A policeman led the way across the pavement, followed by Akela and another policewoman. Akela was not handcuffed but looked shocked and subdued. Anya went back to the tape and leaned across it again, calling out to her sister. The policewoman turned and raised her hands in front of Anya’s face. ‘Madam, please stand back. Stand back!’ Another policeman emerged from the house and stepped across to support his colleague. Another lifted the tape for Akela to duck beneath on her way to the police car, but before she did so she turned towards Anya and Sarah, speaking rapidly. Anya asked a question, which Akela was still answering as the escorting policewoman put her hand on the top of her head to guide her into the car.

When it had driven off Anya turned away, whispering, ‘She told me. Where Daniel is. She just told me. She wants us to see him and tell him what has happened.’

‘Where is he?’

‘Penhurst Road, number twenty-three. It’s near here. She said it’s an empty house he has been working on. The owners are away and left him the key. Shall we see him now?’

Sarah hesitated. They were walking quickly back towards her car, parked illegally at the bottom of the street. Would this constitute aiding and abetting a fugitive? Whether it did or not, what consequences might it have for Charles, given his position? Or for herself. It was not the kind of publicity her law firm would relish. She realised only at that moment that thinking of Charles first had become a habit. They were in her car before she replied. ‘So long as our intention is to persuade him to give himself up I suppose it might be justifiable.’

‘That’s what we can say, anyway.’

‘If he won’t our legal obligation is to report his whereabouts to the police.’

Anya laughed. ‘We’re not going to worry too much about that, are we? Unless we find him planning some outrage, which I can’t believe. Does your satnav work? She said it’s near here.’

It was a terraced house similar to Daniel’s but bigger. Sarah knew the layout without seeing it: a hall with stairs leading away from the front door, two rooms on the right probably knocked into one, a kitchen at the back now extended into a utility room and loo, three bedrooms and a bathroom upstairs. To the front was a small low-walled garden featuring two plastic dustbins and an untidy privet hedge. On the road outside was a builder’s skip filled with rubble, discarded doors and floorboards. The windows were too dusty to see through.

Anya had to ring twice before the door opened. Daniel stepped back, holding it at arm’s length so that he was barely visible from the road. They slipped in without saying anything.