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stomach. He had got drunk, played the fool, not bothered to see that his sister got home safely. And now thepotential consequences of his completely out-of-character bout of irresponsibility were too dire even to think about.
    ‘I’ll come with you, boy,’ said his father. ‘Let’s take the Land Rover and walk it in stretches. Then we’ll have a vehicle to bring her back in.’
    But Rob didn’t think his father sounded as if he believed he would be bringing Angela back. Nobody had criticised Rob. Not yet. But he knew that would come. He could hardly bear to think about what this would do to his family.
    As soon as the men had departed, Lillian Phillips and her daughter-in-law started to telephone people: Jeremy Thomas and any other friends of Angela’s whose homes she could possibly have reached on foot.
    Jeremy answered the phone sleepily, as if he had been woken by it, even though it was mid-morning. No, Angela had not been to his house last night, he said. And then, as if the significance of what he was being asked had suddenly dawned on him he exclaimed abruptly, ‘Oh, my God! I’ll be right over.’
    ‘No, Jeremy,’ said Lillian at once. ‘We couldn’t cope with anybody else here right now. We’ll call you as soon as we have any news.’ Then she hung up before she had to explain or discuss the situation any further.
    Her daughter-in-law had given up and Lillian was speaking to the final friend of Angela’s she could think of when Constable Pete Trescothwick’s panda car pulled into the yard. Mary, even more pale and drawn-looking than she had been throughout her troubled pregnancy, opened the door and ushered the constable in.
    Pete Trescothwick was young and green. He was bright enough, though, and it didn’t take him long with the two women to begin to fear, as they obviously did, that something very serious had happened to Angela. His instinct was to believe that he was being told the truth and that Angela had indeed never returned home from the dance. Nonetheless there were procedures to go through. ‘Do you mind if I have a look around?’ he asked.
    Lillian Phillips appeared slightly bemused. ‘She’s not here, Constable, I told you. Do you think I wouldn’t know if she were here?’
    Trescothwick coughed to hide his embarrassment. A search of the home of a missing person or victim of a violent crime was standard procedure. So many crimes were committed within the family set-up. Where there should be the greatest safety there was so often the greatest danger. Everybody in the Devon and Cornwall Constabulary knew about the major hunt for a missing woman over in Plymouth that had gone on for several days and all the time she was in the garage wrapped up in a carpet. There were certain police officers involved in that one whose careers had come to a sudden dramatic halt. Pete Trescothwick had no intention of allowing that to happen to him, despite his gut reaction that the distress of the Phillips family was one hundred per cent genuine. But he did try to be as tactful as he could. ‘Just routine,’ he said in a casual voice.
    Not casual enough to fool Lillian Phillips, it seemed. ‘You’re not suggesting that we’ve got her here somewhere, are you?’ she asked sharply. ‘You’re surely not suggesting anyone in this house has hurt our Angela?’
    ‘Of course not, Mrs Phillips, just routine, like I said. There’s a way we have to go about things.’
    But the distraught woman interrupted him and now she sounded close to breaking point. ‘Just go and find her, find my Angela, please,’ she screamed at him, her voice high-pitched, desperate, her tears suddenly flowing freely. ‘Don’t waste your time here. Go and find her. Something terrible has happened to her, I just know it …’
    Pete Trescothwick shifted uncomfortably from foot to foot.
    Mary Phillips came to his rescue. ‘C’mon, Mum,’ she said soothingly. ‘Let me make you a cup of tea and we’ll let the constable get on.