"Does she like it?"

"I think so."

"I've missed so much school. I don't suppose I'll ever catch up."

"Sure you will. Bright girl like you."

Her teeth are chattering. "I'm getting very tired, Joe. I'm going to close my eyes for a little while."

"Stay awake, sweetheart. They won't be long. It's Christmas tomorrow."

"That's what George told me. Did they have the Christmas procession with all the lanterns at Oxford Castle?"

I look at Dale Hadley, who nods.

Piper yells excitedly. "Hey, I've just seen something. Lights. I can see lights flashing. It's a car!"

"Stay on the phone, Piper."

"I'M HERE! I'M HERE!" she yells. "They've seen me. They're slowing down. Tell Daddy I'll see him soon."

"Don't hang up... Piper?"

I'm listening to dead air.

Dale Hadley is in tears. He hugs Ruiz and he hugs me and then he hugs Ruiz again. He's like a man who's been given a second chance, who wants to stop people in the street and say how wonderful it is to be alive.

"They'll take her to the hospital first," I tell him. "They'll want to make sure she's all right."

"Can we go there?"

"Of course, but first we stop at the police station."

44.

Julianne calls. She's at home with the girls. I can hear them laughing in the background, Charlie tickling Emma, Christmas carols on the stereo.

"Where are you?" she says. "We're waiting."

"I'm truly sorry-but I won't make it tonight."

I don't have to see her face to gauge her reaction. It doesn't take words or sighs or a sullen silence. I know I've disappointed her. It's what she expected.

Rain zigzags off the windscreen, trembling at the edges of the gla.s.s. "Piper Hadley is alive," I say. "The police have found her. She's on her way to hospital."

"So you're the white knight again?"

"It's not like that."

In the silence that follows, Julianne chastises herself for being unreasonable. "I'm sorry. That was a terrible thing for me to say. Forgive me."

"Of course."

There is another long pause. I can picture her standing in the living room, biting on the corner of her lip. She's stronger than I am, surer of her place in the world, less burdened without me. I guess that makes her happier.

"I'll save you some dinner just in case you make it down. And I'll leave the key in the usual place."

"Thank you."

"I'm really happy about Piper Hadley. What a wonderful Christmas present for her family."

"Yes, it is."

The Range Rover pulls into a parking spot. Abingdon Police Station is lit up like a s.p.a.ceship with an angled turret that looks like a flying saucer has crashed into the roof and become stuck there.

From the moment I step through the door, I sense something is wrong. The incident room is deserted. Drury isn't in his office. A dozen people are crowded around the doorway of the control room. Pushing between shoulders, I make my way to the front. Dale Hadley follows me.

DCI Drury's voice comes over the two-way. Angry. Frustrated.

"OK, I want to go through this again. Mobile units, I want call signs, exact locations and personnel. Who picked up Piper Hadley? Which cars were on the road?"

One by one, the cars respond. DS Casey is using colored circles to represent each vehicle on a map of the area.

Drury's voice again.

"So what you're telling me is that not one of you has Piper Hadley?"

There is silence.

"I want roadblocks. Seal off the area. I want vehicles stopped and searched. Farmhouses, barns, outhouses, garden sheds-I want them all searched."

Dale Hadley looks from face to face. "We heard her. She saw headlights."

"It wasn't one of our vehicles," says DS Casey.

"Piper saw flashing lights?"

"She saw lights flashing through the trees," I say, "which is not the same thing."

Dale Hadley pauses, his mouth opens. No sound emerges. He's locked in a terrible wordless commune with himself. His legs buckle. Someone helps him to a seat.

"Where's Drury now?" I ask Casey.

"On his way back." He turns to Mr. Hadley. "I want to rea.s.sure you, sir, that we're doing everything we can to find your daughter. We know her last location. We have sealed off the area. We're also tracing the phone she was using. Previous calls. The positions. We'll unlock the history. Find out where she was held."

Hollow words. Dale Hadley has heard them before, the rea.s.surances and guarantees. Less than two hours ago, he rediscovered his daughter. Twenty minutes ago, he thought she was safe. Now she's been s.n.a.t.c.hed away again and he won't accept excuses or promises.

"I will get a family liaison officer to take Mr. Hadley home," says Casey.

