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It could have felt like a victory.

The Reid of yesterday– even the Reid of this morning– would probably have been triumphant that Anna had been wrong.

But he’d let her back in now, and accepted who she really was. So all he felt was the pain of it.

As dark as the thought that Tanya might have been killed had been, it would at least have meant the possibility of justice. It would have meant someone to blame.

Someone except himself.

And he felt Anna’s pain, too. It was so blindingly clear to him now that she’d been coping with Tanya’s death by hanging on to her theory. And then it had all been pulled away.

It was physically painful that he couldn’t reach back in time and console her. And that feeling was enough to drive him to his feet again, off the hard stone wall outside St John’s College and back onto the paved street.

Trinity College is just next door , he thought. Surely you can at least find this man she left with if you make them show you the CCTV. James sounded totally sure about him. So find him.

He slid Anna’s phone back into his jacket and began to walk the few dozen yards along the pavement to Trinity College. The entrance was oddly similar: a near-carbon copy of the turreted brick-and-stone gateway that he’d been through to get into St John’s.

A few yards from the little pedestrian gate he faltered as another thought hit him.

Maybe the reason they couldn’t find her on CCTV was that she didn’t leave last night . What if she went to a room in the college? Or was taken to one?

He made his way into the porters’ lodge with more determination, and pulled his badge out to show the female porter on duty.

‘DI Reid Murray,’ he said. ‘I think it was you I spoke to on the phone? Trish, wasn’t it?’

‘Oh, yes,’ Trish said, tucking her short blonde hair behind her ears. ‘I’m still going through the CCTV for you, double-checking, but I haven’t found her leaving. I did go back and find her arriving, if you want to see.’

Reid knew that this wasn’t the priority, but the thought of seeing Anna as she had been only last night was impossible to resist.

‘Sure,’ he said, trying to sound as though it meant nothing more than any other missing persons case.

Trish let him through a flap in the counter into the porters’ area, which was largely taken up by a couple of office chairs, the computer, and an assortment of packages that were presumably waiting to be picked up by students or fellows.

‘This is ten to eight, when she arrived. VIP queue, so they got in early.’

The screen was suddenly filled with a black-and-white but thankfully clear image that must have been taken from just outside the porters’ lodge.

On the left was a table where a couple of students in black suits were presumably checking tickets.

To the right of the frame was the expanse of the court, a huge space that had a queue of people dressed in evening wear snaking round it.

In the corner of the screen Reid could see what looked suspiciously like a hot-air balloon.

He had a moment to think that this whole May Ball thing was madness before a figure appeared at the ticket table and it made the breath catch in his throat.

‘There she is,’ the porter said, tapping the screen.

But Reid didn’t need the comment. Of course it was Anna.

She was wearing the dress he’d seen in the photograph Seaton had sent, her hair elaborately curled and pinned up. Despite a serious pair of high heels that made her taller than most of the men around her, she moved smoothly as she stepped back from the table slightly.

Even in black and white, she looked like she had the sun on her. And god, it hurt to see.

Reid saw her head tip back slightly as she laughed at something, and he knew exactly how it would have sounded. He was vaguely aware that a few students trickled through the porters’ lodge entrance while he was watching, and that Trish went to see to them, but he couldn’t look away.

The student at the desk handed Anna something– a programme, maybe– and she slid it into her handbag and then put the bag onto her shoulder. And then she turned and moved away, until she was out of range of the camera. And that was all. The video carried on without her in it, seeming blank. Empty.

Trish returned, and he asked, ‘So you didn’t pick her up anywhere else?’

‘We don’t have a huge number of cameras,’ she replied. ‘She’s not on any of the feeds I’ve looked at. Scanning through the crowds leaving is taking a while. I’m being careful. But nothing so far, and I’m most of the way through.’

‘Can students book rooms for the night?’ he asked. ‘I mean, I’m wondering if she stayed with someone here after the ball.’

‘Well, Trinity students have their own rooms already,’ Trish told him.

‘But students from other colleges?’

‘No,’ Trish said. ‘They don’t have room rights here. Just alum members.’

Reid opened his mouth to ask something else and then remembered that most of these kids had parents who’d been to Cambridge, too. If those parents had gone to Trinity, they’d have the right to book rooms as alumnus members.

‘Can you check some names for me on your booked rooms?’ he asked.

‘Sure,’ Trish said, and he thanked his stars that he’d happened on an amenable porter. If he’d had to argue over all of this, it could have taken a long time.

‘The surnames would be Jaffett, Frankland, Sedgewick and Thomas.’

Trish wrote those down and then brought up a new screen. She scrolled and checked between it and the names, and then said, ‘There was a Roland Frankland booked in last night, but none of the others.’

Reid straightened up, adrenaline flooding through him.

Kit’s father had a room.

‘Was it just for one night?’

‘Actually, two. He extended it today.’

And that might mean everything. Why extend a room booking if it was just for his son, who had his own room a ten-minute walk away?

What if she’s being held right here in the college?

And then the fact that twenty-four hours had gone past hit him like a train.

They might want something from her , he thought, trying to convince himself that it was all going to be all right. If they need something from her, they’d hold her. They wouldn’t do anything else.

‘Will you be able to show me the room?’ he asked.

‘Well, we can’t let anyone in without good reason,’ Trish said. ‘First thing I’d say, you have to go over there and knock. If there’s no answer, we can maybe look at getting in there once Peter’s back from doing the rounds.’

‘OK, thanks.’

She gave directions to a room on Nevile’s Court further towards the back of the college.

He tried to slow his heart to the point where he could listen and then stepped out into the twilit college proper.

He was caught briefly in a moment of startled surprise at the huge scale of the open front court.

It was much larger than he’d realised from the CCTV.

Acres of space. And in what was now almost total darkness the lights of the central fountain and the windows around it made it seem like some immense fortification.

You could build a village in here , he thought.

He hadn’t got any further than that thought before rapid steps behind made him swing round. He was still night blind from the lights in the porters’ lodge and could do nothing to protect himself against an oncoming rush.

His assailant hit hard and didn’t just drive him backwards but diagonally, so that his back struck the wall of the nearest tower with crushing force.

Above the thoughts of What the hell? Reid felt a few rusty instincts kick in.

He hadn’t had to out-and-out fight for years, but his body still knew how to go for his attacker’s weak points.

He raised his knee sharply into the assailant’s bent torso and then immediately brought his foot down hard onto where he guessed an instep must be. He got it just about right by the feel of it.

The form flinched backwards, and he tried to make out the face even in the backlighting from the courtyard, but it was near impossible. And then the guy– he was at least sure of that– straightened slightly and produced a swift, vicious roundhouse that connected squarely with Reid’s chin.

Reid felt his head snap back and into the stone wall, and it was all he could do to keep his legs from collapsing. Momentarily afterwards, pain exploded in a line between his jaw and the back of his head.

Breathe , he thought, as his vision became a pattern of diamonds.

He tried to straighten. To get ready for another attack. But nothing came. There was only the sound of running footsteps and then the quiet of the great empty space.