There is a knock at the door of the viewing quarters.
‘Come in!’ Superintendent Hall barks.
A uniformed officer enters. ‘Ah, DI Rowland,’ she says.
Ian recognizes her as one of the front counter staff, but has no idea what her name is, which strikes him as elitist and wrong, seeing as she knows who he is.
‘Sorry to disturb you, sir,’ she says, ‘but there’s a lady downstairs who is very distraught. She insists on talking to you.’
‘Did she say what about?’
‘Her daughter has gone missing.’
‘OK. On my way.’ He follows her out of the room. ‘Did she give her name?’ Ian asks as the officer holds the door to the staircase open for him, thinking he should have asked the officer for her own name. He steals a very discreet glance at her chest now he’s close enough to read her name tag. She’s Moody, apparently. Easy enough to remember. ‘How come she has asked for me?’
‘She says she’s a friend, sir. Her name’s Carla Ashford.’
Carla? Oh, God, no. Iris? Missing? Ian races down the flight of stairs to the ground floor as if the building is on fire.
He sees her as soon as he bursts through the doors. She’s pacing up and down the wooden floor in the large entrance to the police headquarters. As he rushes towards her, he clocks Daniel Duffy sitting on a plastic chair and does a double take. What’s he doing here? Where’s Ash?
It takes only a split second for the penny to drop.Margois missing. Ian feels a flicker of relief it’s not Iris, followed by a stab of shame.
He leads the way back upstairs, to his office. Carla should have called 999. She has leapfrogged the first responders by coming to him. They would have come out from Barnstaple. Instead, she has come to him in Exeter. Carla must mistrust the police; he gets that. She thinks the police failed Iris. He should really send Carla through the correct channels. But he can’t let her down. He was of no use to the Ashfords when they needed him and he’ll never forgive himself for that.
Carla leaves the talking to Daniel. Ian takes notes.
‘She’s been gone since yesterday evening. She didn’t come home last night. She went to her friend’s house – Ellie. But Ellie told me this morning when I went to pick up Margo that Margo had left early to go to Carla’s. She—’
‘Sorry, to go to Carla’s?’ But as soon as the words leave his mouth, Ian remembers Ash telling him Dandruff had left Carla and taken Margo with him. ‘Where were you staying?’
Ian looks up from his notes and sees Daniel blush. It starts off like a red rash around his neck, spreading upwards, until even the top of his bald head is bright pink. In other circumstances, Ian would find this amusing.
‘At my mother’s house in Brayworthy. Margo wanted to walk—’
‘Brayworthy,’ Ian repeats, deadly serious, cutting Daniel off mid-flow. ‘And does Margo’s friend Ellie also live in Brayworthy?’
‘Yes.’
‘OK. Go on.’
‘Well, she never arrived at Crooked Oak Cottage, obviously. And she’s not answering her phone.’
‘It must be switched off,’ Carla says. Ian is struck by her pallor. ‘I have the Find My app on my phone. Margo’s last location is showing as Coombe Farm in Brayworthy – that’s where Ellie lives – at five twenty-two yesterday evening.’
Daniel reaches out and takes Carla’s hand. Of the two of them, he’s holding it together better than she is, at least on the surface, and yet he’s Margo’s father; Carla is her stepmother. Ian remembers Ash saying that Carla considers Margo to be her daughter, whereas Daniel is very much Iris’s stepfather.
He closes down that train of thought. Something is niggling Ian and that’s not it. As he asks for more details and jots down Daniel’s answers, he tries to put his finger on what it is. ‘So Ellie’s address is Coombe Farm, Brayworthy. Was Margo there for a sleepover?’
‘Yes, that’s right,’ Daniel says.
‘She’s been taken, Ian,’ Carla says. Her voice trembles with panic.
‘We don’t know that,’ Daniel says. Ian thinks he detects a tear in his eye. ‘Let’s not jump to conclusions.’
‘What’s Ellie’s surname?’ Ian continues. They need to act fast, whether Margo has been taken or not. She’s been out all night and may not have eaten or drunk anything since yesterday afternoon.
‘Beare.’ Daniel, perhaps reading upside down, spells it for Ian, who has written it down as ‘Beer.’