"No, I want to stay."

"We'll keep you informed, sir."

"What if she calls me again? I should be here."

DS Casey gives in grudgingly.

"You'll have to allow us to do our jobs, Mr. Hadley. It's important we move quickly."

"Ruiz can look after him," I say. "He knows how it works."

DCI Drury arrives alone. The rest of his team have stayed at the scene, manning roadblocks and searching the surrounding fields. Several officers bring him up to speed. Drury is staring blankly at the floor. Something has gone horribly wrong. He can't explain how or why. He wants today over again or at least a second chance. He goes into his office, motioning me to follow.

Opening a bottom drawer, he produces a bottle of whisky, cracking the seal and pouring himself a slug in a coffee mug. He swallows it and squeezes his eyes shut as the liquor scalds his tongue and the warmth explodes in his empty stomach.

He raises the bottle.

"No thanks."

He pours another shot and screws on the lid, replacing the bottle in the drawer.

"How?" he mutters. "It was a private road. There can't be more than twenty cars a day. A member of the public would have called us by now. So who picked her up?"

"He must have been following her."

Drury rests his elbows on his desk, pressing his thumb pads into his eyes.

"The mobile phone that Piper used was purchased from a Vodafone shop in south London eighteen months ago. It was registered to a Trevor Bryant, an alias used by a local drug dealer called Eddie Marsh. We raided some of Eddie's properties a few months back."

"Where is Eddie Marsh now?"

"He jumped bail. In Marbella according to his ex-girlfriend."

"Does Marsh have any history of s.e.xual offences?"

"No."

"What about links with the men you've charged with a.s.sault?"

"We're looking." Drury changes tack. "Emily Martinez isn't answering her phone and her father didn't show up at work today. What can you tell me about him?"

"He matches the psychological profile."

"I can't base an arrest on a profile."

"He has the intellect, the experience, the knowledge and the motive."

"Still not hard evidence."

"You'll find it. You'll match his DNA to the farmhouse or you'll find his fingerprints."

The DCI looks rueful. "It's easy to have faith when you don't have to wear the failure."

There's a knock on the door. DS Casey appears. "Phone call, boss."

Drury picks up.

"Where?... Who owns the property?... You're sure? Check again." Strange bright fragments of possibility are firing in his mind. "Is there a caretaker?... Yeah... OK, contact him... I'm on my way."

He looks up at me.

"We've found where he kept the girls."

45.

On the journey south to Culham we pa.s.s through two police checkpoints patrolled by officers in reflective vests, waving motorists to the side of the road. Car boots are searched. Trucks. Trailers. Caravans.

Drury flashes his badge. A glowing wand waves us through. Less than half a mile further on we turn off onto an unmarked road that is guarded by a single-bar gate counterweighted with a metal block, padlocked in place. A wooden notice reads: PRIVATE ROAD-NO ACCESS.

Continuing along a muddy track, weaving between potholes, the road almost disappears in places, surrendering to the undergrowth. Other vehicles have forged a path. We come to a line of parked police cars and a white van. The doors open and two police dogs bound out, sniffing at tires and trees.

Ahead of us, an abandoned factory or warehouse is partially illuminated by headlights. Most of the buildings are single-story although exhaust stacks and flues suggest larger structures might lie below ground. The surrounding chain-link fence has collapsed in places under the weight of dead vines and trees felled by past storms.

The main gate cants drunkenly on wooden posts that have rotted to crumbling stumps. Immediately beyond, the road disappears beneath a ma.s.s of tangled brambles and spindly vines, grown to shoulder-height in places. A path has been hacked through the foliage.

Torches swing from building to building, lighting up small sections. Graffiti stains some of the more prominent walls, but the evidence is aged and faded. Windows are boarded up or broken. Doors are sealed or gape blackly open.

"It was abandoned in the eighties," says Drury. "Before that it was an emergency relocation site for the government-some sort of shelter in case the Ruskies launched a missile strike on the Harwell reactors. There were half a dozen complexes like this one."

The DCI shines a torch on a wall of rock that rises almost vertically above the compound.

"The whole site was once a quarry. They mined the rock for track ballast when they built the Great Western Railway. The main line is less than a hundred yards to the west of here."