Don’t Trust Me: The best psychological thriller debut you will read in 2018. Joss Stirling

them. Ramona James. Lillian Bailey. Clare Maxsted. Latifah Masood. I need to get my hands on the files and notebooks as there’s so much more in there. I’ve done ample research on them already, I don’t want to lose that. In the case of Lillian Bailey, I’d thought I was close to a breakthrough before I went on holiday. Just coming out of social services care, the eighteen-year-old had gone missing from Harrogate. I’d dug deep in her social media profile, not updated since she disappeared, and found a reference to a friend in Southwest London. From the profile I generated about her, I feel I’d got to know her. She was the kind of girl who took to strangers and would’ve been blind to the dangers of meeting them in a place where she was vulnerable, overestimating how streetwise she was. She might well have been lured down to London. That’s the darker explanation. The other, more likely scenario I’d come up with was that she seized on a chance to make a new start away from her old friends. She’d fallen out with her boyfriend of six months and spent a lot of time saying how she hated Harrogate and wanted to break free. She was an adult on paper so didn’t have to tell anyone. I handed the possible address over to Jacob to follow up but I’ve no idea if he did or not.

      So what was Jacob’s motive in setting up the business in the first place? There doesn’t seem an angle on it where he benefits, or am I just not imaginative enough? Is the interest in missing girls genuine? If so, then he might be carrying on the same work somewhere without the overheads of an office. He obviously got his business plan catastrophically wrong.

      I tap the notepad with the end of my pen. It’s a habit that drives Michael mad.

      Then why add fraud to financial incompetence? Is this a pattern that Jacob repeats: hire someone so desperate for a job that they don’t ask questions, then run off and leave them carrying the can? Are there others like me out there? I can’t see the point but maybe I’m just not good at penetrating into the darker sides of human nature? I should be, what with the whole profiling thing, but I’d not liked the criminology part of my course, sticking instead with social and developmental psychology, the wider focus. Investigating my own motives for taking that path, I think I’d wanted to understand where my own dysfunctional family life came from, where it fitted, but it’s never a good idea to do a university degree to get personal enlightenment. I understand the runaway girls, though. I can ace that part of my professional life if I’m given the opportunity. I thought Jacob was that chance but that now seems just wishful thinking on top of something much more malign.

      Searches on Jacobs in the Swindon area are leading nowhere – too many and it might not even be his real name. I’m stupid even to try. I have to concentrate on the concrete clues I have. There was an office with case files, physical evidence of his existence in fingerprints and coffee mugs. The cleaner – Rita – where had she come from and how had he recruited her? And why go to the extra expense, if he wasn’t planning to stick around? The girls. Why these particular cases?

      I need to find the documents. I have to discover if Jacob moved everything out or if our stuff was just binned after the landlord took back control of the office. Only a week has passed. Jacob must’ve know he was in trouble before I left for my holiday because surely the landlord would have sent the usual warnings and final demand before taking the drastic step of repossessing the premises? Had Jacob been waiting for me to fly off to Minorca before hightailing it away from Soho, knowing Mr Khan was going to throw him out? Let’s assume that was the case – he left quickly and maybe didn’t take much. Counting back, if the super-fast makeover started last Monday, I might still be able to find something. What day was rubbish collection? It’s possible the stuff I need is sitting in the wheelie bin in the yard behind the office. Looks like I’m going back to Dean Street.

      Drew is not keen on my plan of rooting around in the bins behind the office. He’s changed out of his suit into black trousers and a T-shirt, accessorised with a tea towel tucked into his waistband as he gets started on the stir-fry.

      ‘Isn’t that trespassing? What if you’re caught?’

      ‘The bins should be out front by now for collection. Who’s going to care about a few bins on the public highway? Anyway, I can just say I’m looking for my personal stuff, dumped by mistake in my absence when the office was cleared. That’s sort of true – I had made my own notes. Do you always wear black?’

      He looks down at himself as if he hasn’t even noticed. ‘No…well, maybe, yes?’

      I smile. ‘You do.’ I bite into an apple. ‘It’s your camouflage. You feel comfortable being the brooding guy in the bar, belonging to the tribe of slightly Goth slash late punk. What do you feel about wearing, say, a blue flowered shirt?’

      He shudders histrionically. ‘Are you trying to mess with my head, Jess?’

      ‘It’s the anthropological psychologist in me. I can’t help seeing people in terms of their social groups.’

      ‘What are you then?’

      ‘God knows – pale, stale and female?’

      Drew chuckles, thinking I’m joking, but I do feel like that last slice of bread in the cellophane that’s too thick for the toaster. The one that lurks until it grows mould then gets put in the food bin. Being around Michael last week has done that to me.

      I nibble around the core until only a size-zero catwalk model of a piece remains. ‘Another question is what’s happened to the computer equipment? It wasn’t top of the range but I doubt that’s in the bins.’

      He slides some red peppers into the wok. ‘Look on eBay.’

      ‘I’d prefer not to fish in that ocean of possibilities. The memory will be wiped by now if it’s being sold on.’

      ‘Those police dramas always claim you can’t remove all traces.’

      ‘Possibly, but I’m hardly a computer geek. Like most of the population, I can use the things, not understand them.’ It crosses my mind that Jacob Wrath has done a Wrexit on me, leaving me to tidy up in the way unreliable men expect of responsibly-minded female politicians.

      My phone buzzes. I’ve blocked the calls from Khan’s lawyer and decided not to worry too much about triangulation – I mean, there’s no obvious link between me and an undertaker’s, so why come knocking on the door? With any luck, if they trace me here, they’ll assume I’m dead. I glance down to see who’s ringing. It’s Michael. So now he wants to talk to me.

      ‘Aren’t you going to answer that?’ asks Drew.

      I really want to punish Michael for failing me last week and last night but I don’t have the self-control that would take. I pick it up.

      ‘Hello?’

      ‘Jessica, it’s me. Lizzy’s rung – she couldn’t get hold of you. Our alarm is going off. Where are you?’ Each sentence is served like tennis balls from a too-fast opponent. I manage to get my racquet to the last one.

      ‘At Drew’s.’ Had I been right about someone watching the house? There was the noise last night, and now Khan’s men had to be added to the mix.

      ‘Then you’d better get back home and sort it out. You must’ve left the door to the kitchen open again. You know Colette sets off the alarm if she goes out of her designated zone.’

      I can’t return serves at 147 miles per hour. I decide to have the conversation I would like to be having with him, the equivalent of gentle Sunday afternoon lawn tennis – long rallies where each plays so the other can reach the ball. We might’ve had that conversation five years ago. ‘Please, don’t worry about me. Fortunately I was out so I’m not having to face the burglars alone. Yes, yes, I’m fine – apart from finding out my job was bogus and my boss is a crook. How’s your conference?’

      Michael sighs. ‘OK, I see what mood you’re in.’

      ‘I’m glad it’s going well with lots of admiring Frau doctors, police experts and grad students to polish your ego. I look forward to seeing you tomorrow so you can ask about my day.’

      ‘Jesus, Jessica, this is petty, even