Though Langdon had promised an explanation he didn’t offer one, just sat there in silence up front. At length Amelia asked where we were going, to which Langdon gave the one-word reply: ‘Canonhead.’

‘We’ve already been.’

‘I know. But I’ve work to do there before we head back to the capital. As has Caleb.’ He looked back at his son with another fake smile. ‘You’ve barely begun!’

Caleb didn’t reply to his father. He’d shrunk again, hunched over beside me. He whispered, ‘I’m sorry,’ and I realised he was beating himself up, thinking this was all his doing. But in fact he’d taken a risk for me, crossing his dad.

‘It’s not your fault,’ I said.

He looked out of the window. I did too, at the endless scrub scrolling past. It was an overcast day, the clouds thick and grey as the mashed potato they serve at school, and that, combined with the tinted windows, made the landscape look dead. Up ahead, Francis set a blistering pace. We ploughed down the road, not slowing even when we arrived at the occasional village. In one we clipped a stray goat. Langdon’s driver, swerving unsuccessfully to avoid it, let out the only thing I heard him say all day, a weary, ‘Merde.’

‘That means –’

‘I know what it means, Amelia,’ I said.

I’ve no idea if the goat survived. Though he’d swerved, the driver wasn’t about to stop. I didn’t even care much; in a trip filled with bad days I felt lower than ever – not just frightened for Mum and Dad, but powerless to help – in the back of Langdon’s truck that day.

Hours passed, punctuated only once by my phone which, having caught some random signal, buzzed in my pocket somewhere along the way. Before I checked the screen I willed it to be my parents making contact. But it wasn’t. It was Xander. He’d left me a voicemail. I fought back the hope his name conjured: might he have good news?

Surreptitiously – not wanting Langdon to see what I was doing – I pressed the phone to my ear.

‘Jack, heads up. Langdon worked out where you are. He’s on his way to you, and he’s not a happy chap.’ Xander’s voice, clear as you like, right there in my ear. In most circumstances I’d have laughed at the timing, but not today. ‘No news here,’ the message went on, ‘but I did have one thought: the hotel has CCTV covering the entrance and the lobby. I’ve asked them to dig it out so we can have a look at the guy who dropped off the ransom note. Probably useless, but I’ll let you know either way.’