The door is opened by a pretty woman in an apron who explains that she’s only here to clean, and Mrs Dawson is out in the garden. Everett makes her way down a flight of stairs into a huge kitchen running front to back and out into a garden dotted with apple trees. Portia’s mother sees her coming and makes her way up to meet her, a wicker basket over one arm. She’s tall and slender, with thick brown hair in a stylish asymmetrical cut, and a long cream tunic over khaki capri pants. The sort of woman who can make you feel dowdy, even when she’s deadheading the geraniums. Everett doesn’t have an outfit that expensive, even for best.
‘You have a beautiful house, Dr Dawson.’
‘Oh, Eleanor, please. I get enough doctoring at the hospital.’
She’s clearly used that line before, but the smile that goes with it seems genuine.
‘The garden is nice, isn’t it?’ she continues. ‘Though you should have seen it when we moved in. Complete building site. Which is exactly what it was, of course. The whole house had to be gutted. The Victorians might have built to last but these places are like fridges in the winter so we had to strip it back to the brick and start again with proper insulation. I was battling plaster dust for months.’
I rather suspect it was your cleaner who did that, thinks Everett, but she doesn’t voice the thought.
‘Well, it looks lovely now.’
‘That’s very sweet of you. Let’s go down to the summerhouse. Portia’s been there reading. We’re all so distraught about Daisy. Such a beautiful little girl and so bright – I remember her asking me once who Leonardo was. And she wasn’t talking about ninja turtles, either.’
She smiles. ‘Listen to me, rattling on. I should have asked – would you like tea?’
Everett’s about to trot out the usual no, but suddenly decides, to hell with it. ‘Yes, that would be great.’
‘Just let me ask Amélie to put the kettle on and I’ll be with you.’
Her French accent is perfect. And when the tea arrives, there are slices of lemon on a dish and milk in a jug. No cartons for the Dawsons, clearly.
Portia is sitting on a swing seat, a copy of Black Beauty on the chair beside her, and a large tabby cat on her lap. It doesn’t look like she’s been doing much reading. She’d looked sturdy on the CCTV but she doesn’t look so now. There are dark circles under her eyes and Everett guesses she hasn’t been eating much.
‘This is Detective Constable Everett, darling,’ says Eleanor Dawson, setting down the tray. ‘You remember? She wants to ask you about Daisy.’
‘Is that all right with you, Portia? It won’t take very long.’
‘It’s OK,’ says the girl, stroking the cat, which blinks its amber eyes for a moment before settling again with a sigh.
‘We’ve had a look at the footage from the CCTV outside the school gate, and it shows that you and Nanxi were probably the last people who saw Daisy before she left for home that day. Is that right?’
‘I think so.’
‘Were you all looking forward to the party?’
‘I wasn’t going.’
‘Really, why not? I thought all her class were invited. And you’re her best friends.’
Portia blushes. ‘Daisy forgot to tell us which day it was, and by the time she remembered Mum already had something else that day. Nanxi couldn’t go either.’
And if both her closest friends were absent, thinks Everett, that may explain why none of the children at the party seem to have noticed Daisy wasn’t there.
‘Did you go to the Connors’ house the day before, Portia? When the girls were trying on their costumes?’
Portia glances at her mother. ‘Yes, for a little while. I didn’t stay very long.’
‘What about Daisy’s house? Did you go there often? Do you know Daisy’s family?’
Portia looks away. ‘We used to come here instead. She said it was because it was closer to school but I think she liked my house better than hers.’
‘I see. When I spoke to Nanxi, she said Daisy had met someone recently, but it was supposed to be a secret. Do you know who that was?’
Portia shakes her head. ‘She talked about it. She was really happy, to start with. But after she said she didn’t want to talk about it any more. That if we were really her best friends we wouldn’t ask her. I’m sorry. I just don’t know anything.’
The girl is starting to look anxious and, seeing her mother’s concerned glance, Everett elects to change tack.
‘What’s the best thing about having Daisy as a friend?’
Portia brightens a little. ‘She’s really clever. She helps me with school stuff. And she does these – what do you call them – when you try to sound like someone else?’
‘Impersonations.’
‘She’s really good at them. She does one of her mother. And of famous people on the telly.’
‘TV,’ says Eleanor Dawson quietly. ‘We say “TV”.’
‘Do they make you laugh, the impersonations?’
Portia looks away. ‘Sometimes.’
‘And what’s the worst thing?’
Portia opens her mouth, then stops. ‘She listens,’ she says eventually, her face red.
‘You mean she eavesdrops?’
‘Sometimes she hides and you don’t know she’s there and she listens to what you say.’
‘I see,’ says Everett as her phone starts to ring. She gets up with an apologetic gesture and moves quickly to the shade of an apple tree that’s probably older than her flat. It’s Gislingham.
‘Boss wants us all back at the station in an hour.’
‘OK, I’m pretty much done. How did it go – the scan?’
She can almost hear him beaming. ‘All OK. And it’s a boy.’
‘Brilliant, Chris. I’m really pleased for you.’
‘We’re just finishing here so I’ll come and pick you up after I drop Janet at home.’
‘Give her my love. And tell her not to let you bully her into calling the baby something he won’t forgive you for. Like Stamford Bridge.’
‘Coming from someone called Verity Mabel, I’d call that pretty rich.’
But she knows he’s smiling.
***
At 3.30, I push open the door to the St Aldate’s incident room. I could hear the noise halfway down the passage, but as soon as they see me the room falls silent. Silence with the fizz of expectation. They have the bit between their teeth now.
I go to the front and turn to face them.
‘Right, I’m sure a lot of you have got wind of what’s happened today, but we all need to be on the same page, so bear with me. First, the appeal. We’ve had over a thousand calls so far, and the usual crop of supposed sightings halfway across the country but nothing that looks particularly promising. Yet. Certainly no authenticated sightings of Daisy after she left the school gate at 3.52 that afternoon, and contrary to what the Masons originally led us to believe, Sharon Mason did not pick the children up from school, so Daisy and Leo had to walk back. Mrs Mason has also just called me to confirm that her daughter’s school uniform is missing. All of which means we cannot completely discount the possibility that Daisy was abducted on her way home. On the other hand, we haven’t located the mermaid costume yet either, and given she can’t have been wearing both at the same time something clearly isn’t adding up. Likewise both parents insist that when Daisy came home from school that afternoon she went upstairs and put on her music. Both say they heard it, but neither of them actually saw her. So that isn’t adding up either. And I’m afraid there’s something else we need to factor in as well.’