Arthur Delbury did not go to Manchester.
Not yet.
He sat alone in his office at Scotland Yard with three files spread across his desk.
Thomas Bell.
The accounting firm.
And Henry Whitlock.
He had spent most of the morning comparing dates.
Bell's employment record ended in London.
His tenancy record ended three weeks later.
A new record appeared in Manchester.
Then another in Leeds.
Each record looked clean.
Too clean.
Arthur leaned back and stared at the papers.
People did not normally disappear from one city and appear in another without leaving something behind.
A landlord.
A bank.
An employer.
A doctor.
A relative.
A bill.
Something.
But Bell's records had almost none of those things.
Arthur picked up Henry's notebook.
He opened it to the page he had read several times already.
They change the person's records first.
Arthur tapped the sentence with his finger.
"Then they move the person."
He looked at Bell's employment record again.
"No."
He stopped.
