‘What about him?’

‘He worked as a translator …’ I know this from the only time I ever met him when he spent the duration of our conversation blasting me with the details of his achievements, which include speaking fourteen languages, not least various obscure regional dialects that make him not only an expert in his field but, in his own words, extremely well paid.

Despite being a total arsehole, Professor Mansfield made quite an impression on Si back in his student days, and after several mentions and a single uncomfortable meeting, I had filed his name away for a moment when such a contact might come in handy.

‘Isobel, no … Just the police, all right? Stop playing detective, for God’s sake,’ Si replies with a knowing look when I suggest he might give me his number. ‘Anyway, I can’t just give you his details without asking.’

‘Why not?’

‘Because I know you, and he’s busy and it’s rude and—’

I pull back my head. ‘Rude? Oh, fuck off, Si. You realise how serious this could be? And anyway, it’s not like I couldn’t dig out his number myself, it would just save a lot of time if you gave it to me.’

He looks up at me, shaking his head resignedly. ‘Fine. At least let me ask him. If he tells me to piss off …’

I give him a grin, the first I’ve mustered in a long time, and immediately Si’s face softens. ‘But don’t harass him, OK? And call Oscar.’

Chapter 30

Gabriela

She was sitting in the gallery at the Sobell Centre watching the tail end of Sadie’s gymnastic class the following Saturday when her phone pinged in her pocket.

Callum, who had just returned with Tom from the soft-play area, was sitting on the bench beside her, his cheeks red with heat, his fringe plastered to his head. Reaching into her coat, Gabriela breathed in the signature scent of stale foam and ancient leather on his skin, carried over from the hour he’d just spent happily careering in and out of a pit of plastic balls encrusted with other children’s saliva, heaving his tiny body up and down miniature slides, building precarious towers out of brightly coloured geometric shapes.

Tom, who had lost this week’s argument as to which one of them would accompany their son while the other parent got to hang out on the seats outside the gymnastics area, keeping a vague eye on Sadie, was queuing for a drink. From this distance, he smiled sardonically at her, miming the process of hanging himself with an imaginary noose as she reached into her pocket, mouthing for him to get her something.

‘G and T?’ he replied, eyeing up a fridge stocked with Ribena and Capri Sun.