I was still curious, though concerning the hints about ‘Even more forn parts’, until Bevan called into our team office, which was, to say the least, unusual. He had a stranger in tow, who didn’t smell like plod, so we gathered round, drinks in hand along with a few sandwiches, and awaited introductions and, we were guessing, a briefing. Bevan waited till we were all settled, and smiled around the room.

“Rest assured I will not be saying ‘boys and girls’, as I believe that phrase is already rather well spoken for. This gentleman is from the Foreign and Commonwealth Office in London: Alex Beaton. Could you please introduce yourselves, save me doing it?”

We did the usual pass-the parcel game of names and background, and Bev smiled and nodded his thanks.

“Right. You will all be wondering why you are gathered here today, to reuse another cliché. Well, this is partly as a reminder that I remain a policeman despite the politics I have to indulge in at my level of rank. Well, call it evidence of a wandering mind, if you wish. When D.I. Patel first presented the Forbes case to me, something stirred in the back of my mind, so I made my own enquiries”

He grinned, looking rather boyish as he did so.

“As I said, I remain a copper, a thieftaker at heart. There is another case associated with that of Mr Strachan, which followed a few years later, and it is connected. Alex here is a colleague of an old friend from Brazenose, and he is, or was, involved in the case in question. The floor is yours, Alex”

“Thank you, sir. Officers, I gather you have some links to a couple of families in North Wales. Now…”

We helped him set up the big screen, rearranging chairs so that we could all see, and he started one of those slide-pack shows where a laser pointer is used to pick out salient points as the slides are clicked through.

“Right. This, as you all know, is Neil Strachan [click], and this is Alys Hiatt-Edwards, with both of whom you are familiar [click]. This is Michael Benjamin Rhodes, now an Australian national. Sort of adopted uncle to Mrs Hiatt-Edwards and her wife”

He paused for a second, looking round the room.

“Are all of you familiar with Neil’s involvement in finding Alys after her kidnap and assault? Right. Alys spent her placement year staying with Mr Rhodes in Australia. [click] This is a picture of Maryam binti Rahman Rhodes, Michael’s wife. Dual national, Malaysian and Australian. Mr Strachan has been kind enough to send us this picture he took, [click] of their wedding. They have one son, Ishmael, who is now eighteen”

The couple looked radiant in their wedding picture, for once the cliché fitting absolutely: a powerfully built man, bearded and obviously only a little smaller than Blake, and a really pretty oriental woman in an elegant white wedding dress, standing in some sort of park. Beaton coughed again, clicking through another couple of slides.

“This is Maryam’s mother Samira binti Hassan Rahman, and her father Ali bin Yusuf Rahman, who live in Selangor State, just outside Kuala Lumpur, the Malaysian capital. Michael and Maryam had been trying to build a family relationship with his in-laws, to no great success, and when they were seconded to Singapore for their work, they saw it as an improved opportunity.

“Samira Rahman was invited to visit them more than once, but declined. She did, however, insist that Maryam visit the family on the occasion of a family member’s funeral”

I was starting to get a really bad feeling now, which was confirmed by his next little nugget.

“Maryam attended, and there was a video phone call from KL where Samira was introduced to both Michael and Ishmael. There was another call later, where Maryam expressed her displeasure at the family effectively denying the legitimacy of her marriage. She explained that she had snapped during the discussion and had revealed that Michael has Jewish ancestry. She declared her intention of flying straight back to her husband and son, and gave the times of the flight she had booked. She was a no-show at KL airport for that flight”

Rhys shot Jon a glance, clearly getting the same shitty vibes as I was, and then Ellen raised a hand.

“Yes, er, Ellen?”

“Can we guess here that this is a missing person case?”

“In essence, yes”

“Local force involved?”

The man’s eyes closed slightly, and he let out a long sigh.

“I believe the standard meme is ‘Move along, nothing to see here’. There was a high level of political activity at the time, I am afraid, involving a joint initiative by the UK and Australia to market a particular management package originated by the employer of Mr and Mrs Rhodes, during a rather major South-East Asia international conference”

He rubbed his eyes, and pulled a chair across, sitting down wearily.

“Enough Death By Powerpoint for now. That door locked?”

Alun moved first, with a wry “It is now”

“Good. In essence, this is a pile of stinking shit. I knew Maryam, I know Mike. Really good people. Local police in Selangor dug up nothing, and I don’t believe they looked too hard. The various governments, or at least my oppos in International Development, were radar-locked on trade deals, and if one unimportant person had decided to stay back home with her family, who cared?”

He was right about it being a pile, that was true. Jon’s turn with the questions.

“Obvious answer to this, I know, but I assume Mike rang her when she didn’t arrive?”

“Yes. Odd response, as it didn’t go to the answering service but straight to saying the number was unavailable”

Rob was nodding now.

