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answer,’ said Darkus.
    ‘“No” is not an option this time,’ his father countered.
    ‘What’s this all about, Alan?’ Jackie asked, sensing something wrong.
    Knightley paused, his brow furrowing. ‘It’s about Bogna …’
    The limo turned out of the auditorium gates and fishtailed into the night, its carriage lights vanishing in the fog.

CHAPTER 4
THE SITUATION ROOM
    The limo emerged from the mist on to Wolseley Close and parked in the driveway of Clive and Jackie’s mock-Tudor house, alongside a white Transit van, which was blocking in Clive’s new Aston Martin.
    ‘What the hell is this ?!’ Clive yelled at the van as he shimmied between the vehicles.
    ‘The “Moby Dick”,’ replied Darkus, recognising Uncle Bill’s aptly nicknamed mobile command centre.
    ‘Well, it’s almost touching my Aston!’
    Clive opened the front door and stomped upstairs complaining of a migraine while Darkus followed his parents into the living room where Tilly sat cross-legged on the sofa and Uncle Bill erupted from his leather armchair.
    ‘A’right, Doc? Aye, ah’ve missed ye, laddie.’ The Scotsman smothered Darkus in a meaty embrace.
    ‘Thanks, Bill. How’s the back?’ Darkus enquired, inreference to the injury his colleague had sustained on their last case.
    ‘Aye, well, put it this way,’ said Bill, ‘I will nae be “twerkin’” anytime soon, but ah cannae complain, Doc. Does this mean yoo’re back on the team?’ he pleaded.
    ‘We’ll see,’ said Darkus, nodding an awkward greeting to his stepsister before taking a seat at the opposite end of the sofa from her.
    Tilly’s hair – which was liable to change colour at any moment – was currently dyed jet-black, indicating the grave circumstances. To his dismay, Darkus noticed she was also wearing a tweed waistcoat.
    ‘Haven’t seen you around much,’ she muttered by way of a greeting.
    ‘I hear you’ve been busy,’ Darkus answered resentfully. ‘Nice waistcoat,’ he added, then addressed the others. ‘Shall we proceed?’
    Knightley Senior drew up a chair to join the huddle. Darkus was reminded of his first mission briefing, in this very room, with his father and Uncle Bill. Those were the good old days, before he knew the sacrifices that being a detective would entail.
    In a call to order, Knightley steepled his fingers grimly and started talking. ‘Yesterday evening our dear friend and trusted employee, Bogna, kept an appointment with a gentleman she met online,’ he began.
    ‘Really?’ said Jackie. ‘Bogna?’
    ‘She did not return home last night, and we’ve not heard from her since,’ said Knightley. ‘In fact, her mobile phone is switched off. I don’t need to tell you this is highly out of character for her.’
    ‘Aye,’ said Uncle Bill anxiously, creaking in his armchair.
    ‘So we’re assuming she may have suffered an accident, perhaps amnesia?’ Darkus asked with concern, before his slightly rusty detective mind arrived at a more sinister explanation. ‘Or perhaps she’s being held somewhere against her will …’ he concluded.
    Knightley frowned. ‘That is our assumption.’
    Jackie’s normally placid face clouded over. Tilly looked to Darkus, concerned. Darkus glanced away, still smarting from the fact that his stepsister had clearly taken his place as his dad’s partner in crime-solving. Childish as it might have seemed in the circumstances, Darkus couldn’t pretend everything was normal, when things were very, very far from normal.
    ‘What do we know about this “gentleman” she met online?’ Darkus addressed his father.
    Tilly ignored the step-sibling tension and answered for Knightley. ‘I conducted a cursory search of Bogna’s email inbox – approved by Alan, naturally …’
    Darkus flinched at Tilly using his dad’s first name – asif she and ‘Alan’ were old friends or colleagues, instead of acquaintainces joined by circumstance – not blood. Still, Darkus maintained a professional