Chapter 3 note: This chapter deals with the murder of a small child.

James unlocked the front door and entered the house quietly, so as not to wake Lia or Grace. He shed his coat, jacket and tie and went into the lounge which was lit only by the soft glow of the telly.

Lia was asleep on the sofa. He hated to wake her, but knew she'd be more comfortable in bed.

Crouching down, he brushed her cheek with his fingers. "Hey," he said softly. "You shouldn't have waited up."

"I didn't intend to," she said, stifling a yawn. "What time is it?"

"Nearly gone eleven. Come on, let's get you up to bed."

She swung her legs over and, unwieldy with pregnancy, gave him her hand to pull her the rest of the way. Lia slipped her arms around him when she was vertical, her face nuzzling the front of his shirt. She sniffed deeply. He grimaced, knowing she could probably smell cigarette smoke on his clothes.

To his shame, he'd broken down on the way home and bought a pack, smoking a cigarette standing next to his car and another on the drive. After two months without a ciggie, one hit of nicotine and his knees felt as if they were made of rubber.

"Have you eaten?" she said. He was grateful she didn't comment on his smoky clothes.

"Moody had pizza brought in," he replied.

"That didn't answer my question." She wrapped her dressing gown around her body as far as her belly would allow.

"I'm fine," he said. In truth, he'd forced himself to eat one slice. His appetite always disappeared when he was working a tough case. "How did you manage with Grace?"

"Laura came by and helped with bathtime."

"How much did Laura tell you?" he asked as they started up the stairs, his arm around her.

"Enough." He knew Laura had been right to tell Lia what he was dealing with, but damn, he wished he could have kept her free of it.

"I need to leave for work early tomorrow," he said as they reached the bedroom. "There's a press conference at ten and we're still finalizing the points I need to make."

Flipping the covers back, Lia slid into bed. James sat next to her. "I worry about you alone with Grace. I'll be working a lot of hours and I don't know how long that will last."

"We will be fine. I'm pregnant, James, not helpless. You have too much on your plate right now to be worrying about us." Her argument would have been more effective if she wasn't fighting a yawn.

"Okay. I won't worry. Much," he said as he leaned down to kiss her. "I'm going to take a shower and look in on Grace."

"Come to bed soon." She held onto his hand, pulling him toward her.

"I will," he promised, though he knew it was a lie. She probably knew as well. "Goodnight, love,"

Lia murmured a "g'night" with her eyes closed. He retrieved pajamas and the clothes he would need for the next day, paying attention to the shirt and tie since he would be on camera and wanted to present an appropriately serious front. He turned out the light and shut the door.

The bathroom was steamy when James got out of the shower. He wiped the mirror with a towel, clearing the fog. It had been a good thing Lia had been so sleepy when he came home or she'd have been alarmed at how haggard he looked. He turned away from his reflection.

Pajama clad, he sat on the floor by Grace's low slung little bed. They'd moved her out of her cot in preparation for the new baby. Gently, so as not to wake her, he rubbed her back. His precious child, safe and warm. He tried not to picture Pippa Mayfield sleeping forever upon the snowdrops.

He stretched out next to Grace's bed, his hands behind his head, ankles crossed. He thought about the meeting earlier that night. They'd made their plans and applied for a search warrant for Mayfield's house and car. Peter Mayfield had been deceptive in their first interview and James intended to confront him on his untruthful statements. Listening to Grace breathing, James fell asleep on the floor.

It was five in the morning when he awoke, his back complaining about a night on the floor. A pillow had been slid under his head, and two blankets spread over his length. Lia was up every few hours these days for the bathroom and must have spotted him. He rose and folded the blankets. Grace remained asleep as did Lia when he poked his head in their bedroom.

James washed and dressed and made himself coffee which he put into a travel mug. The roads were empty on the drive to the station and he smoked another cigarette. The quiet station was sparsely populated at such an early hour. The sleepy duty sergeant gave James a glance and a wave. The bullpen was dark and empty.

James was on the third refill of his travel mug when Robbie and Lizzie came in around 8:30. He'd been reviewing and revising his talking points for the press conference. It was going to be a tricky one, with such a new investigation. After some discussion, they decided to invite Peter Mayfield to make a plea for information on the whereabouts of his wife.

