The door at the top of the stairs contained a small frosted-glass panel at head height and no handle. It swung open easily when I pushed it, revealing a plush, deep-blue-carpeted reception area. A swift look around revealed two solid, wood-panelled doors, one behind the receptionist, the other to her left. The panelling was only on the surface, masking but not hiding each steel door beneath.

The receptionist, a Nought woman with short blonde hair coloured pink at the front, looked me up and down, not a trace of a smile on her face. ‘Take a seat, please.’ She indicated the charcoal-grey leather sofa to her right. The moment we sat down, so did she. She picked up a tablet from her desk that immediately had her full attention.

We sat and waited in silence. No phones ringing. No fingers tapping on a computer keyboard. No voices, no outside street noises. The room was soundproofed, which made sense given that we were sitting on top of a nightclub. I glanced at Sonny. He nodded at me questioningly. I smiled. Yes, I was fine and, to be honest, extremely grateful that Sonny was with me.

So we waited.

And we waited.

Just as I was on the verge of getting vexed, the phone on the receptionist’s desk rang, making us all jump. She answered it on the second ring. ‘You may go in,’ she said, indicating the door to her left.

Sonny and I got to our feet just as a click came from the door. Moments later, we found ourselves in an unexpectedly spacious room with oak floors, a huge dark wood desk and at least three couches dotted around the place as well as a few upright chairs. Bookcases lined the wall behind the desk, but I couldn’t see a single book. Instead, the shelves contained all kinds of ornaments, sculptures and framed photos. To the right were two leaded-glass windows, at least three metres between them.

My attention was drawn to Eva Foxton who sat behind her desk flanked by two Nought bodyguards, a sandy-haired man and a taller woman with auburn hair tied back in a ponytail and steel-grey eyes. Both bodyguards wore jackets to try and hide the fact that they were armed. And, as for Eva, she wasn’t what I’d been expecting at all. Her silver-grey hair had been cut short at the sides and left longer on the top to form a fringe that was partly swept back from her forehead. Her face was devoid of make-up apart from the grape-purple lipstick that carefully defined her mouth, especially the Cupid’s bow of her top lip. I wasn’t quite sure what look she was going for. Fierce? Cyanotic? Eccentric? Whatever. I wasn’t here to dwell on her lipstick colour choices. If this woman knew my son’s whereabouts, then I wasn’t going to leave until I knew as much as she did.