I shut the door and go back inside. The bed is still unmade but I flop down into its folds regardless. Closing my eyes, I try to make sense of everything that has happened today. But try as I might, the figure in red is as much a mystery as it was earlier. As for my sighting of Elspeth: could Julia be right that my brain is seeing things it wants to see? I don’t know the answer to any of it. All I know is that I need to press on with my search for Sean. When Sonia brings the new phone tomorrow I will call everyone on my list and if that doesn’t bring up anything then I’ll go back to the police. They can’t just give up on him.

I turn over on my side and try to ignore my memories. But as I lie here my mind wanders back to last Christmas. Is this something to do with what happened then?