‘What do you reckon?’ Jessica asked.

Reynolds sounded resigned. ‘Between you and me, officers are being moved back to other jobs or the districts they came from. Someone up top isn’t happy with our progress.’

It was the first Jessica had heard of it. She stumbled over her words, trying to hide at least part of her annoyance. ‘But we’ve got so many things going on. How are we going to get through it all with less people?’

‘I think that’s the problem. Jack told me he’s been trying to hold things off for a day or two but it goes way above him and the super. There’s the investigation into Isaac Hutchings’s murder, everyone’s expecting Toby Whittaker’s body to be found in those woods at any moment, then there’s the allotment, the list of kids, whoever Glenn Harrison is, the driver of the stolen crashed car and now Lloyd Corless. Plus everything in between, including Simon Hill. Jack’s tried to keep it all to himself but I’ve heard whispers people upstairs are unhappy with a lack of focus and so on.’

‘It’s not his fault, is it?’

‘I agree but there’s not much we can do. I don’t think anyone knew how big this would get. One minute it was a missing child, the next we’re trying to run multiple cases. It was always going to be too big for a DCI.’

‘So who’s going to run things?’

‘Chief super I guess.’

Jessica wasn’t convinced. ‘Why would he be taking people off the case?’

‘Probably just to focus on finding Lloyd. I guess if we can find him, it might lead us on a trail back to everything else.’

‘Or finding out what happened with Toby or Isaac could lead us to Lloyd?’

‘Maybe, but it’s not got us far yet, has it?’

‘If we find Simon Hill with Lloyd it will have.’

Reynolds didn’t reply but his silence said more than words. Jessica herself had thought about the trail that had brought them to a freezing supermarket car park in Sunderland. Aside from the fact Simon Hill had been involved in a petty dispute fourteen years previously – and that he had lied to his wife about what he was up to – there wasn’t anything to link him to Lloyd or Isaac’s disappearance.

‘Let’s find somewhere to eat,’ Jessica said. ‘Maybe we’ll strike lucky and our man will come in for a fry-up with Lloyd in tow.’

The cafe they ate in was as greasy as Jessica could have hoped for. Reynolds munched his way through a bacon sandwich while she had a full English breakfast, although the lack of black pudding was a cause of concern.

‘I don’t know how you eat that,’ the inspector said as Jessica wiped up an egg yolk with some fried bread.

‘What?’

‘All that fat. Even looking at your plate makes me feel like I’m putting on weight.’ He held up the remains of his sandwich. ‘My wife would be annoyed if she knew I’d eaten this.’

Jessica grinned as she finished off a hash brown. ‘This is a bit of a treat. Usually I just eat pot noodles and toast.’

‘Together?’

‘Of course not . . . although that’s not a bad idea. It’s just fair to say that I definitely wasn’t a gourmet chef in a previous life.’

‘What do you reckon you were?’

‘Oh, I don’t know. You see all those dickheads on TV and everyone reckons they were some Roman emperor or a Greek goddess or something. I was probably a chimney sweep or something else not very interesting.’

‘Ever the dreamer, then?’

‘You know me.’

Jessica finished off the last of her sausage and looked at the clock on the wall above her colleague’s head. Because of the journey, the time spent in DCI Dawson’s office, plus eating, Jessica had lost track of the day. As she thought about the fact it would be dark within an hour and a half or so, she had an idea, taking out her phone and checking for further directions.

‘Are you ready?’ she asked.

‘I finished ten minutes ago.’

‘I’ve got an idea.’ Jason rolled his eyes and leant back in his seat. ‘What?’ Jessica added indignantly.

‘I know what your ideas are like. Whenever you’ve come to me with an idea before it usually ends up with me doing something I don’t particularly want to.’

‘This one’s simple. There’s a school a few hundred yards away from that supermarket. All the kids will be leaving in a few minutes. Let’s go and watch.’

Reynolds narrowed his eyes and, for a moment, Jessica thought he was going to say no but instead he started fumbling in his pockets before pulling out his car keys.

They parked around fifty metres from the school gates, just outside of some zigzag yellow lines where people were not supposed to stop. Reynolds had one of the pictures of Simon Hill on his lap, Jessica had the photo on her phone. She knew it was desperation but then so was the journey. There was no particular reason to believe the man they were looking for might be around but, as it was the only school in the area and they thought he might have some connection to either Isaac Hutchings or Lloyd Corless, it was at least worth a go.

Jessica was trying to watch as many of the adults as she could, looking for someone who could possibly be Simon Hill. As they were observing, a black 4x4 skidded to a halt on the zigzag lines, blocking their view. Reynolds motioned as if he was going to move but Jessica opened the car door. ‘I’ll handle it.’

Jessica marched around the vehicle and hammered on the driver’s side door. A woman with long blonde hair peered out of the window towards Jessica. She looked half-annoyed, half-perplexed. In case she was in any doubt about what the problem was, Jessica bashed the door with her fist a second time. The window slid down with an electric hum, any trace of confusion on the woman’s face replaced by absolute fury. ‘What the fuck do you think you’re doing?’ she said angrily in a sharp north-east accent.

‘I’m telling you to move your car. Now.’

The driver screwed up her face even further. ‘I’ll have ya if you touch my car again.’ The woman was clearly fuming but something about her pristine appearance told Jessica she’d never been in anything that could even loosely be described as a fight. For a few moments, Jessica thought about banging on the door again just to see what the woman would do. Instead, she reached into her pocket and took out her identification, holding it up for the woman to see.

Jessica smiled just to antagonise the woman even further. ‘Tell you what, you take your shit hair extensions and stuck-on nails and piss off and I’ll pretend you didn’t just threaten a police officer.’

The driver stared at Jessica but re-started the engine and pulled away just as students began to spill out of the school gates in small groups. Jessica banged on the back of the vehicle as it moved, before turning to face Reynolds in his car. As she swivelled, her eyes were drawn to a small blue hatchback parked on the opposite side of the road a little behind the inspector’s car. A man in a red coat was roughly hauling a boy onto the back seat before slamming the door. As he turned around, Jessica got a clear view of the person’s face.

Simon Hill stared down the road before quickly stepping around the front of the vehicle and opening the driver’s door.

16

For a moment Jessica felt fixed to the spot, focusing on Simon Hill’s face. She didn’t need to check the pictures on her phone to know he was the person they had come to look for. It was only when he turned away that she fully took in the fact she had just seen him force a child into the back seat and slam the door. Jessica sprinted across the road but had forgotten about the conditions. As she reached the kerb on the opposite side, she skidded across a patch of frost, cannoning onto the pavement with a painful crunch.

For a moment she could just hear ringing in her ears but it was soon replaced by people laughing.