What Mayfield didn't know was that after the conference, he'd be interviewed and asked to explain the falsehoods and omissions in his statement from the day before,

"Did you sleep?" Robbie asked, studying James with his arms crossed.

"I slept. Not a great deal, admittedly."

A few minutes before ten, they convened in the large room where the press was already assembled, seated in rows of folding chairs. Lizzie Maddox and Joe Moody stood off to the side while James, Robbie and Peter Mayfield sat at a table in the front of the room. With one last look at his notes, James began:

"Yesterday morning, the body of three-year-old Pippa Mayfield was found close to a footpath near the Thames. Pippa was asphyxiated. The investigation into this terrible crime is ongoing. She and her mother, Jane Mayfield, left their house just after three in the afternoon on Tuesday. Jane's whereabouts are unknown.

"When last seen, Jane was wearing a black suede jacket, red blouse, printed scarf, gray tweed trousers and black ballet flats. Jane Mayfield may be in grave danger. Peter Mayfield, Pippa's father, would like to make a statement."

Mayfield leaned forward to speak into the microphone. "I beg whoever has my wife, Jane, to let her go, please don't hurt her. Jane, if you can hear me, hang on, darling. Please be strong. Come back to me. I can't lose you too, Jane." Mayfield broke down and covered his face, weeping silently.

"Thank you, Mr. Mayfield," James said. "We appreciate how difficult this is for you."

He turned back to the press. "Jane and Pippa left their home in a dark blue Volvo saloon, registration number 5B12 HYH. We ask that the public keep an eye out for that car and obviously for Jane Mayfield and report any sightings to the Oxfordshire Police. We will be providing photographs of Pippa and Jane to you. And now, we have time for a few questions."

James answered most of the questions posed by the reporters by stating that "the investigation is still ongoing." To his great annoyance, one reporter recognized him from the viral video showing him carrying little Liam French out of his family's home, the site of the murder/suicide of his parents. And more concerning, the reporter had remembered the blurb on the video about James being a new father.

"As a father yourself, how difficult is it dealing with a case like this?" the reporter asked. Hating to have the spotlight on himself, instead of rightfully on Pippa and Jane, James felt color rising in his face, but kept his composure.

"Police officers take all murder cases seriously," he replied, his voice steady. "And every one of us feels a heavy responsibility to solve the case and get justice for the family when the victim is a child."

James drew the conference to a close and the reporters milled around gathering their things before leaving. From his place against the wall, Moody nodded his approval at James' remarks.

"You nailed it, lad," Robbie said quietly. Robbie's mobile buzzed and he brought it out of his pocket and walked a distance away to answer it.

Peter Mayfield looked like a deer caught in the headlamps. "What happens now?" he asked.

"We have additional questions for you, Mr. Mayfield," James said. "Lizzie, please set Mr. Mayfield up in an interview room."

"I don't understand. I answered your questions yesterday," Mayfield said as Lizzie stepped forward and stood at his elbow.

"After speaking with your in-laws and Jane's coworkers, we need to clear up some details," James said.

"Do I need a solicitor?"

"That might be a good idea," James said. "We'll give you some time to arrange that."

James found Robbie in the hallway. "That call was from Laura," Robbie said. "She wants us to come to the lab. She found something."

"What did you think of Mayfield's performance?" Robbie asked as they walked to the lab.

"I thought he came across as worried and concerned, but he might be a convincing liar," James said. "We've seen footage of people pleading for the safe return of their spouses or children and who are later revealed to be their murderers. Some of them sound very sincere."

They found Laura in the lab, Pippa Mayfield's clothes before her on an evidence table. She locked eyes on James as if trying to gauge his emotional wellbeing. He apparently passed the examination because she smiled up at him.

"I took another look at the clothes. When we picked off the leaves and bits of soil, we saw this," she said, lifting the little red coat. There were several small brownish circles on the front next to the toggle closures. "The blood droplets weren't initially noticed until they darkened and showed up against the red wool. I don't think the blood is Pippa's since there were no breaks in the skin, and no evidence of bleeding from the mouth or nose."

"So the blood was possibly deposited by whoever rolled her down that hill," James said.

"Exactly. The killer may have had a nosebleed or gotten scratched, though not by Pippa. We didn't find any material under her nails. I've swabbed the blood spots and sent them off for DNA testing. That will further eliminate Pippa as the source."

