But, of course, it wasn’t possible.

“I’d probably struggle with a babysitter,” I said.

“Right. I get you. Hang on a second.” She reached into her coat and produced a card. “I realized you hadn’t got my details. All my contact stuff is on there. If you want it, I mean.”

Yes, I wanted it.

“Thanks.” I took the card. “I’ve not got one of my own.”

“Duh. Just text me so I’ve got your number.”

“Obviously. Duh indeed.”

She paused at the front door.

“How’s Jake today?”

“Miraculously well,” I said. “I really have no idea how.”

“I do. Like I said, you’re too hard on yourself.”

And then she headed off down the path. I watched her go for a moment, then looked down at the card in my hand. Thinking. It was the second card I’d received today, and both were complicated in their different ways. But, God, a drink out with Karen would be good. It felt like something people did, and that it should really be possible for me to do it as well.

Once I was back in the living room, I took out my phone and thought about the situation a whole lot more. Hesitating. Unsure.

Just text me so I’ve got your number.

In the end, it wasn’t the first message I sent.

Forty-four

Back at the department, the operations room was alive with activity. While most of the officers were continuing with their existing actions, a small number were now focused on the key task of tracking down Frank Carter’s son, Francis, and that knowledge had galvanized everyone. The renewed energy in the room was tangible. After two months of moving in circles and following fruitless leads, it felt like a new path had opened up for them.

Not that it would necessarily go anywhere, Amanda reminded herself. It was always best not to get your hopes up.

But always so hard not to.

“No,” Pete said.

He added another sheet of paper to the pile on the desk between them.

“No,” she replied, adding one of her own.

After Frank Carter’s trial and conviction, Francis and his mother had moved away, and because of the infamy of the case, they had been given new identities—an opportunity to begin fresh lives, without the shadow of the monster they had lived with hanging over them. Jane Carter had become Jane Parker; Francis had become David. After that, the pair of them had effectively disappeared. They were common, anonymous names, which was presumably one reason why they had been chosen. The task facing Amanda and Pete now was to find the correct David Parker out of the thousands living in the country.

Next sheet. This David Parker was forty-five years old. The one they were looking for would be twenty-seven.

“No,” she said.

And so it went.

They worked through the names mostly in silence. Pete was intent on the pages before him, and she presumed that his focus was a way of distracting himself. The conversation he’d had with Frank Carter must have shaken him as much as all the others, but there was an added tension now. Pete had met Carter’s son when Francis was a child. He had effectively saved the boy. Knowing Pete as she was beginning to, it was easy to imagine what was going through his head right now. He would be asking hard questions of himself. What if Pete’s actions back then had planted a seed that had grown into this fresh horror? What if, despite his best intentions, this was all somehow his fault?

“We can’t be sure that Francis is involved,” she said.

“No.”

Pete added another sheet of paper to the pile.

Amanda sighed to herself, frustrated by the knowledge that nothing she could say right now was going to rescue Pete from his thoughts. But what she had said was true. As terrible an upbringing as Francis Carter might have suffered, she had seen plenty of people emerge from horrific, abusive childhoods and grow into decent adults. There were as many paths out of hell as there were people, and the vast majority of them ascended.

She was also familiar enough with the original investigation to know that Pete had done nothing wrong—that he had worked the case as well as anybody could, even going above and beyond in his dogged pursuit of Jane Carter. He had followed his gut instinct, focused on Frank Carter, and eventually brought the man down. While he hadn’t been able to save Tony Smith in time, it was impossible to save everyone. There would always be mistakes you never saw in time.

And thinking about Neil Spencer, she knew she needed to cling to that herself. She didn’t want to believe that the things you missed—the things you never even had the opportunity to hit—could weigh you down so much that they threatened to drown you.

She turned her attention back to the paperwork, working her way steadily through the list of David Parkers.

“No.”

The papers piling up.

“No.”

The words formed a predictable pattern. No. No. No. It was only when she’d done three in a row without a response that she noticed Pete had been silent for longer than he should have been. She looked up at him hopefully, but then realized he had stopped paying attention to the forms on the table. Instead, he had his cell phone in his hands, and was staring at that.

“What?” she said.

“Nothing.”

And yet it clearly wasn’t. In fact, she couldn’t quite believe her eyes. Because Pete appeared to be smiling. Could that actually be the case? It was the smallest of expressions, but she realized she’d never seen even that before. He’d always been so stern and serious—so dark, like a house in which the owner stubbornly refused to turn on any lights. Right now, though, a single room seemed to be illuminated. A text message, she guessed. Maybe it was a woman? Or a man, of course; after all, she knew next to nothing about his private life. Regardless, she liked seeing this unfamiliar expression on his face. It was a welcome break from the intensity she had become used to, and which made her worry about him.

She wanted this new light to stay.

“What?” She asked it more teasingly this time.

“Just someone asking if I’m free for something this evening.” He put the phone on the table, the smile disappearing. “Which obviously I’m not.”

“Don’t be ridiculous.”

Pete looked at her.

“I’m serious,” she told him. “Technically speaking, this is my case, not yours. I’ll stay as long as I have to, but listen, you are going home at the end of the day.”

“No.”

“Yes. And you can do whatever you want when you get there. I’ll keep you up to date with any developments.”

“It should be me.”

“It absolutely should not. Even if we find the right David Parker, we have no idea how or even if he’s involved. It’s just a conversation. And I think it would be better for him and for you if someone else handles that. I know how much this case means to you, but you can’t live in the past, Pete. Other things matter too.” She nodded at his phone. “Sometimes you’ve got to leave it at the door at the end of the day. Do you know what I mean?”

He was silent for a moment, and she thought he was about to protest again. But then he nodded.

“You can’t live in the past,” he repeated. “You’re right about that. More right than you know.”