I am haunted by Jane and how she was hunted by Maxine and the intelligence agencies of at least two countries, then hunted by the IRS at their behest. All the time I thought I was trying to save Jane, I was working against her. I was feeding information to the very people she had run from. Every scrap I found made them more likely to catch her. And if it weren’t for my presence in Bath, she and Zac might not have collided. She might still be alive. Why was she here? The question won’t leave me alone.

Around 5 a.m. my eyes slip shut, but they open again with the early morning sun. By 7 a.m. I am standing in the shower, trying to wake myself up under a stream of water that is as hot as I can bear. I think of Alice, and put on the most non-grim thing I can find, a midnight blue T-shirt dress dotted in tiny white crescent moons. It is long-sleeved and A-line, with hidden pockets. I wear black trainers. Shoes that I can run in are a constant necessity.

I down two strong coffees, take a bite of a stale croissant, and make myself wait until 8 a.m. to try Eliza again. There is still no answer, so I put my still-damp hair in a quick ponytail, sling my bag over my shoulder and head straight out the door.

The black iron gates are closed. There is no car in Eliza’s driveway and the curtains at the front of the house haven’t been opened. On the gravel drive is a picture book. Horton Hatches the Egg. My first thought is that the book was dropped by Alice as she was carried hurriedly away. My second is that it was left there by Eliza, staged as some sort of cry for help.

When I press the buzzer I have the sensation that someone is watching me, though the only evidence I have of this is my own paranoid instinct. Still, I think of Zac. Is he in there? Are Alice and Eliza with him, not allowed to open the door? Fuck you, Zac, I think, though it is easy to be brave when he isn’t in my face. I rattle the gate, but it is firmly locked. I could climb it. I nearly did the last time I was here, though that was to get out rather than in. But I was desperate enough then to risk being seen by a passing car or neighbour, and I really don’t want that right now, so I walk up the road and turn left at the corner, to the parkland that touches the side of Eliza’s garden.