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the same day they found little Caitlyn alone in the apartment, weeks before they found the note that proved him right. “Responsibility got too much. Kids, making ends meet, life. If I had a quid for every time I’d seen it . . .”
    But Sadie had refused to believe that theory. She’d gone off on a tangent of her own, floated fantastic suppositions about foul play, the sort that belonged only in mystery novels, insisting that a mother wouldn’t walk out on her kid like that, bleating on and on about combing through the evidence again, searching for the vital clue they’d missed.
    â€œYou’re looking for something you’ll never find,” Donald had told her. “Sometimes Sparrow—not bloody often, but sometimes—things really are as simple as they seem.”
    â€œLike you, you mean.”
    He’d laughed. “Cheeky mare.” And then his tone had softened, turning almost fatherly, which, as far as Sadie could see, was a whole lot worse than if he’d started yelling. “Happens to the best of us. Work this job long enough and eventually a case gets under your skin. Means you’re human, but it doesn’t mean you’re right.”
    Sadie’s breaths had steadied but there was still no sign of Ramsay. She called out to him and her voice echoed back from damp, dark places, Ramsay . . . Ramsay . . . Ramsay . . . the last frail repeat fading into nothing. He was the more reserved of the two dogs and it had taken longer to gain his trust. Fair or not, he was her favourite because of it. Sadie had always been wary of easy affection. It was a trait she’d also recognised in Nancy Bailey, Maggie’s mother; one she suspected had brought them closer together. A folie à deux it was called, a shared madness, two otherwise sane people encouraging each other in the same delusion. Sadie could see now that’s what she and Nancy Bailey had done, each feeding the other’s fantasy, convincing themselves there was more to Maggie’s disappearance than met the eye.
    And it had been madness. Ten years on the police force, five as a detective, and everything she’d learned had gone out the window the moment she saw that little girl alone in the stale flat; fine and dainty, backlit so her messed-up blonde hair formed a halo, eyes wide and watchful as she took in the two adult strangers who’d just burst through the front door. Sadie had been the one to go to her, taking her hands and saying, in a bright, clear voice she didn’t recognise, “Hello there, lovely. Who’s that on the front of your nightie? What’s her name?” The child’s vulnerability, her smallness and uncertainty, had hit hard right in the place Sadie usually kept steeled against emotion. During the days that followed, she’d felt the ghostly imprint of the child’s small hands in hers, and at night when she tried to sleep she’d heard that quiet, querulous voice saying, Mama? Where’s my mama? She’d been consumed by a fierce need to make things right, to return the little girl’s mother to her, and Nancy Bailey had proven the perfect partner. But while Nancy could be forgiven for clutching at straws, was understandably desperate to excuse her daughter’s callous behaviour, ameliorate the shock of her little granddaughter having been left alone like that and assuage her own guilt (“if only I hadn’t gone away with girlfriends that week I’d have found her myself’), Sadie ought to have known better. Her entire career, her entire adult life , had been built on knowing better.
    â€œRamsay,” she called again.
    Again, only silence in return, the sort marked by leaves rustling and distant water running down a rain-sodden ditch. Natural noises that had a way of making a person feel more alone. Sadie stretched her arms above her head. The urge to contact Nancy was physical, a