"We need to get a sample of Jane's DNA from the house. Toothbrush or hairbrush. And we should get a sample from Peter Mayfield," Robbie said. "Has the search warrant been granted?"

"I'll check with Lizzie," James replied. "Right now, I want to talk to Mayfield."

James tried to organize his thoughts as they walked to the station. Robbie remained quiet and James was grateful that his friend understood what he needed. Lizzie met them outside the interview room. "Mayfield's solicitor arrived."

"We'll give them a few more minutes. Any news on the search warrants?" James asked.

"Should be approved within the hour."

"Good. Let's start. Lizzie, you're with me."

They'd decided in the meeting the night before that Robbie would observe from outside the interview room, along with Joe Moody if he could make it. The plan was that James would conduct the interview with Lizzie, whom Mayfield might view as sympathetic.

James looked down at his wedding band. He normally took it off before interviews, not wanting to give a suspect any personal information about himself. It was too late in this case, however, as he'd had it on the day before at the Mayfield house.

The ring symbolized his commitment to his family, his union with Lia before their God. But that didn't diminish how it benefited him when dealing with victims and witnesses in his work. James knew he could be an imposing figure; his height could be intimidating even with his thin frame. James' expression often looked rather severe according to Robbie. The ring had a softening effect.

Robbie had said that James was very different at work and at home. Robbie, probably the only person with an equal view of both sides of James' life, pointed out that James smiled at home and scowled at work. Robbie said that was better than the reverse.

It was for that reason James kept a family photo on his desk and Grace's scribbled artwork pinned to his file cabinet. They humanized him. He was no longer the awkward giraffe in a well-fitting suit. He was a regular bloke who paid his kiddie's school fees, tripped over the toys in the lounge and sat down to dinner with the family.

As Lizzie and James prepared to enter the room, Moody came around the corner. "Are we ready?" he asked. At James' nod, he and Robbie entered the observation room.

Peter Mayfield and his solicitor were seated on one side of the table. James and Lizzie took their seats opposite them. Lizzie turned on the recording equipment and announced the names of all present and the time the interview started.

"Mr. Mayfield, when we spoke yesterday, you stated that your wife and daughter left the house at 3 in the afternoon, after you and Mrs. Mayfield argued," James said. "What was the nature of that argument?"

"What does that have to do with anything?" Mayfield sputtered and then sighed deeply in resignation.

"You don't need to answer that," the solicitor told Mayfield.

"Bloody hell," Mayfield said, shaking his head. "Jane was angry that I'd been texting with a coworker."

"Not just any coworker, though, was it," James said. "This was someone with whom you'd had an affair."

Mayfield leaned over and spoke with his solicitor who murmured a response. Peter glanced away as if trying to find the words.

"Yes. I'd gone on a business trip with this coworker years ago, before Pippa was born. One thing led to another and we slept together. Before I knew it, it was a full-fledged affair. Jane was so consumed by the pregnancy; she completely shut me out. I know that's not an excuse for what I did," he said. "Jane found out and left me. There was too much to lose so I shut it down. That's the whole story."

"Jane told her coworkers that you had started communicating with her again."

"We were just talking. It was nice to have someone interested in what I had to say. It was all completely innocent, but Jane looked at my phone and was furious."

"Why not tell us that yesterday?" James asked.

"I was ashamed. My stupidity put Jane and Pippa in danger. I couldn't admit that to myself, much less to anyone else." Mayfield's head was bowed.

"You said that Jane and Pippa drove off around 3 o'clock on Tuesday afternoon and we have a witness that can corroborate that. That same witness says you also left the house and drove off, no more than five minutes after your wife and daughter. And they say you didn't return until the early hours of the next day."

"Oh God," Mayfield said, rubbing a hand over his face. "Yes, I did go out. I was angry and didn't want to stay in the empty house."

"Did you follow your family, Mr. Mayfield? Did you intercept them along the way?"

"I wish I had." With a miserable expression, he continued, "Maybe they'd still be safe if I had gone after them. But unfortunately, I didn't."

"Where did you go when you left your house?"

"I drove around for a while. Parked the car and walked by the river."

