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They stop outside an insignificant-looking terraced house. Jamie leads the way and rings the doorbell. Lee has phoned ahead; they know she’s in and eventually hear footsteps, then a shadow behind the frosted glass. The door opens.
“Well. I never thought I’d hear from you again. Romilly Cole!” The woman is compact and stout, with glowing red cheeks and thinning gray hair. “Let me look at you! What a beautiful woman you’ve become. Come in, come in.”
Jamie introduces himself as he steps over the threshold, but the woman ushers them through, keen to chat to Romilly. The wallpaper is tired, the carpet worn in the center. The smell is of bacon, fried eggs—and one of those plug-in air fresheners turned up to max. Jamie sees it on the sideboard, white plastic. It lets out an enthusiastic puff as they walk in the room; it makes Jamie want to sneeze.
They both sit down where they’re told: on an overly soft sofa, Romilly leaning gently into Jamie as his weight pulls down the cushion.
“Tea? Coffee?” the woman asks.
“No. Please,” Jamie says more abruptly than he intends. “Sit down.”
She does as she’s told, cheeks flushing at Jamie’s tone. He gets a look from Romilly, and she sits forward, ready to talk.
“Mrs. Poole …” Romilly begins.
“Sandra, please.”
“Sandra. You worked for my father from the beginning—is that right?” Romilly gives her an encouraging smile. Jamie’s thankful she’s there, there’s no way he’s got the emotional stability to interview this woman properly.
“Yes, 1983, 1984, I think it was. I remember you being born just after I started.”
“So you knew everything about the surgery. What went on, all the gossip?”
“I didn’t know that,” she says quickly. Her eyes dart to Jamie. “Is that what this is about? Because I didn’t know anything about what he did. I told the police—”
“No, no. Don’t worry about that, Sandra.” Romilly gives her another smile and a reassuring pat on the arm. “But we’re curious about who Dr. Cole was close to at the time. Who he might still be in contact with? Would you have any idea?”
Sandra frowns. “Not a clue, no,” she says, and Jamie feels his stomach sink. “He didn’t have many friends. There was Joanna, and you. And he seemed happy with that. We all said at the time, what a wonderful family man he was.” Her face clouds. “Of course, then, we didn’t know,” she adds quickly. “About … about the girls.”
She stops and her cheeks go red. Romilly gives her a sympathetic look.
“None of us knew, Sandra,” she says, reassuringly, and the woman returns her smile.
Jamie rolls the dates around in his head. Dr. Cole was arrested in 1995; he is in his sixties now. He thinks about the victims, how the killer needed to move the bodies, transport the unconscious around. Overpower and abduct Pippa. Same with Adam.
Jamie leans forward on the sofa, resting his hands on his knees. “Was there anyone else who hung around the surgery, someone younger. Who Dr. Cole met with on a regular basis? Could have been a teenage boy?”
Sandra looks blank, and Jamie’s shoulders sag.
His phone rings in his pocket, and he quickly pulls it out: Lee. He gives a tight smile to Sandra. “Sorry. I need to answer this.”
He’s pressed the key even before he’s out of the room. “Tim, give me something we can use. Anything.”
“The lab called—”
“They found the samples?”
“No.” Jamie’s optimism fades fast. Tim is still talking: “But they tested a different one. A swab taken from the dog.”
Jamie remembers the poor animal. The white fluffy terrier, locked in the cupboard.
“And?” Jamie snaps impatiently.
“It was a bit of a shot in the dark, but one of the samples from its mouth came back as human. And not the victim. It must have bitten its attacker.”
Jamie takes a quick breath in, apprehensive.
“No direct matches—”
