‘We’ve got a window of seven hours where she could have gone missing. The two possibilities as I see it are, one: she left the house during that time and hasn’t returned yet, or two: someone went to her house. It’s as simple as that.’ He turned his focus to the board again, created a circle in the middle of what was left of the white space, and fired two straight lines from it. One for leaving the house, the other for someone going to hers. ‘Once we’ve ascertained which one of these it is, we can build the larger picture from there.’ He pushed the lid on the pen with a satisfying and tangible snap, then returned to his seat. ‘In the meantime, tell me everything you have on Angelica Whitaker. What do we know about her that can help us?’

Both detectives looked down at their notes, avoiding the question. Until Chey eventually summoned the courage to speak first.

‘I’ve started to look through her Instagram, as it’s the one she updates most regularly. She has two profiles. One’s a personal account, which she uses much less, while the second is a travel blog/influencer type thing. She’s got several thousand followers, but also has several thousand posts on each of them. It’s going to take a fair amount of time to sift through it all. But from the brief research I’ve done and the first couple of posts I’ve looked at, she seems to post stuff about herself and about her life as well. What she’s doing, where she is. But she doesn’t say too much on the captions – sometimes it’s just an emoji or two.’

‘Could they mean anything to someone?’

‘Possibly. I’d need to analyse who’s liking and commenting.’

Tomek nodded. ‘Rach?’

Detective Constable Rachel Hamilton cleared her throat before speaking. ‘Xanthia Demetriou, one of Angelica’s closest friends, was singing her praises. She didn’t have a bad word to say about her. Life of the party, always bubbly, always outgoing and up for going out, she was happy to be around everyone and everyone was happy to be around her. Kind, caring, full of zest, always there for her. It was like she was in love with her.’

‘They know each other from work, right?’

‘Sort of,’ Rachel explained. ‘They met at work. But Xanthia now works at a chemist’s. Not the career change she wanted, but the air steward market is tight at the moment. It was all she could find. Hopefully next year she’ll be able to get something.’

‘What did she have to say about last night?’

‘Just that she had a good time. And she remembers clearly watching Angelica open the front door and close it behind her. So, according to her, she definitely got in the house.’

‘And Zoë?’

‘Backed up everything Xanthia said. She saw Angelica enter her home without issue.’

The question that still remained was how she’d got out of it.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

The tinny sound from Kasia’s cheap Dell laptop reached them on the sofa. She had locked herself in her bedroom after dinner, and was no doubt watching one of her benign, mind-numbing reality TV programmes or one of the chick flick series that seemed to be all over the various streaming sites. Whenever he logged into his Netflix or Amazon Prime, he was bombarded with teenage dramas and programmes that their algorithm fed Kasia to keep her engaged. It was enough to turn him off from watching anything. And potentially stop paying the bill altogether. But he knew that would be like cutting off her arm, or at least tying it behind her back while he forced her to catch the remote. So instead he would do the honourable thing and continue to clench his fist every time he saw the direct debits come out each month.

Tonight, however, he was very much in favour of the streaming services. Abigail was over, and he had allowed her to select a channel to choose from. He had no idea what she’d put on, but it enabled him to switch off and let his thoughts drift wherever they needed to go. While she was engrossed in her programme, his mind was getting lost in deep thoughts like, why are buildings called buildings when they’d already been built, and why do we say we’re coming up for air when we’re not even underwater? He’d been battling those particular conundrums for a good five minutes when Abigail placed her legs on his lap, demanding that he massage her feet.

‘Haven’t you been sitting at your desk all day?’ he asked her.

‘Yes. But in heels. You don’t know what it’s like.’ She wiggled her toes in his face. ‘Please. They’ve been hurting so much today.’

Rolling his eyes, he said, ‘You’re more of a diva than I am. And I don’t like it when I put gel in my hair and it’s raining outside!’

‘Please,’ she begged, having listened to none of what he’d just said.

‘Okay, if I get my feet massaged afterwards? I’ve got a lovely bunion that needs kneading out.’

Tomek had never seen her look so disgusted.

‘That’s fucking gross. I’m going nowhere near your feet.’

‘But I’ve been standing on mine all day…’

His attempt at pulling the wool over her eyes with an adorable, innocent flutter of the eyelashes didn’t work.

‘Busy day?’ she asked, relaxing her toes, as Tomek began to knead them with his thumb and knuckles like they were dough.

‘Very.’

‘What happened?’

‘Woman in her late twenties was reported missing by her family. She went out last night with some friends, got dropped off at her flat, then disappeared. Her manager, who happens to be her sister-in-law, said she didn’t turn up this morning for work.’

‘And you can’t find her?’

‘Wouldn’t be thinking about her if we had.’

‘You’re thinking about another woman?’

‘Not in that way,’ he said with a shake of the head. He stopped massaging her feet, and she wiggled her toes to remind him to continue.

‘I was joking,’ she said, then turned her attention back to the television for all of two seconds before returning it to him. ‘Do you think she might be dead?’

Tomek could sense where the conversation was going.

‘I dunno.’

‘Do you think something happened to her?’

‘Not sure.’

‘Do you think you’ll find her?’

He didn’t answer.

‘Did she get with anyone on her night out? Could it be them? What if it’s one of her friends? Or maybe she went for a walk and someone abducted her…’

Tomek knew she was fishing for information, shooting a load of spaghetti at his face to see what stuck. But he wasn’t going to rise to it, nor was he going to eat any of it.

‘Listen,’ he said, releasing his grip on her foot, ‘when the time’s right, we’ll share the information with you.’

‘Why haven’t you already? If this is a missing person case, we can help you. Give us all the information you’ve got, show us what she looks like, and we can put the word out. What leads have you got?’

‘None. Yet.’

‘Why are you lying to me?’

‘I’m not.’

‘Yes, you are. I can tell when you’re lying to me. I don’t like that you’re hiding something from me.’

All sensitivity and playfulness had gone from her tone. Now it had become irate, stern. Professional.