I tried to weigh up his tone of voice. Given his age, Tibbot had probably joined up forty years earlier. He had been there long before the Soviets arrived, long before they had helped Blunt’s comrades set up NatSec. A lot of the older police felt the same way about them as the rest of us, and I had seen Tibbot’s anger when Grest had pushed him aside at Lorelei’s house. But I didn’t want to tell him that Grest had come for me: it would put him on guard, wondering if anything he said would get back to them. ‘Can you help me find out about him?’

He hesitated. ‘That’s not really for me to do.’

‘Please, I just want to know if he’s all right and if he’s coming back or …’ I left it hanging because my own words brought home to me the fact that he might not. I waited.

‘I’m sorry, I can’t help you,’ said Tibbot.

‘He has a daughter.’ I was growing desperate.

There was another pause, and he answered in a voice harder than before. ‘I can’t help you.’

He hung up and the line hummed with a mechanical buzz. By now Nick had been in their custody for eighteen hours. At least they hadn’t found what was in Lorelei’s house, I told myself. But suddenly, thinking of that, a thought struck me.

According to Hazel, Lorelei had been storing those secret items in the house even when she and Nick were together – meaning there was a good chance he had been involved. In that case, if NatSec were to search our own house, there was no telling what they would find. If there were something incriminating, I had to get to it first.

The place to start looking would be Nick’s study, where he did his paperwork. That door was always locked and he said that was because it contained confidential medical records, but now I wasn’t so sure. And I knew the key was in his chest of drawers in our bedroom.

I looked through the doorway to where Hazel was waiting to see if the call had brought news about her father. ‘I’m sorry, it was nothing. Do you have a friend you would like to go to today?’ I asked, even though I presumed they would all be at the Liberation Day events. ‘As soon as your dad is back, we’ll come and collect you.’

She shook her head, dejected that it wasn’t news that Nick was coming home. ‘I want to stay here with you,’ she said. I was surprised by the closeness of those words. Our shared fears for Nick seemed to have brought us together. ‘Can I?’

‘Yes, of course. I just have to do some things upstairs. You could listen to the radio or to some records. Take your mind off things.’

‘OK.’