FOR THE THIRD TIME in a day and a half, Rafferty stood on the doorstep to Abra’s apartment block and rang the bell. And for the third time he received no response.
Frustrated, this time he tried ringing one of her neighbours’ doorbells. When he again got no response, he rang a second, then a third, before he finally got one of the other residents to answer.
‘Police,’ he grunted down the intercom. ‘I’m checking on Ms Abra Kearney.’
‘Why?’ The disembodied northern voice demanded in the ‘not-backward-in-coming-forward’ manner, in which all true, Yorkshire folk took a positive pride. ‘What’s she done?’
‘She hasn’t done anything, sir. Someone’s reported her missing.’
They hadn’t, of course, but it was something Rafferty was seriously considering. From his point of view, the situation was g
