He smiled bitterly. ‘I thought I’d left it behind accidentally. Next time I saw Nick I asked him for it, but he swore we’d put all the netsuke back in the box. I described it to him and …’ He stopped, drew a long, deep breath, and when he went on his voice had hardened. ‘He gave me that look, you know … that sly, sideways glance he used to give when he was trying to get one over on you, when he thought he was being clever …’ He glanced up at me, as if to check that I understood what he meant. I nodded. I knew exactly. ‘He denied ever having seen it,’ he went on, ‘said that I had never shown it to him.’ He was gripping the netsuke fiercely in his fist, his voice growing more strident. ‘Or perhaps, he said, I did show it to him, but he couldn’t remember it. Perhaps I had lost it on the way home …’ He opened his fingers and gazed at the netsuke again. ‘And I knew then, from the way he looked at me, that he had taken it, that he was going to keep it. I knew it must be valuable.’

‘What did you do?’

‘Searched the Internet, found some oriental specialists and contacted them. They got very excited when I described it. They all wanted to see it.’ He sighed deep within his chest, his shoulders slumping, and leant heavily on the edge of the workbench. ‘Even then, I gave Nick the benefit of the doubt, I searched for it, turned the caravan upside down—’

‘I remember,’ I interrupted him. ‘I came, that day, with the dogs.’

‘So you did.’ He smiled sadly, remembering. ‘But all the time I knew he had it.’ His voice trailed off, staring, not seeing me, but gazing into some private hell of his own.

‘What happened?’ I prompted, bringing him back to the present.

He gazed at me blankly for a moment before he spoke again. ‘I went back to see him, told him I knew that he’d kept it, demanded it back. I told him we’d say no more about it if he just returned it to me. He kept on protesting his innocence. He almost convinced me. I left. I was going to Nottingham that night to see Carrie. I drove all the way to Bristol, but I couldn’t forget it. That money would make such a difference to our lives. I couldn’t just leave it. But … if I hadn’t needed to stop at the services, to get petrol, perhaps I … I don’t think I’d have turned around … driven back …’ He trailed off into silence.

I sat next to him on the edge of the workbench. ‘You drove back?’ I kept my voice very quiet, very calm, trying to coax the story out of him. ‘And you saw him again?’