saw her last on Monday morning.’ He sniffs. ‘We didn’t exactly part on the best of terms.’
‘Has she been in touch at all since then?’
‘I’ve already told that cop all of this. Why should I tell it all again to some randomer who just turns up on my doorstep? Why do you want to get involved, anyway? I’ve never seen you before.’
I throw a look down towards the road, where a pair of horses and riders are clip-clopping past.
‘Can I come in for a minute, to talk? I can explain.’
He crosses his arms and leans against the doorframe, tattooed bicep bulging against his knuckles.
‘I don’t think so.’
He moves to close the door but I put a hand against it to stop it shutting all the way.
‘I want to help,’ I say quickly through the gap. ‘To find her. And I want to help the baby, too.’
He stares at me, keeping his expression neutral. ‘What baby?’
‘Mia.’
‘Don’t know what you’re talking about.’
But he says it too fast, his face betraying him, his blank expression slipping. Just for a second. A moment of surprise.
‘I think you do, Max,’ I say. ‘They were together on Tuesday. That’s what Detective Sergeant Holt was just talking to you about, wasn’t it?’
‘How’d you know his name?’ He frowns, his heavy forehead bunching. ‘That cop?’
‘I’ve talked to him too.’ I sense him withdrawing again, putting more pressure on the door. ‘Listen, I was at the pub just now, the Red Lion, and the landlord mentioned Kathryn’s sister? I wondered if you’d heard from her too, if you’d spoken to her recently?’
He freezes, the red rising further up his cheeks, his jaw clenching and unclenching. ‘What?’
‘Has DS Holt already spoken to her?’
‘No.’ His voice is low and flat with an undercurrent of barely-controlled rage. ‘I think you should go now.’
I take a business card from my purse and quickly write my mobile number on the back of it. I hand it to him and he studies it, front and back, as if he’s not quite sure whether to hurl it back at me.
‘If you give me your number too, Max, I can let you know if I hear—’
But he’s already closing the door.
I walk down the steps and across the courtyard. In the silence of my car I sit and think about what Max had said, replaying his lies in my head. Don’t know what you’re talking about. What baby? Was he aware of the role played by Dominic, the angry ex-boyfriend, in the events of these past few days? After a few minutes, I type ‘Seer Green’ into the satnav, and make the short drive to the small train station where Kathryn got off the train on Tuesday.
It’s another picturesque Chiltern village, a few miles nearer to London. Why didn’t she get off in Great Missenden, which was nearer to her flat? Was that where she got on? And what was here? There’s a pub, a church, a primary school. Not much else. I park at the little train station and walk up onto the platform through open ticket barriers, staring down the two parallel tracks carving their way through the Buckinghamshire countryside and flanked by trees on both sides. It’s a little two-platform stop that looks like it hasn’t changed much since the 1950s, I guess mostly used by commuter-belt workers heading in and out of London. Was Kathryn meeting someone? Or avoiding Dominic, waiting for her at the end of the line in London? And most important of all, why leave Mia behind?
On the drive home, I can’t stop thinking about Holt visiting Kathryn’s flat without Gilbourne. The way he’d looked when he left: furtive somehow, as if he didn’t want to be seen. Max lying about Mia. His reaction when I asked about Kathryn’s sister. I’m still trying to decide whether I should ask Gilbourne about her as I pull up on the drive of my house, still mulling it over as I find my front door key and fit it into the lock.
The side gate slams in the wind, the wood banging against the frame like a gunshot. I flinch, my pulse spiking. I’m sure the gate was bolted when I left. I push it open carefully in a creak of hinges and walk around the little block-paved path at the side of the house, cold fingers of unease at the tip of my spine. I stop at the edge of the garden.
The kitchen door has been kicked in.
27
I can see through the busted