The Widow by Fiona Barton

appointment.’
    In the flat, Mike Doonan waited for an hour and then staggered to the coat hooks in the hall and fished out a padlock key from his jacket pocket. He shook two of his special painkillers from a white plastic container and swallowed them with a gulp of cold coffee. He stood while they kicked in and then shuffled out to remove the pictures and magazines from his locker in the neighbour’s garage.
    â€˜Fucking police,’ he grumbled as he braced himself against the lift wall. He’d burn the photos later. He’d been stupid to keep them really, but they were all that was left of his little hobby. The computer stuff had come to an end months ago when his spine had started to collapse and he couldn’t get to his special internet café any more.
    â€˜Too crippled for porn,’ he laughed to himself – his painkillers making him lightheaded and giddy. ‘That’s tragic.’
    He opened the door of the grey metal cabinet and pulled the battered-looking blue folder off the top shelf. The corners of the photocopies had become dog-eared with use and the colours were beginning to fade. He’d bought them from another driver, a bloke who drove cabs down on the coast and sold his stuff from the boot of his car. Doonan knew his pictures off by heart. The faces, the poses, the domesticity of the backgrounds – living rooms, bedrooms, bathrooms.
    He hoped the detectives were giving Glen Taylor a good going-over. Serve him right, jumped-up little prick.
    The older one had looked interested when he said Taylor was ‘deep’. He smiled.

Chapter 13
Saturday, 7 April 2007
The Detective
    S PARKES’ HEART WAS going like a steam hammer as he walked up the Taylors’ path, all senses heightened. He’d done this walk a hundred times but his reactions never seemed blunted by repetition.
    The house was a semi, painted and well cared for, with double-glazed windows and clean net curtains.
    Are you here, Bella?
he repeated in his head as he raised a hand to knock on the door. Softly, softly, he reminded himself. Let’s not panic anyone.
    And then, there he was. Glen Taylor.
    He looks like the bloke next door, was Sparkes’ first thought. But then monsters rarely look the part. You hope you’ll be able to see the evil shining out of them – it would make police work a damned sight easier, he often said. But evil was a slippery substance, only glimpsed occasionally and all the more horrifying for that, he knew.
    The detective made a quick visual sweep behind Taylor for any signs of a child, but the hall and stairs were spotless, nothing out of place.
    â€˜Normal to the point of abnormal,’ he told Eileen later. ‘Looked like a show house.’ Eileen had taken offence, seeing the remark as a judgement on her own housekeeping skills, and hissed her discontent at him.
    â€˜Bloody hell, Eileen, what’s the matter with you? No one is talking about you, about our house. I’m talking about a suspect. I thought you’d be interested.’ But the damage was done. Eileen retreated to the kitchen and some loud cleaning. Another quiet week, he thought and turned the telly up.
    â€˜Mr Glen Taylor?’ Sparkes asked quietly and courteously.
    â€˜Yes, that’s me,’ Taylor replied. ‘What can I do for you? Are you selling something?’
    The officer stepped closer, Ian Matthews at his heels.
    â€˜Mr Taylor, I’m Detective Inspector Bob Sparkes from the Hampshire Police Force. Can I come in?’
    â€˜Police? What is this about?’ Taylor asked.
    â€˜I would like to talk to you about the case of a missing child I’m investigating. It’s about the disappearance of Bella Elliott,’ he said, trying to keep the emotion out of his voice. The colour drained from Glen Taylor’s face and he stepped back as if recoiling from a punch.
    Taylor’s wife came out of the kitchen and was wiping her hands on a tea