Nick’s daughter had been at one of the state’s dreary boarding schools until the beginning of the new academic year, when she had come back to live with her mother and go to a normal school. I had only met her a handful of times and now she was here. Nick’s parents were dead and Lorelei’s mother was old and frail, I knew, so there was no immediate place of safety and familiarity to take her in. I tried to put my arms around her shoulders in the hope that I could bring her some comfort, but she pulled back and hugged her bag to her torso. My arms hung in mid-air before I let them drop.

‘She was at a friend’s. Got home and found us there, packing up,’ the officer explained quietly, as if the girl wouldn’t hear her. Why do people think children can’t see what’s right in front of them?

‘Come in,’ I said. The girl shuffled into the hall. She looked like all the blood had been drained from her.

‘Will she be staying with you?’

‘Oh, yes. Of course.’ Hazel looked at her feet and seemed to shrink further into herself. ‘She’ll be all right here.’ The officer nodded, glanced at the girl and left, joining a male colleague stamping his feet to keep warm in the five o’clock twilight.

Charles had appeared behind me. ‘Are you really going to look after …’ he began, with a sceptical look on his face.

‘Yes.’

‘As you wish.’ He returned to the parlour.

‘Hazel.’ I lifted her satchel from her hands, placed it on the floor and wrapped my arms around her. She was shaking. ‘You’ll be staying with us now. You’ll be all right.’

She tried to speak but could hardly form the words. She was in shock too, I could see; the grief hadn’t yet hit her. ‘Where’s Dad?’ she managed to stutter.

I didn’t know what to say. I had presumed the policewoman had informed her about Nick, but the girl had been told only that her mother had died.

‘He’s not here right now,’ I said.

‘Where is he?’ There was need in her voice, but in her eyes there was something else. A flash of what? Resentment? She wanted her father and instead here I was swanning around in his home.

It was best she knew, I thought, or she would become more frantic the longer it was delayed. ‘The National Security people are talking to him.’

‘He’s in Great Queen Street?’ she gasped. I had hoped she wouldn’t know much about 60 Great Queen Street. A forlorn hope.