She got up to leave and then changed her mind and sat back down again and took the purse out again. I held my hand over it quickly.

‘No. I’m not taking your money.’

She looked at me in surprise. ‘I wasn’t going to give you money, Xander. Why are you in so much trouble? You’ve got a quarter of a million dollars. You don’t need my money. That is my whole point!’

‘Then what?’

She sighed. ‘I just wanted to tell you that we’re … I’m going away for a few weeks in December.’

I tried to master the muscles in my face as I took in the news. We.

‘Why are you telling me this?’ I said.

‘Just – here,’ she said, getting something out of her purse and sliding it across the table.

‘What’s that?’

‘The spare key. To my place. I just thought, if you needed somewhere, it’s going to be empty over Christmas and – well, you’d be doing me a favour, actually. Have someone watching the place.’

I slid the key back over to her. ‘I don’t need it. Thanks,’ I said, and stood up. She picked it up and moved it nearer to me.

‘Take it. If you don’t use it, don’t worry. You can post it back through the letter box when you get a chance. Just in case you’re – I don’t know. Desperate.’

Reluctantly I took the key and put it in my pocket. We stepped out into the street and stood not knowing what to say next. Eventually she just touched my arm and walked away.

That might have been the last time that I saw her.

A chill wind rips through my clothes and I am shaken back into the street. Amit is still in that house. It has been too long. I have to act soon, otherwise …

I look around on the street for something to hold. Something heavy like a brick is what I need. I can knock on the door and when he opens it, I can clump him with it. Force myself in. Or, better, smash an upstairs window with it and lure him outside to investigate, and maybe that will get him or Mrs Wilbert from the main house to call the police.

After a hurried search I quickly learn that there are no spare bricks in Mayfair. I begin to pace in small circles as desperation takes hold of me. I don’t have a mobile so I can’t make a call even if I wanted to. And the phone boxes, once on every street corner, have vanished over the years.

I take a breath and cross the street towards the house. There are no windows on the ground floor that I can look through. The windows at this level must look out on to the high-walled garden at the back. But there is a letter box.