On the menu across the top are four buttons. Ron clicks on them, one by one. The Products page is empty. So is Current Projects. On the Gallery page, there’s a single line of text asking the reader to use the Contact page to view it. The Contact page appears to be live, though there’s no phone number, only a form to submit his own details.

Thoughtfully, Ron considers. He opens a new page on his browser and makes another Google search: Petersen’s pneumatic.

A very different website appears, the website of a major international organisation, fully loaded with lists of satisfied clients, pictures of smart office buildings and men in high-vis jackets supervising installations. The Products pages are many, filled with obscure and expensive precision-engineered parts. The Contact page has phone numbers, an email address, and social media buttons – Facebook, Twitter, a couple of platforms Ron’s never heard of – inviting clicks. The About Us page opens with the short paragraph Ron has seen on the other, somewhat truncated site, but goes on at considerably more length about government contracts and presence in other countries. There’s a list of Petersen’s worldwide offices. Chelmsford isn’t on it.

June calls to him from the kitchen that dinner’s ready. Ron shuts down the browser and closes the laptop lid. But as they’re eating dinner, he tells June what he’s found, and as he’s telling her, she suggests what he’s already thought to himself: that he should try and get in touch with the creator of the dummy website via the Contact Us page.

‘Use a fake name,’ she says. ‘Set up a new email address, Yahoo or Hotmail, one of those junk kind.’

But Ron’s reluctant, thinking he’s getting too involved.

‘Well, pass it on to Rachel, then, if you don’t want to do it,’ says June. ‘Then it’s official.’

When the table’s cleared and the dishwasher’s loaded, Ron returns to his laptop and watches it power up. Opening a Google window, he re-loads the dummy website. It looks harmless enough, but why is it there? He clicks on Contact Us, and for a few minutes stares at the empty fields asking for his details. Resisting with difficulty the temptation to fill them in, he does the sensible thing, and dials Naylor’s number.

Dora’s sleeping deeply, almost comatose from the opiates prescribed for her pain, but Jack’s wide awake in the dark, thinking over the future, trying to picture it without Dora, trying to persuade himself he can cope with her loss.

When the shouting begins, it doesn’t trouble him; he knows how to deal with it. Climbing from the bed, he moves quietly to the bedroom door, feeling his way carefully in the dark, anxious not to disturb Dora or put any worry on her.