“Phone’s been trashed, then. Either dropped in a river or smashed properly. Can I ask if you have any other loose ends we can tug? And can we assume you would like us to see what we can… Sorry, but I was going to use that phrase again, and I don’t want to go there. ‘Dig up’, I mean”

Beaton was nodding before Rob had finished speaking.

“Michael appears to have accepted that is the case, I am afraid. It would still be nice to give them closure. I will declare an interest in this, as I have already said: I knew them both, and I liked them. When I spotted Neil’s case in the press, I was tempted to contact Mike, but before I could do so I was called into my Head’s office. Mr Williams here had been on the phone”

He suddenly grinned, looking as boyish as Bev had.

“Not complaining about old boys’ networks today! Now, in short: we would like to find Maryam, whether, well, just find her. We, I am authorised to offer cooperation from the FCO to as full an extent as we can, and my Head of Office is due to have a not-so-quiet word with DfID—er, International Development--- and apply some shoe leather to trouser seats. I will admit to not holding much hope for a, er, positive result, but there is still value in closure, as you are aware. That is something I do know of you, along with the fact that you will do your very best”

Bev put a hand to his shoulder, with a soft smile.

“I am aware that you consider certain people to be ‘ours’; ‘family’, if you like. I know that you effectively adopted Neil Strachan, and I trust that the same consideration will be extended to the Rhodes family. In this case, there is no need to worry about perceived bias. As with the Forbes case, your role is to investigate and obtain evidence. Prosecution or other actions will be down to local authorities. Yes, Candice?”

“Whose budget, sir? As you said, this is well outside our turf”

“Alex has advised me that, on this occasion, following a rather lax performance in investigating the disappearance of a woman married to someone who still holds UK nationality, as he put it, ‘DfID can pay what they owe for leaving such a’, what was it? Oh yes: ‘absolute pile of fucking shit’. Is that a fair précis, Alex?”

“Um, more of a direct quote, sir”

“Right. Now, as this is well outside of our usual operational system, Alex will be here to steer you through the limits and assets of his side of things. Please keep me up to date with any developments. I am afraid I do share what the likely assumption is about Maryam’s fate, but if that is what we find, then at least we can allow her family to mourn her properly”

He made his exit, heading back for Brassland, and Alex was straight into things, handing out what looked very like evidence bundles.

“In there, you have what photos we have managed to snaffle, as well as copies of things like the booking record for the flight Mrs Rhodes was due to catch back to Singapore. There are also copies of letters and e-mails sent by her husband and son to us, to our Australian colleagues and a few we managed to gather that had gone to the Malaysians. We haven’t got everything, for Michael was quite prolific over several years in his enquiries. Oh, is that a kettle I see? Could I please beg a cuppa?”

Jon did the business, and Alex turned back to us, looking drained.

“I had dealings with the family right from the start, so I know them, sort of. At least, as well as one can through a video link. Seeing what the boy wrote was, well. Rather hard. I have a mate out there, though, and he was a lor more involved. The old colonial place we had the family in has a small pool, and they were absolutely Aussie in how they lived. Regular barbies, both for the kid’s friends and for their own. Gary was a regular, as was his mate Andy Chisholm. You’ll find a bio and photo of each of them in your bundles.

“You will also find bios of two bigwigs at the Singapore end of things: Maureen Chao and Simon Lee. With me so far?”

Along with the rest of the team, I was ferreting through the pack for the items in question, finding the rather hard-faced ‘Maureen’ just before I saw another bio, one Audrey Yu.

“The bio for Audrey Yu is to be treated as sensitive, please. We have a few possible conflicts here, and she is one of them. She works for Mrs, NEVER Maureen, Chao and Simon Lee. She is also in a relationship with Gary Poulson, which is not for public knowledge. Gary doesn’t know that we know, for starters. She is effectively playing on both sides, as is Andy Chisholm, who went native in Sydney and Canberra. The good thing is that, on this occasion at least, Australia and the UK are in common cause. We can’t be sure about the Singaporeans, for their way of working always involves deep self-interest”

This was sounding more and more like a serious mess, and I was at a loss for an obvious way in. We did cold cases every day, but this one looked frozen solid. In another little snippet showing how out of luck we were, it seemed that Michael and his son Ishmael had left for Australia several weeks earlier. Arsebollocks, as Annie would say.

Alex stayed with us for the rest of the day to answer questions, but he had a seven o’clock train back to London as a deadline. There was, in any case, no way we could dream of anything worthwhile popping up in the first day, and Mike Rhodes had clearly tried his best for so many years of loss. I understood why Alex had sidestepped further comments about how he saw the family when I read the boy’s letters myself, dear god.

We locked everything away in the usual way before Blake and I ran Alex over to the Central Station and then got ourselves home by way of our usual childminders, Mam and Dad being back in Italy with, no doubt, a mass of family photos to show ‘our’ waiters. Child secured, cat fed, rodent remains moved from back doormat to composting bin, we were back into the mundane side of things, where a father and son didn’t grieve for so many years of loss.

