“London. Then the last time he made a call, just before it was switched off, he was out west, not far from Heathrow.”

“So maybe he’s abroad.”

“Could be.”

“Those last five calls, they were all to the same number. Shall I phone it? I can pretend to be a telemarketer if need be, just find out who they are for starters. If it’s his job, they might even be able to tell us where he is.”

I agreed, while trying to maneuver myself out of the way of a lady with a pram.

“Hang on a minute. There’s someone trying to get past.”

“You not at work then?”

“No, I—” The woman smiled apologetically at me. One of the handles was caught on my coat. “I’ve … I’ve been following my own leads. Speaking to old friends.”

“So we’re an investigative team, are we?” His voice was jovial. Hutchinson told me what else he’d achieved. Via Facebook he’d gotten hold of Karsten von Kloss and Anders. He was proud of himself, gabbling about the average person’s total lack of interest in his own privacy. “Fortunately for us! I messaged both of them, asking if I could give them a ring. Made myself out to be a concerned friend. That was right, wasn’t it?”

Before he rang off, he asked if he could bill me for two days’ work and assured me we’d speak again in the next day or so. He sounded pleased, excited even, and I felt an answering optimism all the way home.

I had lots to think about: whether my boyfriend had been cheating on me with my best friend. Whether Peter had, in fact, not been my friend at all. Forced to look at them, my own feelings were not unmixed. Peter had been my one constant, since I was very small, and yet that summer he was leaving me, eagerly, off to a life I wouldn’t have a part in. Peter had had the loving parents and the bright future, and in the beginning hadn’t that been part of David’s appeal? That Peter had wanted him?

Then there was the possibility—and perhaps this was the least strange thing I’d learned from Alice—that we had actually found Mortimer’s diamonds. But if so, why hadn’t Em said anything? It was unbelievable. And yet. I leaned against the window and closed my eyes. The truth will set you free.

What was it Hutchinson had said? A feeling, a certain feeling …

But Hutchinson didn’t get back to me, and when I called him there was no answer, and when I went to his office above the chicken shop, no one came to the bell, and the young men behind the deep-fat fryers said they hadn’t seen him, the man from upstairs, not for days.