So first things first. She would get up, go to the restaurant and find a photo of Chloe in the photo album.

Then what?

Take it to the police?

She thought Imogen would not like that. One thing she did know was that she must run everything past Imogen first and not go jumping into things on a whim.

She decided to phone her daughter to discuss tactics. Then she remembered that England was an hour behind, so there it was only 5 a.m. Even during an emergency that was much too early to call, especially as she had no news to impart.

The letterbox rattled. The postwoman delivering something. Theresa climbed out of bed and went through to the living room.

Something lay on the mat. Probably only news of a sale at the local supermarket. She stooped to pick it up.

It was a photograph of herself, all made up and wearing posh clothes. She flipped the photo over but there was nothing written on the reverse. It was obviously a picture of her which had been taken ages ago, perhaps at one of the children’s christenings. She recalled that it had been in the photo album.

Still in her nightie, Theresa opened the front door and peered into the street to see if the person who had posted it was still there. But there was nothing moving outside except a street-cleaning machine operated by a council workman, which was a hundred metres away, noisily sucking at the gutters and spraying the pavements.

She went back inside and sat at her glass table, staring at the photo. Perhaps it had fallen out of the photo album when she was walking over to La Mosaïque, and some kind person, recognising her from the picture, had posted it back through her door. But that was a few days ago now, and, if she had dropped it in the road, the street cleaners would have swept it off early one morning, along with the discarded sweet wrappers and cigarette ends.

After a quick shower, Theresa dressed and walked along to the restaurant. She let herself in through the back door.

It was just after seven.

No one was inside.

She would have expected someone to have been in by now. The van was not parked outside, so maybe whoever was picking up the fish this morning was already on their way to bring in the daily fresh goods.

She spent some time searching the kitchen for the album. Everything had been moved around since she’d not been here. Obviously other cooks had their own methods, which was fair enough, but she had to go through every cupboard and drawer before being certain that the photo album was not here, near to where she had left it when she departed for London.

She went down to the cellar.