She rang ten minutes later. ‘A little bird tells me they’ve arrested some of his friends and are searching his house again. But you’ll know that from Sarah, I assume?’

Charles rang Sarah’s mobile but there was again no reply.

Sarah spoke with deliberation, ignoring her phone and trying not to sound exasperated. ‘But we’re not asking to go in,’ she said again to the policewoman, resting her hand on Anya’s shoulder. ‘This is Mrs Adamson’s sister. She’d like to speak to Mrs Adamson. There’s no harm in that is there, if Mrs Adamson is not under arrest?’

The policewoman was pale and unsmiling. She looked as if she’d been up all night. ‘The property is being searched as a potential crime scene and no one is allowed in. I must ask you to move on.’

She too was repeating herself, standing just inside the blue and white tape that extended from the door of the terraced house, across the pavement, around Daniel’s small Vauxhall van and back to the door of the next house. A police car and Transit van were parked on the far side of the road and a policeman was directing traffic through the narrow gap. Passers-by stared but no one lingered.

Anya leaned across the tape towards the policewoman. ‘Please, this is ridiculous. If my sister is not under arrest, why may I not speak to her? I don’t have to go in; she can come out. I only want to know how she is, if she’s all right.’

‘I’m sorry, madam, I must ask you to move on.’

‘But why are you here? What is all this for? The house has already been searched. You know her husband is not here. She does not know where he is. Why are you bothering her again?’

The policewoman turned her back.

Sarah nodded to Anya to move away. ‘Try ringing her again,’ she said quietly. ‘The house phone this time. If she knows we’re here she might come out. Presumably they can’t stop her, unless she is actually under arrest.’

The phone was answered immediately and Anya spoke rapidly in Urdu. She stopped, listened, began again, then stopped once more. She held the phone before her, looking at it. ‘They’ve cut her off.’

‘What did she say?’

‘She said she has been arrested on suspicion of aiding and abetting— look, here she is, she’s coming out.’