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Matthew took out his mobile and hit a number. ‘Jen, can you do me a favour please? Come to my house. There are two girls in the kitchen. I found them on the beach and their mother’s gone

missing. Sit with them. Find out a bit more about them. The family name is Sellers and they’re Olivia and Imogen. I don’t really want to be alone with them if I can’t find the woman.’

‘Course boss.’ The Scouse accent was reassuring. He’d been discomforted by the girls, with their hair pulled tight back from their faces and their watchful eyes. Jen would know the best way

to talk to them. ‘And see if you can track down their father. Apparently, he’s working away at the moment, but I don’t know what sort of business he’s in.’ ‘Sure.’ He could tell that she was

already moving and heard a door slam shut before the line went dead. Inside, the car seemed spotless, rubbish-free. It was hard to believe that a real family, real children had ever been

inside. Matthew liked order, had inherited an obsession with cleanliness from his evangelical mother, but even his car had an occasional sweet wrapper on the floor, or a used parking ticket

on the dashboard. He leant in and felt under the seats. Right at the back, under the driver’s seat, there was a half-bottle of vodka. Empty. He had a picture of the woman, sitting in her car

on the grand drive in the smart street, drinking herself into oblivion while the girls were in the house doing their homework. He assumed that the expensive school, which they considered

themselves lucky to attend, would give their pupils a lot of homework. If the mother were ill, an alcoholic, that might explain her daughters’ watchful eyes, their wariness. The girls would

be used to making excuses for her. She would have made them complicit. Perhaps the father had run away, unable to cope. But it wouldn’t explain the phone call that had caused Elizabeth to

pull into the side of the road, the diversion to Braunton Great Marsh and the beach with the girls still in the car. Something urgent must have brought her here. He climbed the shingle bank

and walked along the beach away from the house and towards Crow Point. He saw the woman almost immediately, sitting on the dry sand, her back to the dune. The girls had been searching in

quite the wrong direction. Because this must be Elizabeth Sellers. Who else could it be? He hadn’t seen her when he was standing with the girls because of the curve of the shore. She was

wearing a long down coat with the hood up. She was alone. If she’d been summoned to a meeting on the shore it was over. The way that the woman sat gave the impression that she was listless

and disheartened. Had she been brought here by her husband? Had she learned in some cold, bitter exchange that her marriage was finally over? Matthew’s work was all about what if? He was

always playing out different scenarios in his mind. Jonathan said that was why he was such a good detective; he had imagination, creativity. Matthew pictured a stand-off between two adults,

raised voices and tears, the father driving off in his expensive car, leaving the mother to come to terms with a new and lonely life. As he got closer, Matthew suspected that Elizabeth had

been drinking, all thoughts of her daughters forgotten. She seemed slumped against the sandbank. He imagined her drowning in self-pity and vodka, and he felt a flash of anger. These moments

of fury came to him occasionally, unbidden as strikes of lightning. He was always ashamed of his lack of control once they’d passed, but he thought now that the Sellers girls, with their

politeness and old-fashioned uniforms, deserved better. ‘Mrs Sellers?’ There was no reaction. No sign of life at all. And then another picture came into his head. A body on a beach. A man in

cheap jeans and a denim jacket, a tattoo of an albatross on his neck. The first murder case he’d investigated had begun not far from here. He began processing this as an unexplained death

and sorting his response: he would need a medic, and to contact his colleagues. Although this was more likely to be suicide, they’d need to be sure. At that point the woman turned her head.

The movement and her voice, pleasant and deep, startled him. ‘Yes?’ ‘I found your daughters on the beach. They’re in my house. They’re a little anxious, but quite safe.’ ‘Oh, I’m so sorry.

Poor things. I’ve been sitting here much longer than I realized.’ She didn’t sound drunk to him, but he knew that alcoholics could be magnificent actors. She started to scramble to her feet.

