Llewellyn looked at Logan for a moment, then said, ‘Nothing.’

The silence was broken by a middle-aged woman in a maid’s outfit, complete with white pinny and crisp white headdress, entering the room. She was pushing a silver trolley with a china teapot, matching cups and three plates topped with huge slices of cake. The maid – Mrs Burns, presumably – poured tea into all three cups and placed them in front of Llewellyn, Logan and Bloom, then positioned the plates beside the cups and put a jug of milk and bowl of sugar in the centre of the desk. Bloom and Logan thanked her, Llewellyn did not. She left without uttering a word.

‘Why would my niece disappear to play some game without telling her family where she was going or if she’s all right?’ said Bloom. ‘I’m sorry, but that just doesn’t make any sense to me.’

‘Is it a game or just an alternate reality?’ said Llewellyn, in an airy, philosophical tone.

‘We don’t know,’ said Bloom with a good dose of exasperation. She looked at Logan, then back at Llewellyn, ‘But you do. You know exactly what the game – the alternate reality – is. So please … Please tell us what’s going on and where she is.’

‘Is your sister a smart girl?’ Llewellyn asked Logan.

‘I suppose.’

‘Well, smart people are always fine, no matter what the challenges.’

Bloom sat up straighter at that. ‘What sort of challenges?’

Llewellyn removed his hands from behind his head. ‘Life. Love. Loss.’

‘Is she in danger?’ asked Logan.

‘Craig, my dear boy, we are all in danger all of the time. It’s an illusion to think otherwise.’

‘OK, OK. But specifically – does this game make you do dangerous things? Could she get hurt?’

Llewellyn leaned forward and rested his arms on the desk. ‘Nobody can make you do anything you don’t wish to do, now can they, Alice?’ He flashed a smile at Bloom and winked as if the two of them were in a secret alliance.

Bloom took the opportunity to make an appeal. ‘Look. We just want to know that Sally is safe, that she isn’t doing anything risky or getting into trouble.’ She added her own touch of desperation. ‘Surely as a father you can appreciate that?’

‘One man’s risk is another’s daily task. One man’s trouble is another’s fair play.’

‘How about real crime, though?’ said Logan. ‘You’re a lawyer. If my sister’s disappeared of her own free will, then what’s she doing? Is she breaking the law?’

Llewellyn smiled and Bloom imagined a huge computer embedded in his brain working to calculate the appropriate response.

‘You said the experience helped you,’ said Bloom. She hoped that encouraging him to talk about himself would hold his focus. ‘How did it do that?’

‘It didn’t help me. It helped me to help myself.’