No reply. Quick to associate that with the idea of failing to connect, she had stopped the Citroën at the side of the A406 somewhere on the long arc of planning blight between Brent Cross and Neasden, struggling twenty yards away from it in the roar and swash of the passing traffic to be sure she had a signal. A minicab driver had pulled up and, assuming something was wrong with her car, first opened the bonnet without permission, then kept offering to drive her somewhere. After she had persuaded him to leave her alone she sat exhaustedly in the Citroën’s rear seat for half an hour, as if she’d given up after all and allowed herself the luxury of being a passenger. Safe in Richmond, she had begun calling again, three times in a five minute period. ‘Anna, I’ve got news I’m convinced might change your mind. Could we talk just once more? Do call when you get home!’ She had leafed through the case notes until late; fallen asleep trying to understand where she had broken her own rules.

Now it was four o’ clock in the afternoon. Outside her consulting room the Thames ran backwards; flushed with tidal mud, it spilled across the Mall at the junction with Chiswick Lane. Sunlight, weakened and softened by the riverine air, reflected from the papers spread chaotically across her desk, highlighting the favourite vase, the petals of gladioli. Dr Alpert tried to read. She wrote, ‘Anna believes that—’ but was otherwise unable to commit herself. In the margins of the neurologist’s report, she discovered her name written several times in her own hand, as if by someone trying to solve an anagram. It was not the disorganised nature of these responses, she believed, that had made her so anxious.

She picked up the phone.

‘Anna!’ she greeted Anna’s answering service. ‘Look, I’ve got some exciting news. I went to see Brian Tate yesterday. He’s still alive. Still living in the same house in North London. He’s been teaching physics at a school in Walthamstow for thirty years. He’s reluctant to talk to me about what happened, of course. That’s understandable. But I think he might talk to you. Anna, I think it would do you the world of good to talk to someone else who knew Michael—’

There was a dull clattering sound at the other end of the line, and a half-familar voice said:

‘Hello? Hello? Who’s this?’

‘Anna,’ said the doctor. ‘I’m so relieved! I thought—’

‘It’s not Anna,’ said the voice, ‘it’s her daughter.’ There was a pause. ‘I’m sorry, but Anna’s dead.’

Helen Alpert stared at the phone.