He held out a hand to help her up. Now he was very close to her, but he couldn’t smell drink on her breath or her clothes. ‘Is anything wrong? The girls said you were driving them to

school, when you got a call.’ ‘Did they?’ She looked up at him. Her hood had fallen away from her face. Her skin was very pale and smooth, her mouth a little too wide, her blond hair short

and expertly cut. ‘No nothing wrong. Not really. I was feeling under the weather and needed some fresh air.’ ‘I’m a police officer. It’s in my nature to be suspicious. To ask awkward

questions.’ She said nothing and swept loose sand from her coat with her hands. The sunlight caught the grains and made them sparkle like gold dust. He continued. ‘The girls will be very

late for school.’ ‘Yes.’ She gave him a little smile. ‘I suppose they will. I should go and collect them, get them on their way.’ He wasn’t sure what else to say. Perhaps he was making a

drama out of a rather trivial domestic incident. He had no proof that a crime had been committed, or that the children were in any kind of danger. Elizabeth set off along the beach, walking

very quickly. He was about to say that it might be easier if they cut across the bank and walked along the track, but she’d already turned the corner of the point and they could see the

white house ahead of them. ‘That’s my house,’ he said. ‘That’s where they are.’ ‘It was very kind of you to take them in.’ She spoke as if this was a final comment and there was nothing more

to say. He supposed that when they got to the house, she would call the children to her, and they would obey immediately and follow her out to her car. They would drive away and he would

have no reason to be involved again. The thought made him feel sick, panicky. He could call social services and explain his unease, but emergency social workers had many cases of neglect and

cruelty to investigate. Would they really see this as a safeguarding issue? A mother had felt unwell, left her children in the car while she went for a walk and got some air. Perhaps that

would be considered a more responsible thing to do than to continue driving. He thought he would contact the school later and see if they had any concerns. He could do that, at least. +++

Approaching the house, he saw Jen’s car in the drive and immediately relaxed a little. Jen didn’t suffer from flights of fancy. Through the long window, he saw the three of them in the

kitchen. Olivia was reading a book, frowning with concentration, and Imogen was drawing. They were ignoring Jen, who seemed to be trying to engage with the younger girl, standing behind her

looking down at the picture. But she might not have been there, so absorbed were the girls in what they were doing. ‘Who’s that?’ Elizabeth’s voice was sharp, almost imperious. ‘A colleague.

I asked her to look after your daughters while I came to find you.’ The woman nodded, almost relieved it seemed. ‘Thanks so much for all your trouble. We can leave you in peace now.’ ‘Why

don’t you come in for a coffee?’ ‘Oh no,’ she said. ‘That’s very kind, but I really should get them to school.’ Jen had seen them approaching the house and came to the door to meet them.

Elizabeth Sellers shouted across her to her daughters inside the kitchen. ‘Come along girls. Time to go! Please thank the lady for looking after you.’ ‘Not yet,’ Jen said. She blocked the

doorway with her body. The girls, who were starting to pack up, looked confused. Jen turned back to them. ‘I bet you’re a bit peckish. I happen to know that the blue tin on the bench there

is where Matthew keeps his biscuits. Why don’t you help yourselves? Finish that drawing, Imogen. It’s brilliant. I just want a quick chat with your mum.’ The girls sat, frozen. Imogen looked

at her mother for permission, expecting, it seemed, to be denied the treat. But Elizabeth nodded. Jen had taken her coat from a kitchen chair and pulled it on over her jeans and sweater.

‘It’s a bit parky outside, but I could do with some good clean air. We’ll sit here, shall we? We don’t want the girls ear-wigging.’ She was acting as if she owned the place, leading them to

garden chairs placed around a white wrought-iron table. The trees to the side of the house were bare and it felt as if they were surrounded by space and light. Exposed. In the summer Matthew

and Jonathan sat here after work, with a glass of wine, looking at the sunset. Now the seat was icy through his clothes and his breath came in clouds. ‘Well,’ Jen said to the woman sitting

opposite to her, facing out at the view, the wide sky and the estuary slowly filling up with water. ‘What’s been going on at home?’ ‘I don’t know what you mean.’ ‘I’ve been phoning around,’

Jen said. ‘One of my posh neighbours has a daughter at your girls’ school. Brookes is it called? Seems your kids haven’t been there since Christmas.’ ‘Ah yes, it’s their first day back for a

week. They’ve been a little unwell.’ The woman’s voice was tense, tight.