A stubby finger jabbed him in the arm. ‘Take the shout now,’ ordered Skinner. ‘I’ll handle it.’ He rubbed his hands with glee. A child abduction on his first day. This should earn him some Brownie points.

‘It’s Inspector Frost’s case,’ Jordan told him.

‘Well it isn’t any more. And when I want some thing done, Constable, you do it. You don’t query it – comprende?’

‘The Chief Inspector says he’ll handle it,’ reported Simms. ‘We’re on our way.’

Jordan spun the car into a U-turn.

Milk Street – a cul-de-sac blocked off at one end by the brick wall of a monumental mason’s yard – had more than its fair share of boarded-up windows and rusting abandoned cars waiting for the council to get round to towing them away. Black plastic dustbin sacks, put out days too early for the weekly collection, had been ripped open by dogs and their contents spewed over the pavement.

Skinner stepped gingerly over a slurry of discarded Indian takeaway containers and rapped on the door of Number Thirteen with the flat of his hand.

It took several raps before Sadie Rawlings, an over-bleached blonde in her late twenties, opened the door and squinted at the warrant card. ‘Took your bleeding time,’ she said. ‘I’m at me wit’s end. I phoned bleeding ages ago.’

‘Five minutes ago, actually, madam,’ said Skinner as they followed her into the house.

‘Broke in through the window,’ she said. ‘Smashed half my crockery and took the kid. There’s blood all over the place.’

‘Blood?’ Skinner’s head snapped up. It was the first time this had been mentioned.

The woman was walking unsteadily and reeked of cheap gin. A cigarette with a tube of ash quivered from her lips. Her make-up had been trowelled on. ‘I woke up this morning and he was gone – bloody gone!’

The house had a stuffy smell, the lingering aroma of past meals intermingled with stale cigarette smoke and cat’s pee.