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or maybe it was just the way that her hair was never untidy, her nose never ran, her shoes were always polished. Not that she was smartly dressed. Bob liked girls to look like girls; he particularly liked the skirts that were coming into fashion now with the nipped-in waists and stiff petticoats. Emma wore tweed and grey flannel and she often wore slacks. Today, he supposed, that was allowable but as a rule he didn’t like women wearing trousers (he would be horrified to realise that he had inherited this prejudice from his Methodist minister father).
    Emma was writing notes, her hair falling forwards over her face. Even her hair was slightly too short, although he supposed it was a nice colour. He thought of her at the school, sitting on the floor with the children and chatting to them about the snow. She’d certainly got a lot out of them.
    Her thoughts must have been running along the same lines because she said, ‘Thank you for saying that to the DI. About me being good with the children.’
    ‘Well, you were.’
    He wanted to ask if she had younger brothers and sisters but it seemed too intrusive somehow. There was something about Emma, something guarded and cool, that prevented you getting too close, like Snow White in her glass coffin (he had been to see the film with his mother during the war and it had had a great effect on him; he had had nightmares about the huntsman for weeks). He knew Emma lived in Brighton but that was all. Did she share a flat with other glossy, confident girls, the way they did nowadays, or was she living on her own? Bob had a room at the top of a tall, gloomy house on Third Avenue. He never asked himself if he was lonely because he was afraid of the answer.
    ‘Are you writing up today’s interviews?’ he asked.
    ‘Yes. I’m sure the plays and the acting are important somehow.’
    ‘Weird about the bloke with the theatre in his garage.’
    ‘Yes.’ She had her prim look on. ‘We’ve got no reason to suspect him though.’
    ‘Except he knew both children and he’s a weirdo.’
    Emma said nothing and for a few moments the only sounds in the room were the pipes gurgling and Emma’s pen scratching. Bob was looking through the witness statements.
    ‘The boy who saw the children arguing . . .’
    ‘Arthur Bates?’
    ‘Yes. Do we have an address for him?’
    Emma checked her notebook. ‘Queen’s Park Road.’
    ‘Where’s that?’
    ‘The other side of the park. It’s posher than Freshfield Road.’
    Bob made a note. ‘Have you always lived in Brighton?’ he asked.
    ‘Yes, I was born here.’
    ‘What was it like here in the war?’
    ‘Not much fun. There was barbed wire along the beach. Lots of soldiers and sailors everywhere. I didn’t see too much of it. I was evacuated to the Lake District.’
    ‘Were you? Did Brighton get bombed then?’
    ‘No, but they always thought it would be.’
    ‘They got Maidstone a few times. I remember Mill Street being bombed and going with my brother to look in the rubble.’
    ‘Have you got lots of brothers and sisters?’
    ‘Two older brothers. Archie was in the RAF, hell of a fellow. Colin’s only a year older than me. He’s a draughtsman. What about you?’
    ‘I’m an only child.’
    She said it in her closing-down-the-conversation voice. Bob took the hint. ‘Might be worth going to see young Arthur again,’ he said. ‘What do you think?’
    *
    Sandra Francis opened the door immediately. She too was hoping for news. Her husband, Jim, was also out searching.
    ‘He won’t stop until the light fades,’ said Sandra. ‘That’s the sort of man he is.’
    She didn’t say this admiringly, more with a sort of weary knowledge of her spouse. What sort of a man was Jim Francis? thought Edgar. When he first met him, on the day of the children’s disappearance, he’d thought him an unlikely partner for the careworn yet obviously genteel Sandra Francis. Jim was a big man, handsome in a rock-like way. Maybe this was what had