her that cases reflect each other, and that certain lessons come in threes. A case might mirror the one before, perhaps in the relationship between suspects or in the nature of their work. The victim of a new case might have something in common with another.
She flicked the only readable page in the Robert Martin file: notes taken when she and Billy had first seen the boy’s father. Not the mother. Just the father of a missing son. She had found missing sons and daughters in the past, had seen parents relieved at the discovery—and on at least one occasion equal relief when she reported that the trail had run cold. Billy should have made regular telephone calls to their client to report on progress, though Maisie doubted he had done so. Yet she had not received an angry telephone call from the anxious father awaiting news. Was he so busy that he did not have time? Did he trust them to find his son without learning of their progress along the way? Could Jesmond Martin have been going through the motions of looking for a lost son, but with no true commitment on his part? Yes, she had known that before, a man making a promise to his wife, but lacking the conviction himself. She rubbed her neck and walked across to the filing cabinet and pulled out the rolled Pramal case map, which she unfurled across the table and pinned to keep it flat. But her thoughts were still on the man who had come to her because his son was missing.
He had made an appointment for late afternoon, explaining that he could not come earlier due to his work, which demanded his undivided attention from an early hour. She had not asked for an explanation, but Jesmond Martin seemed keen to establish his credentials as a busy, important man. He was like so many of his kind who worked in the City, as if they had been issued with a certain attitude along with a uniform. Martin wore a dark pin-striped suit, removed a top hat upon entering the room, and carried a briefcase that had without doubt been expensive at time of purchase and was now worn around the handle and the corners and along the top flap. A brand-new case at his time of life would have pointed to only recent success, whereas the age and wearing of good leather proved to be a badge of honor among businessmen of his ilk. He had given details of his son’s disappearance in a tone devoid of emotion, yet when Maisie looked at his eyes, it was as if she was staring into a well of sadness. She remembered wondering what walls of division might be at the root of family discord, and whether an argument—perhaps one of many—had inspired the son to leave his boarding school. Jesmond Martin showed no embarrassment or regret when he explained that his son, Robert, had been missing for several weeks; in fact he exuded an air of indifference as he spoke. He informed Maisie and Billy that he had at first expected the boy to return in good time and saw no reason to alert the authorities. And there had been only a brief mention of a poorly wife. Would she go as far as to say the father appeared cold? In fact, she found herself feeling rather sorry for him, for she thought he had an affection for his son that had been scarred in some way, perhaps by discord as the boy formed his own opinions of the world and no longer followed the lead of his strong—and, it would seem, opinionated—father.
If Robert Martin was indeed the boy who found Maya Patel—and until confirmed, the guess was tenuous, at best—how might it be related to Usha Pramal? She shook her head, and wrote in large letters, Robert Martin—Martin Robertson? and drew the names together in a large red circle. Martin Robertson was not a police suspect, so she had to be careful. She would have to make another call to Caldwell to gain an interview with the lad. Before turning the page she took out a photograph of Robert Martin, in his Dulwich College school uniform. “He looks barely able to wear long trousers,” she said aloud. She remembered asking for a recent photograph, not an old image from earlier in the boy’s childhood. “The features can change so much in these years, Mr. Martin,” she’d said. And