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Margaret reached for another tissue.
    ‘Does Owen do much with the children?’ Janet said.
    Margaret didn’t answer immediately. ‘A fair amount,’ she said, ‘but Pamela is the main one. He wouldn’t take them to the clinic, say, or buy clothes.’
    ‘Feeding, changing: he’d be able to do that?’ Janet said. If he hasn’t already harmed them.
    ‘Oh, yes.’
    ‘Harry’s eighteen months now. Is he walking, talking?’
    ‘Both. Only a couple of words, though; he’s not making his sentences yet,’ Margaret said.
    ‘And Theo, he’d be able to talk.’ Janet didn’t want to say ‘ask for help’ – the boy would trust his father and not approach anyone unless Owen abandoned them. She was trying to find out in general about the children’s abilities and assess how dependent they would be on Cottam.
    ‘He’s shy with strangers,’ Margaret said.
    ‘Is he in playgroup or nursery yet?’ Janet asked.
    ‘No – still in nappies. Clingy, too. Pamela wasn’t all that sure about taking him for a while yet.’
    ‘Can you tell me how Owen and Michael got on?’
    ‘They were great,’ Margaret said. ‘I’d say Owen was like a role model, you know? Michael would have followed him around all day. His dad died when he was very young, but Owen knew how to manage him. They both did.’
    ‘So there was no tension?’ Janet said.
    ‘No. Owen would soon have put his foot down if there was.’
    Janet wondered if Pamela would have reported it to her mother even if there had been.
    ‘How did he discipline the children?’ she asked. ‘If they were being naughty?’
    ‘They might get sent to bed.’
    ‘Did he ever smack them?’
    Margaret looked trapped. Her eyes flew from side to side. ‘He might. Just a smack, same as anyone.’
    Except not everyone believed that hitting children was any more acceptable than hitting adults.
    ‘Did Pamela smack them?’
    Margaret hesitated.
    ‘Margaret?’
    ‘The same,’ she said, ‘only if they were really naughty. A tap, that’s all, and then a cuddle later.’
    ‘Thank you,’ Janet said. ‘But you don’t believe Owen ever hit Pamela?’
    ‘I know he didn’t,’ she said.
    How can you know? How can you be sure? Was she just insisting on what she wanted to think was true?
    ‘I can’t believe it,’ Margaret burst out. ‘He loved her, he loved them all. They were his life. How could this happen? How could he do this? Where are they? Where are the children?’ She wept again, her questions ringing round the room, desperate, and impossible to answer.

6
    The briefing room, packed with her MIT as well as specialists from forensics and crime scene management, fell quiet as Gill entered.
    The mood was attentive, focused, while Gill made introductions, an edge of impatience in the air, pent-up frustration because as yet Owen Cottam had eluded them. Gill surveyed her team, working out that since she’d taken over the syndicate she hadn’t lost anyone. No transfer requests, no retirements or redundancies. They had all worked hard to get on to the syndicate (barring Kevin who’d been rehomed when Gill’s mate more or less gave up on him and Gill rose to the challenge) and once on board they liked the billet. Five men, two women and Gill. A good spread of skills and experience. A good balance.
    ‘We have significant results back from forensics,’ she said. ‘Fingerprints recovered from the knife left at the third scene match those found on a bottle of whisky in the bathroom and items around the property belonging to Owen Cottam – bedside lamp and alarm clock. He’d not bothered to wipe the knife. Why?’
    ‘If this is what we think it is,’ Lee said, ‘he wasn’t trying to hide the crime. He wasn’t expecting to be around to answerany questions or go to trial. He’d be dead along with everyone else.’
    ‘Okay,’ Gill said, ‘we’ll start with the live investigation,’ Gill said. ‘Owen Cottam at large, registered keeper of a Ford Mondeo, vehicle