Fiona Barton - The Widow

And when Sparkes went, it had removed the daily impetus for their hunt. DCI Wellington had also made sure Salmond was too busy with other work to take it up on her own initiative. She’d heard when Sparkes was brought back from sick leave, but he’d still not set foot in the office. But his call before Christmas had stirred up all sorts of feelings.

The day Salmond went back to work in January, she pulled up her own Bella case file, filled with the loose ends and tasks, and made a list while she waited for his call.

Leafing through, she found the query on Matt White. Unfinished business. She’d put it under “priorities” originally but had been sidetracked by Sparkes’s latest idea. Not this time. She would chase it down, and went online to search the electoral register for the name. Dozens of Matthew Whites but nothing immediately matching Dawn’s information about age, marital status, and area.

She missed Sparkes’s dry humor and determination more than she’d admit to her colleagues—“Can’t get sentimental if I’m to get anywhere in the police,” she’d told Sparkes.

She needed to find Mr. White’s true identity, and went back to the basic information about Dawn’s relationship with him. It took place largely in the Tropicana nightclub and, once, in a hotel room.

“Where would he have had to use his real name, Zara?” she said out loud. “When he used his credit card,” she finally answered. “I bet he paid by card at the hotel where he took Dawn.”

The hotel was part of a chain, and Salmond mentally crossed her fingers as she dialed its number to ask if they still had records from around the dates Dawn was seeing him.

Five days later, Salmond had another list. The hotel manager was a woman in the same efficient mold as the detective and had e-mailed the relevant data. “Matt White is here, sir,” she said confidently to Sparkes in a first, brief phone call, and didn’t speak for the rest of the day.

Sparkes put down his phone and allowed himself a moment to examine the possibilities. His new boss was an impatient man, and he had a paper to finish on the impact of ethnicity and gender on community policing efficiency. Whatever that meant.

The last five months had been surreal.

As instructed by his superior officer and advised by his union rep, he’d contacted one of the counselors on the list and spent sixty grueling minutes with an overweight and underqualified woman who was all about tackling demons. “They are sitting on your shoulder, Bob. Can you feel them?” she said earnestly, sounding more like a psychic on the Blackpool pier than a professional. He’d listened to her politely but decided she seemed to have more demons than he did and never went back. Eileen would have to do.

His leave was extended piecemeal, and as he waited to be recalled to duty, he played with the idea of signing up for an Open University course in psychology, printed out the reading list, and began his studies quietly in his dining room.

When the recall finally came, he was to be sent zigzagging across a series of short-term assignments to other forces, plugging gaps and writing reports, while Hampshire worked out what to do with him. He was still seen as damaged goods, as far as the murder investigation unit was concerned, but he wasn’t ready to retire on a pension, as they hoped. He couldn’t leave yet. Things still to do.

It took Salmond a week to work through the dates and patterns of names, listing and relisting as she checked with electoral registers, police computer records, Facebook, and social media to track down the guests. She loved this sort of work—the chase through data, knowing that if the information was there, she would find it and experience the moment of triumph when the name emerged.

It was a Thursday afternoon when she found him. Mr. Matthew Evans, a married man living with his wife, Shan, in Walsall, and in Southampton on Dawn’s dates. Right age, right job.

She immediately went back to the helpful manager to ask her to put the name back through their system to see if he’d been in the city on the day Bella went missing. “No, no Matthew Evans since July 2003. He stayed one night in a deluxe double and had room service,” the manager reported.

“Brilliant, thanks,” she said, already texting Sparkes with the news from her personal phone. She took a breath and walked up the stairs to the DCI’s office to tell her about the new lead. She’d barely registered her before except as part of the Bob Sparkes problem, but that was about to change. Zara Salmond would be on the map.

But if she’d expected a ticker-tape parade, she was mistaken. Wellington listened carefully, then muttered, “Good work, Sergeant. Write your report and get it to me immediately. And let’s send West Midlands around to see this Evans.”

Salmond walked back to her office, her disappointed feet heavy on the stairs.

THIRTY-SEVEN

The Detective

SATURDAY, JANUARY 16, 2010

Matthew Evans was not a happy man. The police had come knocking on his door without warning, and his wife, baby on hip and toddler at her side, had opened the door to them.

Bob Sparkes smiled politely with Salmond standing nervously at his side. The young officer had agreed to go with her old boss to knock on the door but knew she was putting herself on the line. She would have the book thrown at her if her superiors found out, but he’d persuaded her that they were doing the right thing.

“I know I’m not on the case now.”

“You were removed, sir.”

“Right, thank you for reminding me, Salmond. But I need to be there. I know the case inside out, and I’ll be able to spot the lies,” he’d said.

She knew he was right and called the West Midlands police to let them know she’d be in their force area, but as soon as she put the phone down, she felt pressurized and sick.

Salmond drove, but Sparkes took the train north to avoid being seen by his former colleagues. When he spotted Salmond waiting for him outside the railway station, she looked grim and stressed.

“Come on, Salmond, it’ll be fine,” he said quietly. “No one will know I was here. The invisible man, I promise.”

She’d given him a brave smile, and the pair trudged off to meet Matt Evans.

“Matt, there’s two police officers here to see you,” his wife had called to him. “What’s this about?” she asked the officers on the doorstep, but Sparkes and Salmond waited until they had her husband in front of them before saying anything further. Fair’s fair, Sparkes thought.

Evans had a good idea why the police were there. The first time he saw Dawn and Bella on the television and did the math, he knew the cops would appear one day. But as the weeks, months, and now years passed, he began to hope.

She might not be mine , he’d told himself at the start. Bet Dawn was sleeping with other blokes . But in his stomach—a much more reliable organ than his heart—he knew she was his. Bella looked so much like his “real” daughter, he was amazed people hadn’t seen it and rung in to Crimewatch .

But they hadn’t, and he’d continued his life, adding to his family and picking up new Dawns along the way. He never had sex without a condom again, though.

The senior officer suggested a quiet chat, and he gratefully took them into the dining room they never used.

“Mr. Evans, do you know a Dawn Elliott?” Salmond said.

Evans had considered lying—he was very good at it—but knew Dawn would identify him if it came to it. “Yes. We had a bit of a romance a few years ago, when I was working as a salesman down on the south coast. You know what it’s like when you’re working long hours. You need a bit of fun, a bit of relaxation . . .”