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grudge. Anyone who issued threats.’
    Mul en nodded. ‘I’ve been trying to work on one over the weekend.’ His tone and the look he gave his wife were guilty, confessional, as though the fact that he’d been thinking about such things at al meant he’d been assuming the worst. ‘But I don’t think it’l be much help. Either my memory’s going or I didn’t make as many enemies as I thought.’
    ‘Wel , that makes our job easier,’ Porter said.
    ‘Right. Good.’ Thorne was trying to sound equal y positive, but he must have looked every bit as dubious as he felt.
    Mul en’s expression hardened. ‘Would you remember every one?’
    Thorne tried to stay composed and encouraging, tried to put the edge in Mul en’s voice down to stress, to blame the aggression on guilt and panic. ‘Probably not.’
    ‘How many people have you seriously pissed off, Detective Inspector Thorne? You needn’t include the ones you were supposed to be working with.’
    Thorne thought then that perhaps Jesmond had been a little more candid in his description of him after al . Or perhaps Tony Mul en was just a good judge of character. He said nothing; just considered what Mul en had told him about putting a list together. Thorne himself would have much less trouble, and doubted that he was unique. When it came to those who might have posed a serious threat to him, or to anyone he cared about, Thorne had no problem recal ing every last one of them.
    Hol and and Parsons appeared in the doorway at the same moment that the phone rang. Everyone, Thorne included, jumped slightly, and Maggie Mul en was first to her feet.
    ‘It’s important to try and stay calm . . .’
    ‘Love . . .’
    If she heard what either Porter or her husband said, Maggie Mul en chose to ignore it. Her eyes were fixed only on the phone as she crossed to where it sat on a low table near the window.
    A trace/intercept had, of course, been set up on the Mul ens’ home number as soon as the Kidnap Unit had been scrambled, with al incoming cal s monitored by Technical Support back at the Yard. If, as was most likely, the al -important cal were to come from an unregistered mobile, the Telephone Unit would immediately begin working on cel -site location, moving from place to place where required in a vehicle equipped with the necessary, state-of-the-art gadgetry.
    When she reached the phone, Mrs Mul en held out a hand; she turned and looked first at her husband, then across at Porter and Thorne.
    Porter nodded.
    Mrs Mul en took a deep breath and picked up the phone. She spoke the number quickly, waited, then shook her head. Her eyes closed and she turned away, muttering into the mouthpiece, fingers dragging through her long brown hair for the few seconds before she hung up.
    ‘Mags?’
    She walked slowly towards her husband’s chair, her voice splintering as she spoke, and Thorne could see relief and disappointment, inseparable, fighting it out in the fal of her face, and of her shoulders. He saw how wel -matched, how brutal, the two feelings could be.
    ‘Hannah. One of Juliet’s friends.’
    ‘It’s OK, love.’ Mul en was on his feet, moving to meet her.
    ‘Obviously we told everyone we could not to cal ,’ she said. ‘We wanted to make sure the line stayed clear, you know, in case Luke got in touch. In case anyone who had him tried to contact us. We tried to think of everyone, but there are a few people we must have forgotten . . .’
    Then Mul en’s arms were around her and pul ing her close. Her own hung at her sides, as though she suddenly lacked the strength to lift them. Her head bowed as she sobbed hard into his neck.
    Thorne beckoned Hol and and Parsons into the room with the coffee tray, then glanced at Porter, who raised her eyes from the floor to meet his. He was heartened to see that she found watching the embrace just as difficult as he did.

    AMANDA
    Everything changed the first time Conrad put a gun to her head in that petrol station in