"Until early morning?" James asked. "Where were you from 3:20 on Tuesday afternoon until after midnight?"

"As I was walking, my coworker sent me a text. I needed someone to talk to, so I called her. She asked me to come over to hers. I didn't want to be alone, so I went."

"We're going to need your friend's name and address, Mr. Mayfield."

Mayfield covered his face with his hands for enough seconds that James thought he might be trying to hide.

"Her name is Erica Winton," he said, finally, dropping his hands to the table. "Give me a pen and paper." Mayfield scribbled an address.

With the information in hand, James stood. "We have officers at your home now who will be conducting a search of the house and your automobile. I'm asking you voluntarily to allow Sergeant Maddox to take a DNA sample. And we will need your fingerprints."

Mayfield nodded and opened his mouth when Lizzie produced the long cotton-tipped swab. She scraped the inside of his cheek and slipped the swab into its case.

"Mr. Mayfield, you are free to go, but I must caution you not to leave the area without notifying us. An officer will drive you home. We'll be conducting the search of your vehicle here."

"I'll head over to Mayfield's house to supervise the search," James said to Robbie and Lizzie. "Why don't you both go and question Ms. Winton."

After stopping in at the police garage to check on the search of Mayfield's car, James drove to the house. He rehashed the interview, turning over the facts in his mind. Deception in a suspect is always an indication of bigger and badder things. That was basic coppering. As Jane's father had pointed out, Peter was a rotten husband. But did a rotten husband make a murderer? It did sometimes, surely, as other cases had shown.

He parked on the street and walked up the drive, the gravel crunching under his feet. James donned gloves as he entered the home through the open front door. The house was a hive of activity as officers performed their search and tested for blood or other bodily fluids.

"Where is Mr. Mayfield?" he asked a PC who was slipping a laptop into an evidence bag.

"Sitting in the back garden, sir."

With a nod, James moved through the house. When they'd been here the day before, he'd noticed how extravagantly decorated it was, but his attention had been firmly on the notification of a child's death. Now he wondered who was responsible for choosing the pricey furnishings. Were they Jane's attempt to live in the manner into which she'd been born? Was Peter trying to compete with his father-in-law?

He wandered through a kitchen that would have had his wife in tears, though she'd have thought it too sterile. Lia would love the center island, and the acre of custom cabinetry. A sunny dining area sat in a semi-circular windowed corner. Through the glass, James spotted Peter Mayfield seated in the garden.

James checked on the progress of the searches in the bedroom. He watched a very methodical young woman in uniform check drawers and shelves. Picking through the detritus of people's lives was the part of the job he'd least enjoyed when he was a sergeant. But it had to be done and, as he noted with approval, the officer was doing a thorough job of it.

"Sir, I found a tablet that seems to be synched up with Mrs. Mayfield's phone." she said, holding up a device in a pale pink case. She slipped it into an evidence bag. "She has lots of very nice jewelry as well."

"Good job," he said. "Make sure you take her toothbrush. We need a DNA sample from her."

"Already on it, sir. Bagged the toothbrush and also a hairbrush that had long dark hairs in it, some with the root attached."

"Excellent."

The room across the hall was clearly Pippa's. A blue and white floral comforter covered a beautifully carved child's bed. No one would be sleeping in that little bed tonight or any other night. The bed table held a basket of the same little plastic ponies Grace played with. James picked up one of them. Pinky Pie. He smiled to himself. His life had certainly taken an odd turn that he knew the name of that pony.

Returning the toy to the basket, James made his way back to the kitchen and then out through the back door into the garden where he found Peter Mayfield. "We'll be finished here soon," James told him. "You'll be provided with a list of any items removed from your home."

"I didn't hurt my family," Peter Mayfield said quietly. "I haven't been a very good husband, but I would never harm Jane or Pippa. Do you love your wife and children, Inspector Hathaway?"

"My relationships are not relevant here."

A bitter smile twisted the man's face. "You don't need to tell me. It's obvious to anyone with eyes. You love your family and you would never do anything to hurt them."

James didn't comment, fighting hard to keep his face a blank mask.

"I wouldn't do anything to my family either." Mayfield slumped in the chair, as if he had no strength left with which to fight.

"One of the officers will drive you back to the station to get your car," James said as he

turned to go back through the house.