I left my brain to spin its little wheels, hoping it might throw something out, but there was nothing. We spent weeks reading and rereading the correspondence, same result. Ellen and my brother-in-law hit the financial side, looking for activity of any kind after that flight booking, and yet again, nothing.

I found myself infuriated by the increasingly rude and dismissive nature of the replies from the police; they were clearly at the eye-rolling, already-answered-that, do-go-away stage of their public relations arc. Not a good look, not at all, and my professional side felt only contempt.

I spoke to Andy Chisholm several times, and Alun was one of those who tag-teamed me with Chisholm and Poulson, and that was another collection of stabs to my heart, for they had clearly cared for the family. Lexie introduced me properly to Enfys and Alys, who filled in some of the gaps, even though we didn’t exactly tell them what our tasking was, as we didn’t want to risk old wounds being torn open.

Still nothing. I went to see Sammy, who was almost blasé, as if expecting me.

“You’ve wrapped that bit up then?”

“Sorry?”

This brought the Caring Sammy smile, the one I had seen when Candice had so nearly broken.

“Old wounds, Di. There are lots of times when they don’t heal, which I assume is what you are thinking. Time to let Michael Rhodes know we’re on his case?”

I nodded, very slowly.

“I think so, Sammy. We’ve hammered the documents, followed the money, done as much as we can, and all I can think of now is a statement taker route”

He showed me an e-mail in his drafts box, asking the Super for exactly what I proposed.

“Why did you let us grind through all--- Shut up, Sutton. You were hoping we might find something, weren’t you?”

“I was. I really didn’t want us speaking to Rhodes unless we had to, or, dreamer that I am, that we could tell him we had a result, of whatever kind”

He paused, shaking his head.

“No, Di. I might be a dreamer, but I am also a realist. There’s a grave somewhere, almost certainly unmarked. He is owed that much consideration. Any… I am asking the FCO, via Bevan, to arrange a meeting with him. We will sort a decent time of day for both ends, Bevan will introduce our unit, and then we can have a statement session. I would suggest you and Candice, Fluffy rather than Blonde, and Lexie. There’s no UK criminality here, so she’s not compromised”

“A bit sexist, Boss?”

“Di, there are times when being sexist is useful, and I would rather he face you three than Rhys or your hubby, or Alun, but they’ll be off-camera and mike. Team head on, but only suitable faces on screen. I’ll send this now, if you’re sure we’ve exhausted other avenues”

I couldn’t help the sigh that escaped me, so just nodded.

It took a week before we hit the right date, and while Bevan was in full regalia, the rest of us were in as casual a state as could be managed while not being scruffy. ‘Fluffy’, Sergeant Sutton. No teeth.

We were in the conference room, the rest outside on their laptops, when the screen lit up with three faces I recognised and one I didn’t. Bevan was direct and to the point.

“Good morning, Mr Rhodes, even though it is evening here. I am Superintendent Bevan Williams of South Wales Police Heddlu De Cymru. That may confuse you, but in my fief is a Serious Crime Review Unit, what the Americans call a ‘cold case’ team. We were contacted by Alex Beaton from the Foreign Office to dig into your loss and see if we could find an answer for you”

Rhodes looked slightly miffed.

“Would have been nice to have been warned, Mr Williams”

“Bev, please. The simple answer to that is that we didn’t want to cause distress if we could avoid it. My team has spent many hours digging through evidence, and they have a very good track record in that. They have advised me that the only possible way forward now is to speak to you directly. We have a discipline called a statement taker, Mr Rhodes”

“Mike. Yeah, I know about them. Help you remember things you didn’t know you’d forgotten, am I right?”

“Exactly, and thank you, Mike. Now, I have three of my team here, so shall we do a round of introductions?”

“Gary Poulson, UK High Commission in Singapore”

“Andy Chisholm, same as Gary”

“Bobby Nguyen, State Government Western Australia, and I advise on South East Asian policy nationally. And Mike’s a good mate, as was Maz. Er, sorry, Mike”

Unlike the others, he was sitting with Mike rather than simply on screen, and Mike simply hugged him without speaking. I drew breath: on with it.

“Diane Sutton, Detective Sergeant, SCRU”

“Candice Warren, Detective Constable, SCRU”

“Lexie Doyle, Detective Constable, SCRU”

Mike sat up straighter.

“Lexie? Friend of Enfys and Alys?”

Lexie nodded.

“That’s me. They spoke to me about your friend”

“Neil, yes, and you got that fucker Forbes banged away, along with that bitch--- calm down. Sorry, all; old wounds, lots of anger with them. Thank you, Lexie, you and your team. Starting to make sense now. Shall we start? What do I do?”