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condition quite quickly, Chief Inspector: we stopped seeing her as being disabled. She’s now just our Ann-Marie and we love her very much.’
    Davies took a few moments to digest what he’d been told then asked, ‘What sort of person would you say has kidnapped your child, sir?’
    Palmer became angry. ‘How the hell should I know?’ he exclaimed. ‘That’s your job, isn’t it? Why aren’t you out there trying to find out instead of sitting here on your backside asking us damn fool questions?’
    Davies remained impassive and Palmer, unhappy with the ensuing silence, added, ‘It’s usually some sort of woman with a problem, isn’t it? Someone who has lost her own child … something like that.’
    ‘So you wouldn’t expect a ransom demand then?’
    ‘A ransom demand?’ exclaimed Palmer. ‘We’re not rich people and nothing about us suggests that we are. No one in their right mind would think of kidnapping our baby for money.’
    ‘You’re not even a bank manager,’ said Davies.
    Palmer looked puzzled.
    Davies explained, ‘You’re not in a position to give kidnappers access to other people’s money.’
    ‘I’m a science teacher for God’s sake; I earn twenty-two thousand pounds a year. I’ve got a fifty-thousand-pound mortgage and a bank loan for a three-year-old car.’
    ‘And you, Mrs Palmer?’
    ‘I was a teacher too until I gave up work after the birth of my daughter. I taught modern studies.’
    Davies smiled. ‘Didn’t have that in my schooldays. Still, I don’t suppose it involves earning large sums of money.’
    ‘Of course not,’ snapped Lucy.
    ‘So, as you said, Mr Palmer, no one in their right mind would want to kidnap your daughter …’
    ‘For money,’ added Palmer.
    ‘What about any other reason?’
    ‘What are you getting at now?’ John Palmer was reaching the end of his tether.
    ‘She is badly disabled’
    ‘So what? Why are we discussing the feasibility of it all when our daughter already has been kidnapped? She’s been gone three days and we are climbing the walls with worry.’
    ‘Indeed sir,’ said Davies slowly and deliberately.
    ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
    Davies screwed up his face as if wrestling with some conundrum. ‘You see, sir, I have a problem with all of this,’ he said. ‘No disrespect, but for the life of me I can’t understand why anyone would want to steal a deformed infant.’
    ‘How dare you!’ stormed Lucy.
    Davies looked surprised. ‘I simply meant that she would be readily identifiable wherever she was taken, Mrs Palmer.’
    ‘For God’s sake, man, why are you persisting with this? The motivation doesn’t matter. Someone has taken Anne-Marie - now will you please do something about getting her back?’
    Davies looked down at his feet for a few moments before saying, ‘I fear that may not be possible, sir.’
    An awful silence fell on the room before Palmer asked in quiet trepidation, ‘What do you mean, not possible?’
    Davies looked him straight in the eye and said with sudden, chilling coldness, ‘Because I think she’s already dead, sir and I think that you and your wife are responsible for her death. I think you found the prospect of bringing up a severely handicapped child just too much and took matters into your own hands. You came up with your own solution to the problem.’
    ‘This is outrageous!’ exclaimed John Palmer in a barely audible whisper. Lucy’s eyes opened wide in disbelief at what Davies had said. She tried to find words but none came out. She was dumbstruck with horror.
    Davies brought out a folded document from his inside pocket and announced, ‘I have here a warrant to search your house and its environs.’ He turned to DS Walters and nodded; the sergeant got up and left the room. The following silence only lasted for a few moments before Walters opened the front door and the sound of voices filled the hall as instructions were given to a police search team.
    The words, ‘no stone