Sally felt sorry for herself, that was true. What had she achieved? Years ago she had been someone, a respected theatre actress; then a TV star with a high profile. But she gave it all up in order to marry a two-timing liar. Or rather she married the liar and he was jealous of her life so persuaded her to surrender it so that she could live his kind of life. But then . . . Oh, it was such a waste of time going back and wishing you’d done things differently.

She’d been happy enough since moving out here to Bellevue-sur-Mer. But, until the restaurant, she’d just been bobbing along, doing nothing really – living from day to day. And now, thanks to circumstances entirely out of her hands, the restaurant was on the floor, and any savings she had had gone down the drain with it.

She turned over once more. She felt restless and miserable. She wanted to run away, take the Trans-Siberian express, spend a year in India, jump on a liner to America, see the world.

But to do things like that you needed money, and Sally had none.

Theresa slept fitfully. At 6 a.m. she decided there was no point staying in bed, so went down to the kitchen. Imogen was sitting at the table, fully dressed. She looked up and gave Theresa a wan smile.

‘What can we do, Mum? I simply can’t sit around doing nothing. It’s not my way.’

Theresa understood exactly what Imogen meant but wondered what on earth they could do.

Her phone buzzed in her dressing-gown pocket. She glanced down. An unknown number with a French prefix. It could be her.

Theresa answered.

‘Hello?’

Silence.

‘Hello?’

A click. The call ended.

‘What was that?’ Imogen was alert.

‘Don’t know. Wrong number, I think.’

Theresa hastily returned the call. The ringtone was definitely somewhere abroad. But no one picked up. She wondered if it was perhaps Chloe trying to contact her, but didn’t want to suggest that to Imogen.

Theresa’s mind flooded with images of Chloe having regrets and trying to dial her for help, of the bald old man snatching the phone out of the child’s hand and throwing it away.

But then the call could have been from anyone in France calling her on restaurant business, perhaps simply phoning her from a car or a train and going through a tunnel.

‘We could go into school, maybe,’ Theresa suggested. ‘Ask whether anyone saw him hanging around the playgrounds or at the school gates.’

‘Do you think I haven’t already sent emails to all my staff asking them exactly that?’

In silence Theresa prepared herself a cup of tea, and sat down at the table to drink it.

‘I can’t see why I didn’t see it coming,’ said Imogen.

‘Children can be very secretive. It’s sometimes hard to read them. And when they are determined, well . . .’