Claudia could sense her mother’s anxiety, but Marcy’s expression remained confident as she said, “It’s good of you to come all this way to see us.”

Without commenting on that, Phillips identified the younger man as Detective Constable Leo Johnson from the local CID, and after Johnson had also shaken hands, they both accepted the offer of coffee.

Claudia directed them to the table and as she set down the croissants and pain au raisins her mother carried through a tray of mugs and a cafetière.

Phillips was the first to speak, in a tone that was gruff but not aggressive, and Claudia thought she detected tiredness in his eyes. “Following on from the conversation I had with your mother yesterday,” he said to her, “I must ask why, if you felt you needed protection, you didn’t contact the police?”

Having expected the question, Claudia watched Marcy pouring the coffee as she said, “I needed to get away from my husband completely, to make sure my daughter was safe and do everything I could to stop him from finding us again. All you would have offered me was protection during the trial—or maybe a few weeks after—but that wouldn’t have been enough.”

Marcy added, “As I explained on the phone, he’s violent and unpredictable. And it’s not only what he did to my daughter, he also made threats against my granddaughter. We have reason to believe that while he’s in prison others have been instructed to ‘keep an eye on us.’ He’s very controlling, you see, frighteningly so.”

Phillips’s expression revealed little as he took his coffee and declined a pastry, while Johnson tucked hungrily into a croissant.

For the next few minutes, to the accompanying sounds of sea gulls, traffic, and tourists drifting in from outside, Phillips outlined the offenses they had committed and how wasting police time could be punishable by a custodial sentence.

Claudia felt her insides clench. “You don’t understand,” she told him, her voice thick with emotion. “We weren’t thinking about the trial. We just had to get away.” She took a gulp of coffee to calm herself, before adding, earnestly, “I really didn’t mean for our disappearance to cause so much . . . concern. I am very sorry for the trouble we’ve caused.”

How naïve did that sound? Unbearably, she realized, but at least he wasn’t looking scornful, or angry.

Marcy said, “Why did you start looking for us? We hadn’t done anything wrong; it’s not a crime to change your name, or to move house, or to erase your profiles from social media.”

Phillips said, “You could have done all that and still let us know you were doing it. No one would have stopped you. But to answer your question, you were reported missing, so we were obliged to follow it up.”