Chapter Thirty-Nine

At Seven Dials, Jane emails Tobias Wilson, Tony’s former security consultant, requesting information about police activity at Thornwood in 2020. She attaches Land Registry and later a 192.com report showing only Jessamine, Annie, Allen, and Jasper Black as residents—no Daisy or Stuart. While planning a rooftop lunch, Jane worries about missing Daisy Black.

The next morning Tobias calls with findings: Allen Black left John Lewis in 2006 and effectively vanished from records; a 2004 police inquiry concerned a missing sex worker, Destiny Trent, who later reappeared; Jessamine was arrested for drunk and disorderly in 2017; and there’s no registered birth for Daisy.

Tobias details a 2020 cold-case review into Claire Connolly, who vanished in 2005 after walking past the Vale of Health toward the Spaniards. Detective Yasmin Brooks retraced Claire’s route during lockdown and saw a young girl in Thornwood’s garden who looked exactly like Claire, despite no child being registered there in 2005.

Re-examining witness notes, Brooks focused on neighbor Sara Aalto’s report of a blurred figure behind her house and a woman’s voice near the Blacks’ property. Investigating the rear boundaries, Brooks found a loose fence panel behind Thornwood and, after searching the Heath, discovered a packet of guitar strings and a purple plectrum—items matching Claire’s Soho purchases that day.

The find reopened the case and prompted new interviews and a property search at Thornwood, which yielded nothing. When questioned about a rear outhouse with wall rings, Annie Black claimed it was for securing a ride-on lawn mower. The explanation satisfied attending officers at the time. Brooks later died of ovarian cancer, halting momentum.

Jane rejects the mower explanation and resolves to be cautious, but Tobias’s account intensifies her suspicions about the Blacks while Daisy and Stuart’s absence remains troubling.