The search of the house was complete. He looked over the materials the officers were removing from the home and signed off on the paperwork for the search.

The sun was low in the sky, causing James to squint against the glare as he drove back to the station to meet with Robbie and Lizzie and compare notes.

"What did you find out from the girlfriend?" James asked when the team was in the office.

"Erica Winton was not what I expected," Robbie said. "Rather mousy compared to Jane Mayfield, not that that means much. It's hard to say what attracts people."

"She can alibi him from roughly 6 o'clock on Tuesday evening, when she texted him," Lizzie said. "She showed me her phone and her text went out at 6:05 and he called her back at 6:06. She said he arrived by 6:30 and stayed until around one in the morning."

"That leaves a three hour window unaccounted for," Robbie said. "He could have killed both of them and disposed of the bodies in plenty of time to call Erica and play the 'my wife is so mean and selfish' card."

"But where is Jane? If he killed them both, why leave Pippa by the footpath and hide Jane's body elsewhere," James said. "Typically, if a parent kills a child, they treat the body with great care. If he'd killed Pippa, I would have expected her toy bunny to be placed with her, maybe a blanket over her. Instead, Pippa was tossed away like so much rubbish "

"Good points," Robbie agreed. "But I still think he doesn't have clean hands."

"I agree his behavior has been suspicious." James looked at his watch. "We have another meeting with Joe at seven. It's going to be a long night."

"Yeah. It'll probably be a late one. Don't know about anyone else, but I'm getting hungry. Lizzie, can you organize some food? Better find out if Moody wants anything."

After a discussion of food choices, Lizzie left to order Thai food and arrange for its delivery. James had let them decide on the food. Though he hadn't had anything more substantial than coffee all day, he wasn't interested in food.

"You think Mayfield is responsible?" James asked when they were alone in the office.

"You don't?" Robbie returned. "The man didn't check on them, didn't report them missing for a whole day and didn't answer one question honestly. He has no alibi for the period after Jane and Pippa left the house."

"He's a horrible husband, I'll give you that," James said. "Doesn't make him guilty though."

"James, lad, is it possible you're identifying with Mayfield because of the similarities in your lives?"

If Robbie had asked with anything less than a tone of gentle concern, James might have been irritated. But all he could manage was a shrug. Maybe he was too close to the situation to see it clearly. Maybe Robbie was right.

Lia woke, as usual at this point in her pregnancy, needing to pee. Perhaps it would save time if she just slept in the bathroom. It was half past one in the morning and she was alone in the bed. James' side didn't look like he'd slept in it at all. His clothes hadn't been draped over the chair as he normally did in case he got called out to a crime scene in the night.

She leveraged her body out of bed and slipped into her dressing gown. Once the need for the bathroom was dealt with, she set out to find her husband. First place to check was the nursery. When he had a troubling case, he often gravitated to Grace. This case was beyond troubling. She'd found him sleeping on the nursery floor in the early hours the morning before.

He wasn't in the nursery. After tucking the covers around Grace, Lia moved to the window to draw the curtains together. She looked down into the dark garden. A single orange-yellow point of light told her where to find James. She watched the light slowly move an arm's length and then move back. With a sigh, she pocketed the baby monitor receiver and went downstairs.

Through the open door of James' darkened study she saw the pool of light from the desk lamp and the papers and photographs strewn over the desk. How long had he worked before he succumbed to the need for a cigarette? Wrapping herself in the blanket from the back of the sofa, she slipped her feet into the old trainers she kept by the back door.

Lia followed the point of light to find James on the wooden garden bench. As she sat next to him, he instinctively slipped an arm around her shoulders and pulled her close. Her eyes grew accustomed to the dark and she could now see his profile in the moonlight.

"Two months. I hadn't had a cigarette in two months," he said wearily, gesturing with his hand. "One day on this damn case and I was back at it."

She leaned into him, throwing the blanket around them both. "Don't put more pressure on yourself than you're already under. If this gives you a little bit of peace, I think you should take it."

He looked down at her with a little smile. "That is not at all what I thought you were going to say."

"You thought I was going to criticize you because during the worst case of your career, you broke down and reached for an old coping method? I hope I'm kinder than that."

"You have always been kinder to me than I am to myself."

"Someone has to be. Would it help to talk about this?"

