And besides, I needed the work. If I kept spending everyday reading Sarah and Tommy’s case files over and over again, I would run out of money. If the cops didn’t deport me first, that was.

So, I kept looking out for headlights and slowly approaching cars, waiting for my nervous visitor to return. But Elizabeth didn’t show up that night. If she did, it was sometime after two in the morning, at which point I fell asleep in my chair with reports of her son’s disappearance scattered in my lap.

***

The little computer program I had pilfered was doing no good for a case that was almost 10 years old, so the following day I took a trip to the library. The grand old structure near St James’s Square was an imposing stone edifice now tinged by centuries of diesel smoke and fumes. It took nearly an hour to arrive but it felt good to be moving again, to be actively working towards something other than cheating spouses. But in the back of my mind, reality was whispering sweet nothings.

The case isn’t even yours. You’re putting all of this time and effort into it for free.

Maybe that was true, but as I sifted through all of the files and public records on the events, I didn’t care. Not once had I felt such a sense of purpose since arriving in London as a haggard and beaten man.

I managed to uncover a bit more in the public records than the internet had offered the day before. I scraped together a full timeline of the last known day of Jack Ellington’s life, from when he was seen walking on the way to school by a neighbor to the last of his friends indicating that he had seen Jack on the street, headed home, shortly after 6.00 in the evening.

With that ironed out, I also put together a list of names that, to me, seemed to be suspects. Many of them were already logged as having been questioned by police, but I wasn’t willing to rule anything out. Last on my list was the name of the officer in charge of the investigation. I didn’t think he was a suspect per se, but definitely someone that would be a great source of information.

I was about switch the library computer off when one last result caught my eye. My search had thrown up one final news story, this one from only a few days ago. It was unrelated to Ellington but the similarities were troubling enough to grab my attention. A missing schoolboy named Charlie Haines, about the same age, had disappeared right after band practice. This time from a suburb 20 miles outside of London. Hell, the kid even looked like Jack Ellington.

Could there be a connection?

***

I nearly stopped at Amir’s for lunch to fill him in on how I had decided to dig into the Ellington case. But I had things to do, people to see. Namely a man by the name of Henry Atkinson, the former police chief who had been in charge of Jack Ellington’s investigation all those years ago.

Atkinson’s record was more polished than a conflict diamond. After a tough childhood in the North of England, raised by a foster family after his parents died in a car accident, he’d gone on to an exemplary career in the Metropolitan Police. Moving from beat cop to Detective in record time, then on to Head of the Major Crimes Unit, receiving a string of awards and a New Year’s honor along the way.

One of the trophies he’d picked up was also apparently a nice fat pension. His house was large and expensive looking. The kind of place that had a gardener and maybe housekeeper; people to cover up the dirt.

Located 40 minutes away in a high-scale Hampton neighborhood where all the houses had manicured lawns, Atkinson’s place was situated neatly in the center of an idyllic row of similar houses, its siding sparkling clean and its grass immaculate.

I parked on the edge of the street, got out and threw my jacket over my head, quickly dashing to the large porch to escape the increasing strength of the rain.

I knocked on the front door, taking in the quaint digs. A few blossoming potted plants lined the porch. A porch swing hung from the rafters at the end, like something from the cover of a cheesy college poetry magazine.

I knocked again and had to wait another twenty seconds before the door was answered. A man who looked to be in his seventies looked out at me through a partially opened door. His close-cropped beard was white, and what little hair he had remaining on his head was the same shade, trimmed in a short no-nonsense style.

“Who are you?” Atkinson snapped, skipping pleasantries altogether.

“Are you Henry Atkinson?” I asked.

“Maybe. Again…who are you?” His accent had a hint of somewhere up north.

“My name is Thomas Blume. I’m a…” I faltered. After all, what was I? “I’m a private investigator who has been hired by Elizabeth Ellington to do some digging into her son’s disappearance.” The lie came far too easily, and I wondered if it would potentially get me in some legal trouble further down the line.

I’d worry about that later, though. Currently, Atkinson was opening his door wider. “I guess you hoped I could help with some answers?” he asked.

“I was hoping, yes.”

He eyed me cautiously for a few seconds as if sizing me up, and for a moment I thought he would slam the door in my face. “We’ll see,” he said to my surprise, opening the door all the way. “That ship sailed a while ago, but I remember most of it. Come on in, Mr. Blume.”

“Thanks.”

I stepped into the house and was immediately impressed. Atkinson had done quite well for himself. The place was moderately decorated in a way that made it clear that the ex-cop was single or perhaps divorced and shopped for himself. Still, it was a grand house with rich oak floorboards and high ceilings making any visitor feel small. Awards and certificates dotted the walls while antique furniture gave the space an air of gravitas.

He led me into a small den where a large coffee table, standing between two sofas, supported several books about the military. I looked around the room, my investigators instincts kicking in as I tried to learn as much about Atkinson as I could. I skirted the edge of the mantle as I walked around one of the couches, eyeing the various trinkets and photos on display there.

“Is this your boy?” I asked in my friendliest, most casual voice. I pointed to the photo I was talking about: Atkinson—a couple of decades younger—with his arm around a young man of about thirteen or fourteen standing at the edge of a Scottish moor.

“Never had kids,” Atkinson shook his head impatiently. “That’s my nephew.” So much for my powers of deduction.

He plopped his large body into a recliner. “What can I help you with, Mr. Blume? This is one of those cases that I had a feeling about…knew it would keep cropping up.”

I opted to remain standing, until I knew the man better. “Well, as I said, Mrs. Ellington just wants to dig a little deeper. I’m new in town — an American, from New York — and I guess she just thought a fresh set of eyes could help.”

You’re far too good at lying, Blume, I thought.

“What have you uncovered so far?” he asked me.

I walked him through my research of the last few days, hoping that he would not notice how absent Elizabeth Ellington was from the picture. I told him about my timeline and the suspects I had. I then came to the one scenario I had come up with that I had not yet seen covered elsewhere. It was good to vocalize it. It made it easier for me to see if there were any holes in my theory. I found out, as I spoke to Atkinson, that there were a few, but none were big enough to swallow the case.

“Stephen Harlowe,” I said, as if it summed everything up. I mostly said it to see what Atkinson’s reaction would be.

“Jack Ellington’s teacher,” Atkinson said, leaning back arms crossed. “What about him?”

“I think he’s the one. If he didn’t take Jack, I think he probably has a damn good idea who did.”