I gaze at the phone in my hand, wondering what Becky has made of the conversation with Shona, but before I can say anything I hear the door open, and I know it’s Tom. The sofa springs creak slightly as he sits down, and I force myself to look at them both.
‘Don’t worry about the hospital,’ Tom says. Clearly he’d been listening in the other room. ‘We’ve put in a call and made an excuse for Ash’s absence.’
‘Thank you,’ I mumble. I should have thought of that myself.
‘Do you want to tell us about Shona?’ Becky says. I know it’s her way of asking how she knows about the arguments. I sigh. I don’t want to talk, or think, about anything other than Millie.
‘She’s a member of the theatre group that I belong to. She’s not been with us long, but she’s thrown herself into it with great enthusiasm.’
The words are pouring out of my mouth, but my mind is somewhere else entirely. It’s a strange sensation.
‘I’m ashamed to say I’ve been a bit sharp with her for the last week because she’s the one who showed me Ash’s photo on Tinder. She doesn’t deserve that. It was hardly her fault, and fortunately she didn’t seem that interested in him.’
‘She’s never met him?’ Becky asks.
‘No, thank goodness.’
‘What about the other members of the theatre group? Do you all get on well? Any resentment or jealousy about the fact that you sometimes get TV roles?’
I look at Becky in surprise. It never occurred to me for a minute that they might think all this could have been orchestrated by someone so close to home. Not even when they told me about Tessa did I consider any of my other friends.
I tell them about Faye – about her antagonism at the thought of other people’s happiness – and I feel mean as I speak. Her husband was a bastard, so who can blame her if she’s bitter? I think of the others – Donald, who made an ill-judged pass at me at a last-night party, but whom I was able to fend off without causing offence – or at least that’s what I thought; Brian, who was angry with me for not supporting his campaign to play Sir Thomas More in our production of A Man for All Seasons. Have I trodden on toes, damaged egos, caused animosity? Possibly, but surely nothing worthy of this.
Neither Becky nor Tom speaks. They are waiting for more from me, but before I can say anything, Rob appears.
‘Sir!’ There is a sense of urgency to his voice, excitement in his eyes. He doesn’t say any more, but each time he comes into the room, my heart thuds. What can it be this time?
‘Excuse me, Jo,’ Tom says, and he jumps up from the sofa to follow Rob out of the room, closing the door behind him.
32
Rob didn’t wait until they reached the incident room.
‘A man matching Ashraf Rajavi’s description has been found on Cadishead Moss,’ he said as they both hurried down the corridor.
‘You’re sure it’s him?’
‘It’s an IC6 male, approximately forty years old. No glasses, but they may have been taken or fallen off.’
Tom felt a burst of adrenaline. ‘Alive?’
‘Just about. He’s suffering from hypothermia and he’s unconscious. He has a broken ankle and his hands were cuffed in front of him.’
Tom thought for a moment. Didn’t Jo tell them that Ash’s hands had been handcuffed behind him? ‘What else do we know?’ He pushed open the door to the incident room, and immediately felt the renewed buzz in the air.
‘Not much. He was lying in a ditch – looks as if he jumped, or was pushed, from the road and landed badly. With his hands cuffed he wouldn’t have been able to protect himself from the fall, and it looks like he hit his head. He was found by a troop of Boy Scouts on some mission or other. At least six of them stomped around in the area where he was found, plus the first responder and the paramedics, so we’re not going to get much from the scene.’
This should have been good news, but if it did turn out to be Ash, where was Millie? Had they let Ash go, or had he somehow escaped? And why would they have stopped on Cadishead Moss in the first place?
‘We need a positive ID and a team searching the Moss. They could be holding Millie nearby. Where’ve they taken Rajavi?’
‘Salford Royal.’
‘I presume we’ve put a guard on his door.’
‘Yes, boss. Restricted access, of course, but they think it unlikely he’ll come round for a while. His pulse is weak, and his core temperature is low. They’ll let us know when he’s conscious. He’s likely to be a bit confused, though. We’re mapping all the possible roads from Miss Palmer’s home. We have the time they were taken, and we’re hoping we can find a sequence on the traffic cams.’
‘Maybe in the interests of time we should start by assuming the two cars were following the same route. We may have to change our view on that, but at least we think the car Millie was in was silver.’
Tom saw Rob’s expression and knew what he was thinking. It might no longer be the most popular car colour in the UK, but there were nevertheless millions of silver cars out there.
Tom was going to have to update Jo. They would need to confirm the man’s identity, but if this was Ash, alive and with every chance of a full recovery, Tom knew exactly how Jo would feel. Pleased as she might be that Ash had been found, every atom of her being would be screaming, ‘Where’s Millie?’
There were bigger questions to answer, though. Was Ash’s escape the reason the kidnappers had abandoned their plans to demand a ransom? Would Millie now be set free?
Tom knew how unlikely that was. There were other more credible outcomes that he didn’t want to consider.
Becky took one look at Tom’s face when he walked back into the room and knew something important had happened. She also knew that it wasn’t entirely clear whether this was good news or bad.
He took a seat opposite Jo, and Becky moved across to sit next to her on the sofa, ready to offer support, should it be needed.
‘Jo,’ Tom began, leaning forward with a slight smile, obviously aiming to put a positive spin on his news. ‘We’ve just learned that a man has been found on Cadishead Moss.’ There was a gasp from Jo, and Becky reached out to hold her hand as Tom continued. ‘We need positive identification, but we’re fairly certain from the photos we have of him and your description of what he was wearing that it’s Ash, and we’re told that although he’s unconscious and suffering from hypothermia, they are confident he’ll make a full recovery.’
Jo stared at him, her eyes round with fear. ‘Millie?’ she whispered.
Becky felt Jo’s hand squeeze hers tightly and the smile left Tom’s face.
‘I’m sorry. We don’t have any news on Millie yet, but we’re hoping that finding Ash will help us trace the kidnappers and lead us to your daughter.’
Becky could see tears dripping onto Jo’s thighs as she dropped her head. ‘So it wasn’t Ash in Tessa’s bedroom?’
‘It’s several hours since the man left Miss O’Hanlon’s house, so we can’t rule him out just yet.’