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sign.’
    Holly was taken aback. Fear fluttered beneath her breastbone again. This was not right.
    ‘Is that Dr Ansell’s car outside?’ PC Caldwell asked.
    ‘Yes.’ Holly rubbed her tired eyes. ‘He can’t have driven anywhere.’
    ‘Perhaps a friend came to pick him up,’ PC Caldwell suggested. ‘Or he walked to meet someone.’
    ‘In the middle of the night?’ Holly said. ‘Without his phone?’
    PC Caldwell’s expression hardened. ‘It’s hardly unknown, Miss Ansell. I imagine he thought Florence was asleep and slipped out. Perhaps he’s lost track of the time.’
    ‘That would be ridiculously irresponsible.’ Holly felt furious and tried to rein herself in. She was tired, worried.She had driven a long way. She needed to calm down. Evidently PC Caldwell thought so too.
    ‘We fully expect Dr Ansell to turn up in the morning,’ she said coldly. ‘When he does, please could you let us know? We’d like to have a word.’
    ‘You’ll have to stand in line,’ Holly said. Then: ‘I’m sorry. Yes, of course. But …’ Doubt and fear stirred within her again. The emotions were nebulous but strong. Her instinct told her that Ben had not simply walked out.
    ‘He left his phone,’ she said. ‘And all his stuff’s scattered about. It doesn’t look as though he planned to go out.’
    PC Caldwell was already signalling discreetly to her colleague that it was time to leave. She seemed completely uninterested.
    ‘We’ve traced Mrs Ansell,’ she said. ‘She’s on her way back from Spain but might not make it until tomorrow night. Apparently she’s been,’ she checked her note pad, ‘helicopter skiing in the Pyrenees?’ She sounded doubtful.
    ‘Very probably,’ Holly said dryly. ‘Tasha works for a travel show –
Extreme Pleasures?’
    ‘Oh yes!’ Marilyn Caldwell’s face broke into a smile. ‘Wow! Natasha Ansell. Of course! How exciting. Well—’ She stopped, realising that the situation did not really merit celebrity chit-chat. ‘We’ll be back tomorrow,’ she said. She turned on an afterthought. ‘Do you know what your brother was doing here, Miss Ansell?’
    ‘It’s his holiday cottage,’ Holly said. ‘We co-own it.’ She rubbed her eyes again, feeling the grittiness of them. Suddenly she was so tired she wanted to sleep where she was standing. ‘He was down here with Flo whilst Tasha was awayworking,’ she said. ‘He said he was doing some research. Family history. It’s quiet here. A good place to think.’
    PC Caldwell nodded. ‘Right,’ she said. Holly could see her wondering how on earth someone as glamorous as Tasha could be mixed up in a messy situation like this with a man whose idea of fun was family history research.
    ‘Well,’ the policewoman said. ‘We’ll call back to chat to Mrs Ansell tomorrow.’
    I bet you will,
Holly thought.
    She felt utterly furious, livid with PC Caldwell for being more interested in Tasha’s fame than in Ben’s disappearance, angry that Tasha hadn’t even bothered to ring her to make sure it was OK for her to look after Flo until she got back, and most annoyed of all with Ben for vanishing without a word. The anger helped her, because behind it the fear still lurked, the sense that something was wrong and out of kilter, that Ben would never voluntarily disappear leaving his daughter alone.
    Bonnie, picking up on Holly’s mood, made a soft whickering noise and Holly saw Florence look up from the storybook. Her niece’s eyes lit up to see them and she scrambled from the sofa.
    ‘Aunt Holly!’ Florence rushed towards her, arms outstretched. ‘You came!’ Holly scooped her up automatically, feeling the softness of Florence’s cheek pressed against hers, inhaling the scent of soap and shampoo. Florence clung like a limpet, her hot tears scalding Holly’s neck. Holly could feel her niece’s fear and desolation and her heart ached for her. Security was such a fragile thing when you were a child. She understood that better