"I don't know," he said as he stubbed out the remains of the cigarette in what looked like an old sardine tin. "Probably wouldn't hurt. We still haven't found the wife, or her car. All we have at this point is the little girl's body and our only suspect is the husband. We turned up evidence that he's a first rate shit. Conventional wisdom in cases where a child is murdered is that a parent is responsible. Same with a spouse's disappearance. It's almost always the partner."

"But you're not sure," she said. "Why?"

"He seems to be genuinely grieving. Of course, some people have been horrified after killing their children. Sometimes that displays as authentic grief. Beyond that, in most cases of parental murder, great care is taken with the body. But this poor baby was just tossed away."

"The others think he did it."

"He was deceptive about a lot of things. Nine times out of ten that indicates involvement. Robbie thinks I'm identifying with Mayfield because of the similarities in our lives. He could be right. Maybe I'm too close to see things clearly."

"What if….what if it's the opposite and you see the case more clearly because you understand it in a personal way."

"We're expected to be impersonal, analytical. But I can't be. Everything about this case hits home for me. The red coat. The little plastic ponies in her bedroom. This little girl could be Grace. That missing woman could be you."

"And you're doing the thorough job you would want done if it was your family instead of theirs."

He sighed and nodded. "I hope you're right. I just don't want to concentrate on the father so much that we miss the real killer. If we lose precious time focusing on Mayfield, it could mean we never solve this."

"You aren't going to let that happen," she said, gasping as the baby shifted in her, pressing a sharp little foot against her belly.

"Contraction?" he asked, concern evident in his voice.

"No," she said, taking his hand and placing it on her abdomen. In the moonlight, she saw his smile. "I think he's going to be a footballer."

"Maybe a rower. He's got quite a stretch."

"I saw you on the news tonight," she said. "I was so proud, especially with what you said at the end. Grace ran into the lounge when she heard your voice."

"She's already asleep when I'm home these days. She's going to forget who I am."

"I'll replay 'Daddy on the news' for her." The wind began to pick up and she shivered.

"Let's get you back to bed," he said, pulling her up from the bench. They walked back into the house, and started up the stairs and into the bedroom "I'm going to take a shower."

"A likely story. That's what you said last night and you never came to bed. I give you ten minutes and then I'm coming after you."

"I'll be impressed if you can stay awake for ten minutes."

James, surprisingly, returned to the bedroom in the allotted time. He slipped into bed, and embraced her. As she buried her face in the warm skin of his neck she inhaled the scent of shampoo and soap.

His breathing slowed and he became slack against her. She smiled to herself as she looked at the relaxed features of his face. He had fallen asleep first after all. She moved in the bed to find a more comfortable position, but at eight months pregnant, comfort was a pipe dream.

She reflected on the miracle of her connection with James. For so long, it had felt like an unattainable dream. She'd known she was in love with James since long before Grace was born, and as time went on she believed he returned her feelings. But something prevented him from seeking out or even accepting comfort and love.

She'd only begun to understand the trauma James had endured in his early years. When he moved back to his apartment after Grace was born, she had feared that he would always remain on the fringe of their lives.

Even as she processed her own feelings of loss at his leaving, she sensed a deep longing for closeness in him. Something kept him from making that connection. It broke her heart.

Her father, of all people, helped her frame things in her mind. Deeply protective of his daughter, Enzo had glowered at James for most of the pregnancy. But her dad stepped up to help when James had been injured the day Grace was born.

He helped when James was still wobbly with concussion and drove him to his various medical appointments. Maybe that was when her dad first realized that James was not some posh bureaucrat, but a working copper who'd been hurt doing his job.

"Seems like James has had a lot of pain in his life," Enzo said one day after James had moved out.

"I think so, Dad," she'd replied.

"Then I won't add more to it," he had said gently. Tears had pricked her eyes, recognizing the innate goodness in her father. She vowed that she, too, would be careful not to add to James' pain.

She made sure James knew he was welcome, but never pushed for more than he could give. Maybe he would never get closer than the edge of their lives. And if James chose to remain a presence in Grace's life, she would meet him where he stood, take him as he was.

That he'd finally come into the circle of their family was a profound and precious gift. As she snuggled closer to James, he stretched out his arm. With his hand on her belly, she, too, fell asleep.