‘No, working with. Or for. She’s got a job in the kitchen there, as a sous chef. She’s going to train – it’s what she’s always wanted to do. She started this week.’

‘What’s the name of the hotel?’

Tarryn had shaken her head at the position Robin was putting her in. ‘All this – she worked so hard to set it up. All the hours she did here, saving up, figuring out how to do it. Leaving Harry. I promised.’

‘All Valerie needs to know,’ Robin said, ‘is that she’s safe.’

The hotel was just to the north of the city centre, halfway up a sloping street lined with Regency terraces in yellow Cotswold stone, a mixture otherwise of discreet offices and private houses. It was quarter to nine now, and along the length of the road, expensive curtains filtered golden light. As she and Lennie had driven away from Shepherd’s Bush, the lit windows had seemed to symbolize everything she’d lost but tonight they were warmer, reflecting the glow of the breakthrough, the relief that Becca was safe.

She locked the car and walked back up the street. Passing just now on her way to the parking spot, she’d thought the hotel looked small, but from the pavement, she could see that behind the façade, several houses had been knocked together. The townhouse door was painted glossy navy, the brass letterbox and carriage lamp were newly polished: your extremely aspirational home-from-home. A brass case displayed the evening’s menu, handwritten, two plaques directly above it signalling the restaurant’s listings in international travellers’ guides. Robin thought briefly of Natalie, her pride in Birmingham’s Michelin stars.

No formal reception desk, just a little nook inside the front door, a man on the telephone. He held up a finger – With you in a moment – but she shook her head, Don’t worry. ‘The bar?’ she mouthed, and he covered the handset.

‘Across the hall, left.’

‘Thanks.’

Whoever had done the interior design had made an excellent job of it. The aesthetic was second home on a banker’s salary, colours muted and no doubt Farrow & Ball, original modern art on the walls, carpets that swallowed her footsteps on contact. Blousy flowers filled an urn in the central lobby, where a wide staircase disappeared up with a sort of musical flourish, the banister a mahogany treble clef.

Just around the corner, a sign pointed the way to the restaurant, and the brasserie scents of roasting beef and garlic grew stronger. She heard voices and clinking cutlery and then, as she rounded another corner, a waiter with plates up each arm crossed the hallway ahead and backed through a door at the far end.

Through its glass panel, Robin saw a large kitchen, eight or ten androgynous figures in hats and whites. She swung the door open and went in.