`And remember, it's not just about where these people are, it's who they are. I want everything we can dig up about this family. Social media, emails, phone records, the lot. Have we found anything useful at the house? Computers? Tablets?'
Gislingham shakes his head. `Not yet. Esmond must have had an office or study or something but the fire boys haven't found it yet. If you ask me, it's under half a ton of rubble. But they'll let us know if they find anything.'
I look around the room. `So in the meantime, let's talk to anyone who knew the family, lived near them or worked with them. How did they spend their time? And their money? Where did they come from and is there anything at all in their lives that could have provoked this?'
People are making notes, conferring quietly.
`Right. Everyone know what they're doing? Good. And DC Quinn? A word, please. In my office.'
`It's got to stop, Quinn. And don't pretend you don't know what I'm talking about.'
He glances at me, and then down.
`DC Somer is a good officer, doing a good job. In fact, the only mistake I'm aware she's made is having a relationship with you, however brief. But she seems to have moved on from that `“ what I don't understand is why you can't.'
He rakes a hand through his hair. He looks awful. I'm sure that's yesterday's shirt. It's certainly yesterday's tie. But who am I to talk. It takes one to know one.
`Sit down. Let's talk about this.'
He seems in two minds, but then pulls out a chair.
`I know being demoted must have been complete crap, but you really only have yourself to blame. That whole episode `“ sleeping with a suspect `“'
`I never slept with her `“ how many more times!'
But he knows that's going too far. Shouting at me isn't going to help. And in any case, that was a classic Bill Clinton. And we both know it.
`Sorry, sir,' he says.
`You were offered the transfer and you decided not to take it.'
But I did sympathize with him on that one. Starting over somewhere else isn't that easy. He has a flat, a mortgage, a life. But if you stay, you have to suck it up, however sour.
`Look, Quinn, the only thing you can do now is deal with it. Focus on the bloody job. And don't take it out on Somer. It was nothing to do with her. You'd be really pissed off if the boot was on the other foot. She's being a model of restraint by comparison.'
He makes a face. `I know. It's just that this time last year I was a DS and she was still in uniform. And now `“'
Now they're both on the same level. And her trajectory is definitely up. As for his, well, I'm not putting any money on it.
`And the whole bloody station is still talking about it,' he finishes, biting his lip. I think he may actually be close to tears.
I lean forward. `I'm going to sound like your dad now, but the only reason everyone's still talking about it is because you keep reminding them. You took your punishment `“ you don't have to keep on taking it. So drop it `“ move on. And start by leaving Somer alone. OK?'
He's not looking at me. I drop my head, forcing his gaze. `OK, Quinn?'
He breathes in, holds his breath a minute, then looks up. `Yes, boss.'
He smiles. It's not much of a smile, but it's a start.
Andrew Baxter goes back to his desk and logs on to his PC. He checks his watch `“ he can get at least a couple of hours in before the end of the day. Right then, he thinks, let's start with the obvious. He logs on to Facebook and searches for Michael Esmond, grateful that `“ for once `“ he's looking for a relatively unusual name. The last search like this was for someone called David Williams; there were bloody hundreds of them. Esmond, on the other hand, throws up only a handful, and in less than five minutes he has his man. Not that it tells him very much. It's more like LinkedIn than Facebook `“ a self-congratulatory CV, a couple of stiff photos, some dull predictable Likes. There's also a Philip Esmond listed as a friend, though `“ as the name suggests `“ he turns out to be a brother rather than a mate. A year or so older and, judging by his Facebook presence, about as chalk to his brother's cheese as it's possible to imagine. He has the same colouring but there's an energy, a twinkle, that's entirely missing from his brother's face. He also has five times the friends and, on the face of it, at least three times the fun. Including sailing his boat single-handed to Croatia. It's a Jeanneau Sun Odyssey 45 called Freedom 2. There are shots of it just before departure, with people on the quayside waving Philip off (though, as Baxter notes, his brother isn't one of them), then some selfies taken on board and some shots of Atlantic winter sunsets that suggest he's no mean hand with a camera either. The last was posted a few days before, saying he might be out of reach of mobile phone comms but to leave a message if it's urgent. Safe to say the current situation probably meets the test.
Baxter writes down the details of Michael Esmond's dozen or so other FB friends, noting as he does so all he's posted in the last six months are a couple of updates on the book he was writing and four or five on the conference at King's. He obviously thought that was a pretty big deal. Samantha Esmond's page is much more animated, at least at first sight. A big photo album of pictures: in the garden, on the beach, feeding ducks on what looks like the Oxford canal, standing with another woman in a shop Baxter's pretty sure is in Summertown; then a whole series of school sports days and fetes, including a picture of a slightly lopsided cake tagged `My effort' with a rueful emoji face. But looking more closely, most of the pictures were loaded more than four years ago. After that there are a few selfies of her heavily pregnant, her face blurred or half in shadow, and one of a newborn in a hospital crib, tagged `At last'. No name, no weight, no sex. And after that, hardly anything. One or two brief updates talking about the baby, but hardly any photos after his first birthday, and in the last three months, nothing at all. Which, judging by Baxter's (admittedly limited) experience of the social media habits of proud new parents, strikes him as decidedly odd. Janet Gislingham's timeline bristles with Billy `“ no change is too minute to go unchronicled, no development too trivial to show the world. Quinn once observed sardonically that she might as well post his puke and have done with it, but he didn't get the laugh he was expecting. Too many people remembered how close Janet came to not having a son to photograph at all.
Baxter sits back and exhales a long slow breath. Then he sits forward and goes back through the photo album a second time. It starts when Matty was about three, and Baxter scrolls through watching him grow from a chubby contented toddler to a skinny kid with glasses too big for him. The little Matty beams up at the camera, holding out shells, pebbles, an ice cream, a snail; his older self seems to do his best to evade it, caught off-centre or looking away. In one he's hiding behind his father's legs, or at least you have to assume it's his father, since the man is cut off at the chest. Baxter frowns, and scrolls through again, registering for the first time how few shots Michael Esmond is actually in. A couple of the holiday snaps early on `“ playing cricket on the sand, on a fairground ride with Matty on his lap `“ but not much else. In one of the more recent ones Matty's in the garden with a dark-haired man in the background who's presumably Esmond, but he's mowing the lawn with his back to the camera and he's a long way away. Baxter scrolls back to the school shots `“ dads don't get to duck that sort of thing these days `“ but he can't see Michael. It's only now he realizes that the school in question is Bishop Christopher's, and as he looks more closely he sees faces he recognizes from the Daisy Mason case. The head, one or two of the teachers, some of the children they interviewed, and finally, with a jolt, Daisy herself, coming second in the egg-and-spoon, her small face a model of furious determination. It's 2016 `“ the last summer term before she disappeared `“ and from what Baxter can see here, Matty Esmond was in the same class. It can't be connected `“ it can't even be relevant `“ but it brings something to the forefront of his mind which is always in the background for any police officer: after the case is solved, and the culprits apprehended, and the world goes back to `normal', what then? Can anything really be `normal' after a case like that? A child disappears and never comes back, and when her classmates start the new school year she isn't there. Everyone always says how resilient kids are, but is that just another lie adults keep repeating to make themselves feel better? This lad, Matty Esmond `“ he doesn't look `resilient'. He looks fragile, vulnerable. How did he feel after Daisy went missing? How did he react when he heard what had really happened to her? However much parents might try to shield their kids, that sort of thing, it always gets out.