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‘OK,’ she said. ‘You’re right. We can’t come in. We’ll go.’ She turned to PC Edwards. ‘But we might need to come back. My colleague thinks he may have heard a noise from inside this abode. Sounds like possible domestic violence. And it wouldn’t be the first time there’s been a complaint about this address.’ She rubbed her forefinger on her lips, as though thinking. ‘And that would be grounds for a warrant, I’m pretty sure of it.’

She leaned forward and put her face near the gap between the door and the frame. She spoke in a stage whisper. ‘I don’t want my colleague to hear this,’ she said. ‘He’s young and I wouldn’t want to shock him. But when he and his buddies turn up with that warrant they’ll turn this place upside down. Rip up your mattresses, smash your cupboards, take a shit on your bathroom floor, dig into your computer. And they’ll find something, won’t they, Best? Because people like you always have something. Kiddie porn, stolen knickers, evidence of hours spent in chatrooms pretending to be the same age as the people you’re talking to. We’ll find it, Best. We’ll find it and then we’ll use it to unravel your life and lock you up for as long as we see fit.’

She stopped then stepped back.

‘So, Mr Best,’ she said. ‘If you aren’t going to let us in, we’ll be on our way. But we’ll see you soon.’

The door closed, and there was a click as the chain was undone.

4

Wynne stood in the hallway. To the right was the room with the bay window. At the far end was a door open on to a kitchen. A pale green carpet covered the floor and ran up the stairs to her left. There was a faint smell of disinfectant.

She recognized it from the last time she’d been here. The neighbours had called in a domestic dispute. She’d been in uniform then, and had come in to find Best’s wife, Carol, hiding in the upstairs bathroom. Her nose was broken and she had a contusion on the back of her head. Best was gone; another unit picked him up on the M56 heading towards Manchester.

He said he’d had an argument with his wife and was going for a drive to clear his head. Carol Best had a different explanation. She said he’d gone to destroy the photos they’d been arguing about.

Photos of school girls that he’d taken with a long lens camera and collected in an album, which he had hidden at the back of a cupboard where they kept the computer manuals. She had found it when the computer failed to start and she called customer support. She couldn’t follow their instructions, so they suggested she find the manual and look through it.

She found more than the manual, and, when she confronted her husband with the album, he went crazy and said he was going to kill her.

He didn’t; she managed to get away and lock herself in the bathroom. Best left the house, taking the photo album – and any negatives, Wynne checked the house for them – with him. He’d developed them himself, so there was no other record of them.

Despite the darkroom he had, he denied the photos had ever existed, claiming Carol had invented them to cover up an affair she had been having, which was the real cause of their argument. He had confronted her with it, and she had attacked him. He had hit her in self-defence – and he apologized for it, he really felt truly sorry, he’d not meant to hurt her – and then fled the house, worried about the police.

In the end, she declined to press charges in exchange, Wynne suspected, for a quick and generous divorce and the chance to get as far away from Best as quickly as possible.

Wynne, though, asked around, and heard from more than one teenager – boys and girls – that they had seen him at the window with his camera.

He’s a creepy fucker, one girl said. Always lookin’ at you.

That in itself wasn’t a crime, but Wynne hadn’t forgotten it.

And now a fifteen-year-old girl was missing and she was going to look Best in the eye and ask him if he knew anything about it.

Maybe Mike Mullins knew nothing about the people who sold this stuff, but he was different to Best. The people who sold it needed Best. He was a consumer. And consumers of any commodity made it their business to know how to get hold of it. There were hidden networks, and she would have bet that Best knew all about them.

Best nodded towards the kitchen. Wynne and Edwards followed him through the door. He and Edwards sat down. Wynne stayed on her feet.

‘So,’ she said. ‘How’ve you been?’

‘Fine. This isn’t a social call, I take it?’

‘No,’ she said. ‘It isn’t.’

‘Then what is it?’

‘Any ideas?’ Wynne asked.

‘None.’

‘A girl has gone missing. She’s fifteen. Local.’

Best shrugged. ‘Nothing to do with me.’

‘You sure about that?’ Wynne stared at him. His demeanour was unassuming, meek, broken by life, but the look in his eyes belied it. They were cold and unflinching. He was, she saw, a dangerous man.

‘Hundred per cent,’ he said. He crossed his arms. He was wearing a white shirt and grey trousers. Behind him by the sink was a plate with some boiled vegetables and fish fingers on it.