Thankfully, if Jacinda Molinero’s uber-designer bag ever had a lock, it was missing. The brass zipper moved with satisfying smoothness, and I laid the two halves of the bag carefully on the floor. Each half was covered by a mesh divider, so I unzipped those too. There was nothing beneath them.

One of the dividers had a small zipped pocket built into it, so I undid this and slipped a hand inside. My fingers bumped against something stiff and square, and came up clutching a black card with silver lettering and a foil edge. Albert E. Mathieson, International Tax Law.

I tried another Internet search, this time for Albert E. Mathieson. There were pages of hits, including a link to his business website, multiple articles in professional tax journals, and blog posts that I could see were genuinely informative as well as extremely scary, because they seemed to suggest that it was very easy to be a criminal tax evader and not even know it. He specialised in high-net-worth clients who were in trouble with America’s Internal Revenue Service, and though his office was in Malibu he represented clients in more than fifty countries.

‘Going somewhere, Holly?’

I screamed, and fell backwards, sitting hard on the floorboards, my stomach plunging even faster than the rest of me.

‘Oh my God. I think I had a heart attack.’

‘Lucky I’m here then.’ Zac held out a hand. I reached for it and he pulled me up. He plucked something from my hair. ‘Cobweb.’ He brushed my cheek with a finger, frowned and wet it in his mouth, then tried again. ‘Dust smear.’ He took a miniature bottle of sanitising gel from a pocket and rubbed some on his hands.

‘Don’t ever sneak up on me like that again.’

‘I didn’t sneak, Holly. You were clearly absorbed.’ His voice, as usual, was ironic and light, but his face was pale, his dual-coloured eye extra bright against his skin.

‘You look as though you’ve seen a ghost.’

He shook his head to deny this absurdity. ‘What are you doing?’

I tried to swallow as I thought, but it was difficult. I surprised myself by telling the truth, which was sometimes easier than a lie. ‘I – I wanted to know about you. See your things. See your history, who you were. Are.’

He laughed. ‘Clearly someone whose taste in suitcases has improved.’

‘Why are you here, Zac? You should be on your way to London.’

‘Why are you here, Holly? You should be on your way to the hospital.’ There was a tension in his lips, as if he was trying not to let them move. But there were still occasional twitches.

‘I called in sick. The morning sickness is so bad. I hardly slept last night.’