‘That can change. I can tell you more about me.’ He tries to smile.

‘No, you can’t. And you know it.’

‘Look. I have information to share – it will interest you. Will you give me a few minutes?’

‘A few. No more than a few.’

‘Before I tell you the thing I’ve come to tell you, there’s something you should know.’

It is as if I am looking through a peephole. ‘What?’

‘I saw the photo your ex-boyfriend put on the missing person’s website. And I know it was probably him by the river on Saturday night. I know about Jane, too.’ He pauses.

Everything in the world except that tiny circle has gone black. ‘You know what happened to me in St Ives, don’t you?’

‘Yes.’

My face reddens. My heart starts to race. All I can see is George’s face, which is pale.

‘I wanted you to know that I knew.’ He rests his fingers on his brow and his thumb on his chin.

‘Is that what they sent you to say?’

‘No. That was all me. What they sent me to say – what I sent myself to say, actually – is about Frederick Veliko.’

I lean against my front door. I cross my arms. I try to collect myself. I blink, knowing the tunnel vision is a stress symptom – it happened to me all the time during my first few months in Bath. ‘So tell me.’ My voice is quiet. My voice is weak.

‘You were right to be suspicious that your searches kept closing down. There’s no human way you’d have found him. The United States government would like very much to talk to Mr Veliko, who is one of its citizens. So for that matter would we. But Mr Veliko is not making himself available.’

All at once, I think about what Mrs Hopwell said two years ago. She’d been paraphrasing Zac. What was she thinking, meeting him? I’d assumed Zac was accusing Jane of seeing another man, but I realise he must have been talking about Frederick Veliko. ‘Jane met her brother. Didn’t she? After he did whatever it was you think he did?’

George stares at me. ‘I’ll come to what that was, but how do you know they met?’

I don’t answer. I think again about the conversation I had with Mrs Hopwell as I sat beneath the handkerchief tree, doodling for Zac on my whiteboard. I didn’t feel like confiding it to Maxine this morning and I don’t feel like confiding it to George now. They have spent years refusing to answer the questions I put to them. Why should I answer theirs?

George seems to guess this, and goes on. ‘There is strong circumstantial evidence that Jane and Veliko met, yes. And that your former partner met him too.’

‘And that matters why?’