Twenty minutes after her phone danced across the bedside table, ripping her from another nightmare, Cara pulled onto a gravel driveway and killed her beaten-up car’s engine.

It was almost half two in the morning.

Groggy and disoriented, Cara had grabbed the vibrating phone before it could plunge over the table’s edge.

“Sarge?”

The nightmare dimmed as she spoke, but wakefulness would not banish it. This was not a monster-beneath-the-bed variety of bad dream, rather a memory reshot as a horror film and replayed whenever she closed her eyes.

“Cara, I’m sorry to call so late. Sorry to call at all, you still being off.”

“It’s fine.”

Although it wasn’t. Had one of her friends phoned, she would have ignored the call. Not that it was likely to have been. By now, most of her mates had stopped calling. She would have liked to have ignored her Sergeant, too. But she had never been good at disobeying authority.

She said, “What’s up?”

A long pause.

Then, “I need a favour.”

The house was made from stone and had no garden. A waist-high boundary fence and a narrow strip of green separated the property from seemingly endless woods. Such was the case with many houses in Pivert. Though not Cara’s.

She hesitated at the front door, her boss’s words ringing in her ears.

“Does the name Vincent Symonds mean anything to you?”

“Yeah. He was… he knew…”

Sarge got it.

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. I’ve known Vincent since I was a kid, but not well. He was a family acquaintance rather than a family friend. What’s happened?”

Breaking her hesitance, Cara knocked, wishing she had learned in school how to say no to people in positions of power. She shouldn’t be here. She couldn’t be. She wasn’t ready.

The sound of her knocking fist reverberated through the quiet night. While waiting, she pictured Vincent Symonds at the dining table with her father. Two men talking about man things. They never seemed to smile.

“Thank you for doing this,” Sarge had said. “And if you ever need to talk—”

A woman of at least eighty opened the door, as a spark of guilt flashed within Cara. She had shouted goodbye and hung up on her boss, terrified he would mention her father. There was no way she could have handled that.

“Well, well,” said the elderly woman who had opened Vincent’s door. “If it isn’t Eddie Edmundson’s daughter. Is this about a school project?”

Hearing her father’s name rocked Cara, but only briefly before the school project comment provided an excellent distraction from her grief.

“A what? It’s two in the morning.”

“Well, quite, and people are trying to sleep. Why must teenagers leave everything to the last minute?”

“I’m not a… this isn’t about—” Cara pulled herself together. “I’m twenty-two.”

“Are you? Good heavens.”

“You called the police. I’m a police officer.”

The octagenarian cast a look at Cara’s jeans, scruffy tee shirt and scuffed white trainers.

“I see it’s true what the papers are saying about slipping standards in the force. I suppose that’s what happens when you hire teenagers.”

“I’m not a teenager,” said Cara, aware that she sounded like a petulant teenager.

“Oh, yes, you mentioned.” A wry smile suggested the older woman was teasing. Even so, Cara’s cheeks burned.

“I’m not on duty. I’m here as a favour to my boss. Is Florence here?”

She thought the older woman might reject her. Wouldn’t have minded if she did. But no.

“She is. Why don’t you come in.” She turned into the house, then paused. “I’m Harriet, by the way, and I’m ever so sorry for your loss.”

“Cara.” There was a lump in her throat, so she had to force out a “thank you.”

“I knew him a little. He was a good man.”

Cara felt the tears in her eyes. This time, she could say nothing at all.

“In you come, dear,” said Harriet. “I’ll make you a drink.”

Most of the lights were off. Florence sat in the dark dining room, bathed in light that spilt from the kitchen over her shoulders. She had on a fluffy dressing gown, the hood pulled up. Her hands were clasped around a mug of steaming hot chocolate.

“Florence,” said Harriet. “Someone to see you. Cara is a police officer.”

“I’m not here in an official capacity,” Cara said, coming to the dining room table. “I know you called the police about your… your father. Some officers will be here soon.”

Florence nodded but did not look up or meet Cara’s eye. Not that there would have been recognition. Vincent and Cara’s father might have had something passing for a relationship, but the families had never spent time together. Cara had only seen Florence from a distance.

“Take a seat,” said Harriet. “I’ll get you that drink.”

“Thank you.” Cara sat opposite Florence.

“Tea? Coffee?”

“Just water would be great.”

Harriet looked at Florence. “You’re okay?”

Florence nodded. Harriet squeezed the girl’s shoulder and entered the kitchen. Only once she was gone did Florence meet Cara’s eye.

“Hi,” she said.

“Hey.”

The girl had to be eleven or twelve. She had long, tied-back dark hair and eyes so bright they shone despite the bags beneath and the glasses over them.

“I understand you woke up, and your father was gone?”

“Yeah.” She brushed a stray hair from her face. “Car was gone. And his keys and phone. He left his wallet. There’s no note.”

Despite her evident anxiety, the girl spoke clearly, enunciating each word. Cara was impressed by this, as well as the checking Florence had done before alerting the police of her father’s absence.

“That’s when you called the police?”

“Yep. And went to Harriet.”

“I live next door,” said Harriet, re-entering with a glass of water. “I fear I was a bit sharp with Florence when I answered the door.”

“She threatened to bash my head in with a mop.”

“That’s not true,” said Harriet. “It was a broom.”

“She was holding it.”

“When one is woken before dawn by a knock at the door, one does not answer it in the best mood.”

“She’s been great, though.” Florence favoured Harriet with an affectionate smile, which Harriet returned.

“Well, my colleagues will be here soon,” said Cara. “I thought it might help if I explained what’ll happen when they get here and what happens next.”

But Florence said, “I already know.”

“You…” Cara tailed off as she realised what she was missing. “Your mum.”

Having grown up with only a father, Cara had failed to consider that most children, waking to find their father missing, would have gone to their mother, not next door. Realising this, Cara turned her mind to a case from the previous year involving a woman named something Symonds. Her heart sank.

“She went missing.”

“A year ago,” said Harriet. “So Florence has done all this before. She knows the beats.”

Harriet came to the table and squeezed the child’s shoulder again.

“Except,” she continued, “she’d quite like it if you could find her parent alive this time.”