremantle to raise a perfectly shaped eyebrow. Perhaps he’s off to a male grooming parlour, Declan’s brain chirped. He managed to stop himself imagining Fremantle getting a back, sack and crack.

‘Maybe. But I want to check it out.’

‘Is this other woman one of ours?’

‘No. She’s from London.’

‘And have you spoken to your former colleagues in the Met?’

An officer barged through the double doors as if they weren’t even there, almost knocking Declan to one side, allowing the DCI to shuffle past him and grasp the door handle, ready to get away.

‘Not yet. I wanted to run it past you first, sir. I want to go up to London, talk to the MISPER coordinator in Camberwell, where Ms Coltman was reported missing.’

He exhaled through his nose. ‘Your old station? It seems like a waste of time to me. Give them a call instead. I want you here, not running off to your former stomping ground. OK?’

Declan sighed. ‘OK. Sir.’

As soon as he got back to his desk, feeling deflated and faintly embarrassed by the encounter, he called Camberwell, surprised to find that he still knew the number by heart. The phone was answered by an officer he knew from the old days, Simon Fletcher, and they spent a couple of minutes catching up, even though Declan was itching to get past the small talk.

‘Who’s the MISPER coordinator these days?’ he asked, when Simon had finished telling him about how the whole borough – no, world – was going to hell in a handcart.

‘Jane Reeves,’ he replied.

Declan didn’t recognize the name. ‘Can you put me through to her?’

‘Sure, hang on.’ But a short while later, he came back on the line. ‘She’s away from her desk. I’ll get her to call you back.’

Declan hung up, then sat and drummed his fingers gently on his keyboard. Bob was off duty today but he thought about calling him, dragging him away from his family so he could run it all past him, see whether Bob thought he was going insane. Declan trusted his judgement.

Jane Reeves was either having the longest fag break in history or was suffering from a bad case of the squits. Declan called Camberwell station again and was told Reeves was still absent. ‘You mean the MISPER coordinator is a MISPER?’ Declan asked.

He couldn’t bear the tension, so went to grab himself a coffee from the vending machine in the corridor. As he returned to his desk, his phone started ringing and he rushed to snatch it up, spilling a searing hot splash of liquid onto the back of his hand.

‘DI Adams.’ He was a little out of breath.

It was Jane Reeves.

‘Thanks for getting back to me. I’m calling about a MISPER, name of Becky – or Rebecca – Coltman.’

Jane Reeves said, ‘Hang on, let me check the system … Yes, reported missing by her sister, an Amy Coltman, on 21 July.’

‘And can you tell me what progress has been made trying to find her?’

‘Hmm. Well, none as far as I can see.’

Declan wanted to reach through the phone and shake the rather bored-sounding Jane Reeves out of her torpor.

‘None?’

‘No … Well, it’s been marked as low risk.’

Declan waited in vain for the woman to elaborate then gave up and said, ‘Why’s that?’ It was like dragging information out of a five-year-old. He sucked the back of his stinging hand.

‘Because … she sent an email to her sister saying that she was going on holiday.’ There was a pause while Jane Reeves read the notes on screen. ‘But, apparently, the sister was very insistent that it was out of character.’

Declan felt his heart speed up. ‘Have you got a transcript of the email there?’

‘Yes … hold on.’

She read out the email.

Declan doubted if he would ever have another moment like this in his entire police career, this certainty that he had stumbled upon something big; the ordinary man in him going cold inside, but the police officer growing hot with excitement. He felt as if the whole week’s events, all his work, had been leading up to this one revelation.

‘Wait there,’ he ordered. ‘Don’t hang up.’

He scrabbled on his desk for the Amber Corrigan file, opened it and pulled out the letter Amber had supposedly sent to her parents. He stared at it and said, ‘OK, read it to me again.’

Jane Reeves intoned: ‘
Dear Amy, I’m going away, and I’m not coming back. Don’t try to find me. I’m going to Asia, probably. I’ve always wanted to visit Vietnam and Cambodia. Sorry about our row. It’s not your fault. Tell Mum and Dad not to worry. Look after yourself. Love B.’

Declan read the Amber Corrigan letter to himself.

Dear Mum and Dad, I’m going away, and I’m not coming back. Don’t try to find me. I’m going to Brazil …

Then she talked about meeting a man who she’d fallen in love with. It ended:

Don’t worry. Look after yourselves. Love Amber
.

Apart from the middle lines, the wording was identical to the Becky Coltman email.

‘Holy shit,’ he said.

‘Excuse me?’ said Jane Reeves.

‘I need the name, phone number and address of the sister.’

As soon as he’d disconnected the call, he tried to ring Amy Coltman, but it went immediately to voicemail. Unable to stay seated at his desk, he dashed off to DCI Fremantle’s office but he wasn’t back yet. He tried Amy’s number again. Same result.

‘Sod this,’ he said, and walked as quickly as he could out of the building and to his car.

It was a two-hour drive from Eastbourne to Amy Coltman’s flat in south London. The traffic on the A22 heading up to town was refreshingly light, the woman on the sat nav stayed quiet for most of the journey and Declan turned her off as soon as he hit the South Circular. He knew these roads. Coincidentally, Amy lived just a few streets away from Declan’s old flat, which he had sold when he left London. But the similarity between the Corrigan letter and the Coltman email had to be more than a coincidence, especially when you factored in the physical similarity between the two women.

All the way up, Declan couldn’t help but wonder: how many more women were there who had vanished in the same way?

How many more victims?

As he reached Camberwell, his shoulder started to throb. It had to be psychosomatic. This was his first visit to the area since he’d cleared out his flat and fled to Sussex, and it wasn’t just the weaving, beeping traffic that was making his blood pressure rise. Sitting at a red light, he could have sworn he saw Terry Munson, the toe-rag who had shot him, waiting to cross. But it couldn’t be him. He was locked up, hopefully being gang-banged in the showers every day, although knowing him he’d be running his own gang in there, enjoying as good a time as it was possible to have at Her Majesty’s pleasure.

By the time Declan reversed into a parking spot outside Amy Coltman’s place, waiting a minute for a silver Honda to vacate the space, he had managed to get a grip on himself and his imagination. He rang Amy’s bell and heard a dog bark inside, but there was no answer. Brilliant. He tried to call her again, but the phone was still going straight to voicemail.

As he stood on the doorstep, he wondered what his next move should be – go and see his old colleagues at the local station; start following proper procedure? That would be the sensible thing. The proper thing to do. But Declan felt like a man on a mission, reluctant to hand over this case to anyone who would care about it less than him. As well as his desperate urge to find Amber’s killer, he now felt a duty towards Becky Coltman too. She was the only person right now who knew the connection between the two women. And there was something else too. When Terry Munson had shot him and he had spent all that time recuperating, fleeing London like a quitter, he had felt useless, a failure. He had lost his self-respect.

This was his chance to put that right. Not just for the women involved, but for himself.

He rang the doorbell again and waited for the dog to stop barking. Amy Coltman clearly wasn’t at home. Declan went back to his car and rummaged through his bag until he found a notebook and pen, intending to leave a note for Amy asking her to call him urgently. But as he was writing it, his phone rang.