It wasn’t Nick. Shattered, I dropped the receiver and walked away. I didn’t care how I must have appeared to Tibbot as he picked up the handset from the floor. ‘Can I help you?’ he muttered into it. I leaned against the wall as Charles’s voice buzzed from the other end. Tibbot looked over at me and covered the mouthpiece. ‘He wants to speak to you.’

I reached for it. ‘It’s all right,’ I said, recovering a little. ‘Hello, Charles.’

‘Who was that?’

‘A policeman.’

‘You’re with a policeman?’

I glanced at Tibbot. He went into the parlour. ‘It’s fine. You can speak.’

‘Dr Cawson is still where he was?’ he asked.

Tibbot had warned me that there were certain things you didn’t talk about on the telephone and Charles too was being guarded. ‘Yes. It doesn’t seem to be changing.’

‘Is there any more information? Regarding his former wife?’

‘No.’

‘I understand.’ He paused. ‘I tried my contacts in the Party; they are looking into it for me.’

‘Of course.’ I suspected now that if he really did have any friends in the Party, they were on the lowest rung of the ladder.

‘I’ll continue to keep the practice running as best I can. I would, of course, appreciate it if you could keep me informed about any developments.’

‘I will.’ I slipped the receiver back into its cradle. ‘Why did you answer that?’ I called out to Tibbot.

He came back into the hallway. ‘You were outside; I thought it might be about your husband and you wouldn’t want to miss the call. Mrs Cawson, you asked to speak to me. I can go if you don’t want me here.’

I relented. ‘No, I’m sorry. Please stay.’ But I couldn’t shake off the fact that I knew nothing about where his loyalties lay.

‘Can I ask who that was?’ Tibbot said as we went back into the parlour.

‘Is it important?’

‘It could be.’

‘Charles O’Shea. Nick’s secretary.’

‘Right,’ he said. He glanced at the clock on the mantelpiece. It was nearly half past nine. ‘Well, there’s something else we have to think about.’

‘What’s that?’

He brushed something unseen from his brow. ‘It’s that I’m not sure how much time we have. You see, I don’t know how to put this, but NatSec … sometimes people hang themselves in those cells.’ My heart thumped and he paused as I struggled with the idea. ‘If that were to happen, the case would be closed with his name on it. It’s a tick in their records.’ I had been picturing Nick before a military tribunal. Now, in a moment of panic, I saw him buried.

I couldn’t be sure that I could trust this man. I didn’t know why he was helping me. But I had to know what Lorelei had been involved in.