3

Three hours later, Adrian had a mound of chocolate chip cookies, a heap of muffins, and a large chocolate sponge cake sat on the counter in his kitchen.

Glancing at the clock, he saw it was almost five o'clock.

Remembering how he was always nagging Rachel to eat regular meals, Adrian made himself a sandwich.

He tried to eat some, but realised he had no appetite and trying to eat just made him feel more nauseous.

Looking around at all the food he wouldn't eat, Adrian began packing the cakes into Tupperware tubs. He carried the food out to his car and started the engine. He drove across town to the police station and parked in the car park just down the road.

He hauled the food out of the boot and walked across to the station.

"Can I speak to Detective Marafioti, please." He asked the policewoman behind the desk.

"Do you have an appointment?"

"No. I'm Adrian Sloan. I met Marafioti this morning."

"I'll call his desk. Please have a seat over there."

Adrian sat down on one of the comfy chairs opposite the desk.

"He'll be down in a moment." The woman told him a second later.

Adrian nodded.

He'd barely begun scanning the posters of wanted criminals and various victim helplines plastered on the wall behind the desk, when the door beside him swung open and Marafioti came into the entrance hall.

"Adrian. Is everything okay?"

Adrian nodded, and stood up to meet Marafioti.

"I was just... going crazy at home, so I started cooking. Then I couldn't eat any of it, so I figured I'd bring you guys some."

Marafioti smiled, and picked up one of the bags.

"Come on up."

Adrian took the second bag, and followed Adrian upstairs, through several code-locked doors, until they entered a large, open-plan room, filled with cluttered desks and tall filing cabinets.

At the far end, Adrian saw three other doors, all leading to a smaller room, each one lined with whiteboards and containing only a conference table and several chairs. He could see Rachel's picture posted on one of the whiteboards in the largest room, and several scribbles in various handwriting.

Marafioti quickly cleared a spare desk of its files, and began laying out the tubs on the desk.

The mouth-watering scent of fresh cakes filled the room, bringing several of the other detective's over immediately.

"You should eat something," Marafioti said firmly, handing Adrian a strawberry muffin.

Adrian accepted his cake with a shrug, and followed Marafioti to his desk.

"Do you know anything else since this morning?" Adrian asked after a moment's silence.

Marafioti eyed him for a moment, before he shrugged noncommittally.

"We think, since this guy took such care to look like you when he picked Rachel up, he might keep pretending to be you for a while, to keep her calm. He might take her places she likes, or pretend to take her to visit family or something."

"Oh... I've got family in Ipswich. My mother lives there."

"What about Nottingham?" Marafioti asked.

Adrian shook his head.

"Why?"

Marafioti pulled a piece of paper from one of the files on his desk, and handed it to Adrian.

"Rachel and the guy were captured on CCTV in Nottingham, an hour ago. Unfortunately, he's wearing a cap now; we haven't got a clear shot of his face."

Adrian looked down at the photo, and felt sick.

The man in the photo was carrying Rachel; she was either drugged or injured to let him do that, or she had known him a while and trusted him.

Rachel was sometimes very peculiar about who touched her.

Adrian told Marafioti so.

"Did they buy anything?"

"Just a jacket for Rachel. We followed them to the end of the street, then the CCTV cameras either broke, or were non-existent, and we lost their trail."

"So, you don't know where she is?"

Marafioti shook his head.

"How is this guy pretending to be me?" Adrian asked helplessly. "I mean, he's about as tall as me, but what about his voice?"

"Rachel's probably tired from the birthday party this afternoon. Mr and Mrs White said the party was quite exuberant."

"She's so tired she hasn't realised it's not me with her?"

"Perhaps he's drugged her." Marafioti conceded.