Dad had made supper and was in a perky mood when I got home, bouncing around the kitchen muttering about salad dressing. I collapsed onto a chair and he poured me wine, while Hamlet stalked over the countertop throwing me an occasional I-know-you’re-too-knackered-to-get-me-off-here look.

‘Dad, I’m sorry we haven’t had more chance to chat,’ I said. ‘This case—’

‘Are you making progress?’ He sat at the kitchen table and looked at me, waiting for my answer. He’d never asked me questions after Carrie got ill. He’d told me his views, expressed opinions on my life choices, explained why string theory was all wrong, but he’d never sat down, looked at me, asked me questions, and listened properly to the answers. Him doing it now felt like he’d grabbed my inner seven-year-old by the arm and dragged her back to that bright, shiny time before everything went to crap. The time when he’d say, How far away do you think the sun is, Meg? What happens if you go into a black hole? And when he’d wait for the answers with a proud smile twitching the edges of his mouth.

‘It looks like my instincts might have been wrong,’ I said, expecting his eyes to wander, the food to need checking.

Instead he carried on looking intently at me, a neat furrow between his brows. ‘Why so?’

Hamlet gave Dad’s vegetarian chilli a final contemptuous sneer before hurling himself off the counter and landing with a solid thud. I stood and found him a tin of cat food priced as if it included gold flakes and caviar, spooned some out, and sat back down at the table. Dad was still looking at me, waiting for an answer. He hadn’t seized the opportunity to start telling me stuff.

I took a breath. ‘The evidence leads to someone, but he’s disappeared. So now there’s a man-hunt going on. And …’ I couldn’t bring myself to admit I’d liked Daniel. ‘Oh, never mind, I got it all wrong, and it’s stressful. Let’s change the subject. I’m sorry I’ve not been around. I haven’t asked you anything about your life. How are things in the world of theoretical physics?’ Or rather, Let’s get back to our familiar pattern.

‘Mad as ever,’ Dad said. ‘It’s hard to keep abreast once you’re retired, but it looks like time doesn’t go forward after all – everything sort of co-exists, so the future can influence the past.’

I took a swig of wine. ‘Right. That could come in handy.’

‘It’s unlikely to affect your day-to-day life.’

‘Shame. And how’s the poker going these days?’