‘The phone you gave me,’ he said, ‘it’s a dead end. She only called one number but it’s another burner, not registered. Whoever it was, they were being careful. We tried the number, of course, but it’s dead. And we tried a physical trace, nothing. I’m sorry.’

Hannah watched the traffic clogging up towards the Meadows, people crossing on the green man, getting home to loved ones, their lives without mystery, and she longed to be one of them.

She got up and walked around the kitchen, arching her back and rubbing at her shoulders. She’d been looking at the footage from the Glassman house for two and a half hours with nothing to show for it but a crick in her neck and a pain across her forehead. But she needed the distraction. She hadn’t got anywhere with Mel, with the dizzying array of arseholes who seemed to have been circling her when she died, and there were only so many times you could confront someone on their doorstep and hope to get anything out of it except a restraining order.

So she’d thrown herself into this. Gran had a funeral on today and she’d asked for help to keep on top of the data coming in from the spy cameras. Hannah told her how to Dropbox them over to her so she could scan them at home.

But so far, nothing. Gran had explained about the cleaner as well as the carer, but that hadn’t been any use either. And the rest 265was just mundane stuff, Jacob trying to make a cup of tea on his own with shaking hands, him watching University Challenge and talking to the television set. The cameras didn’t have audio, so she didn’t know whether he was getting any of the answers right.

She went back to the laptop and sighed, sat down again. Opened a new file, from late yesterday evening, the camera that she’d placed in the wardrobe of Jacob’s bedroom. He was obviously aware of the camera there, walked over to check it was still in position, stared blankly into the screen, then left the room with pyjamas in hand, presumably to get changed in the bathroom. It must be strange, Hannah thought, having your every move watched. Well, not every move, thankfully she didn’t have to see his bare butt.