‘You’re all right, thanks, love. Still playing chicken with the diabetes express here, so I resist on the very few occasions I can do it without chewing my arm off. Rob?’

‘No. Thank you.’

He brought the coffees over and put them on top of the display counter. ‘Very hot – careful. Omelette’s good if you don’t want sugar. I can make it for you myself.’

‘Thanks, this’ll do me.’ Maggie inhaled a vaporous sip from the top. ‘Now, ulterior motive, I wanted to ask you if you know someone.’ She reached inside her long suede coat and brought out a folded sheet of A4 printed with a grainy photo. ‘He’s basically the mayor of Sparkhill,’ she said to Robin. ‘Knows everyone round here.’

Gamil rolled his eyes. ‘Show me.’

Maggie handed it over and he unhooked a pair of glasses from the V of his shirt and put them on. ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘I don’t know her but she gets the bus just outside, comes in two or three days a week to get something to take with her. Friendly girl, says hello, good morning. She lives somewhere up that way.’ He gestured towards the shop door, left, in the direction of Valerie Woodson’s house.

‘You don’t know her name?’

‘Wasim might. Though she looks a bit older, more Faiza’s age?’

‘Yes, she left school three or four years back. Can you remember when you last saw her?’

‘Not today. Not yesterday but I was in the kitchen a lot so … Last week, yes, that big rainstorm – Tuesday, Wednesday – the bus shelter was full so I said to the people come and stand under cover. She was there.’

‘Have you ever heard anything about her?’

Gamil smiled at Robin. ‘She thinks I’m a gossip.’

‘You are a gossip,’ said Maggie.

He shook his head. ‘So mean to me. No, no rumours.’ He passed them plastic lids from a box on the counter behind him. ‘I see her walk past sometimes at the weekend, too, maybe shopping, but otherwise …’

‘How do you know she lives up that way?’ Robin asked.

‘Ah.’ A small frown, eyebrows drawing together. ‘You’ve reminded me. There was one time, I remember it – just before Divali, the end of October – I was coming in early to deal with the festival orders, walking, and I saw her.’

‘Early?’

‘Four, four thirty – still dark. Bakery hours, you know.’

‘What was she doing?’

‘Getting out of a taxi. Coming home from a party, I think – she was a bit … wobbly. Big shoes, heels – she took them off, walked barefoot up the street in that direction.’ He mock-shivered. ‘Too cold. She was in one of those unlicensed taxis. Like a normal car. Maybe Uber, no way to be sure.’

‘How did you know it was a cab?’ asked Robin.