Alexandros Skarparis drove into the immense car park owned by Ravensword on the labyrinthine Dockland Industrial Estate. He hadn’t slept well, and it had little to do with Aphrodite the cat. He appreciated his mother’s grief, but he had other, more pressing matters to worry about. Last night he’d gone to the Thai Orchid on Bethnal Green Road, admittedly later than arranged, only to be told that his party hadn’t turned up. He’d tried the mobile numbers of all three of his colleagues, and each had gone to voicemail.

He’d driven to the garage in Bethnal Green, parking on Old Ford Road, just short of the canal. The garage was in darkness, the bolt double padlocked, and there were no cars parked in their usual spots. He’d never come across this sort of dilemma before, and they’d never discussed it. He’d had no choice but to go home and eat fish and chips in front of the TV, alone and puzzled. Vexation soon turned to concern as he tried his friends’ mobile numbers over and over again. He called work colleagues, trying to find the whereabouts of his three co-workers by asking banal questions that could wait until their next shift together at Ravensword. He’d even been so bold as to call Emily’s husband, pretending that he’d misplaced his work pass to the gym, wondering if Emily had picked it up. The call had been returned at midnight, when Emily’s husband had begun to panic and rang the police. He couldn’t get hold of her either.

All Alex’s efforts had come to nothing, and now when he tried their numbers, the calls didn’t even go through to voicemail anymore; their phones were simply dead. He tried the garage once again, but it remained locked up like before. They shared responsibility for the keys, and he racked his brain for ways to get hold of a spare. Perhaps one of their lockers at work might yield what he wanted. Then he remembered that George always kept a key in a toolbox in his garden shed at home. He sat in his car looking at the factory where he’d worked for the last nine years, never taking a day sick, and decided that today was the day to break that record. He needed to know why his friends had disappeared off the face of the earth. He told himself that George had hit traffic on the way back from his holiday in the Lake District, and that Emily had taken her dog to the vet, and that Mike had a relative to visit in hospital. But it didn’t shift the feeling in his gut.