We rode on in silence. So Langdon knew about the accident, but not apparently Caleb’s role in it. I wasn’t about to change that. One thing was for sure – Caleb didn’t need his dad to make him feel he’d done something wrong. Though the signs were subtle – he’d stared out of the plane window the entire flight home, rather than looking for the usual excuses to big himself up, and more than once I’d caught him shaking his head, as if in disbelief – he was clearly struggling guilt-wise. The longer we drove without speaking, the more our silence seemed to come from him, or be his fault at least. If Amelia, Xander or I had started talking about what we’d witnessed, we might have dropped him in it.

But that didn’t explain Langdon’s apparent lack of curiosity. By the time we arrived at our hotel the passive, stare-straight-ahead stuff was really bothering me. What was going on?

I found out soon enough. Caleb tagged along while Langdon got us checked back in to the hotel. To his credit, he made sure the concierge gave Xander a room on the ground floor. But there was something strange about his attentiveness, as if, like Caleb, he was only stepping up because he felt guilty. I wanted to get away from him, so said, ‘I’ll be back down in a minute. Mum and Dad are probably out lobbying or something, but I just want to see if they’re in their room.’

‘Ah, yes, Jack,’ said Langdon. ‘I need to talk to you about that. Let’s take a seat, shall we?’

He put a hand on my back and steered me, with Amelia and Xander following, through to the bar area by the pool. A hollowness ran through me as he made a show of ordering us all Cokes (his had Jack Daniels in it) and sitting us down and asking the waitress to bring some bar snacks to go with our drinks.

‘You must be hungry,’ he said to us. ‘I know I am!’

‘Not particularly,’ said Amelia.

‘What do you mean, you need to talk to me?’ I asked.

‘It’s nothing serious,’ he said, in a way that made me think the opposite was true. ‘Just that your mum and dad didn’t imagine you’d be back here so soon, obviously, and they’ve gone on a little research trip, out east as it happens, not a million miles from where you’ve just been. Only they’re still out there, and you’re back here, and I’ve got a hundred and one work things to do, as has Caleb now, so you guys will have to stay put in the hotel, do a bit of recuperating, just until they return.’

‘Researching what?’ I asked.