Xav summoned the waiter and ordered an espresso. He buttered his bread roll, then abandoned it; added salt and then pepper to the tomato salad that he hadn’t touched. He did everything but look me in the eye or respond.

‘Xav. Did you hear what I said?’ I smiled at him but my heart was sinking. ‘I can come back?’

He looked at me, then away again. My old friend, so gaunt and strained.

‘Can’t I?’

Xav picked up his BlackBerry, turning it over and over on the white linen tablecloth incessantly until finally I laid my hand over his to stem the fiddling.

‘Stop, Xavier.’

He looked down.

‘I see.’ I felt the clench of nerves in my stomach. ‘So it’s a no, then?’

‘Rosie, it’s not me, darling.’ He sighed long and hard. ‘I’d have you on the staff in a shot, you know that. It’s – well, orders from above.’

‘Higham.’

‘No.’ he took a gulp of his water.

‘Xavier! At least tell the truth.’

‘I – oh, I don’t know, Rose. Things are changing radically since the downturn. Budgets have been slashed. And I have so little hiring power at the moment. My hands are tied.’

‘Not literally, I hope,’ I tried to joke. But I felt the thud of the floor come up and hit my feet away from me. I was diving through thin air, spinning away from my own world in freefall.

‘And to be honest, Rose, I’m stepping back a bit anyway. I’ve not – I can’t live for work any more.’

‘I see,’ I said slowly. ‘Well, that’s good, isn’t it? To take some time out?’

‘I guess.’ He drained the espresso that the waiter had just put before him and gestured for another one. ‘Is something wrong?’

He gazed into the middle distance like the answer to all our woes lay there.

‘Xav?’

‘No, no. Of course not.’

‘Are you sure?’ I felt a cold wave of fear. ‘Xav—’

‘I’m fine,’ he snapped. ‘Just leave it.’

‘Right. OK. Good. Look, I’ve been thinking. The Kattan story—’ I began.

‘Rose, for Christ’s sake. You’ve got enough on your plate.’

‘It’s just – he’s involved with James’s case.’

‘Are you mad?’ Xavier stared at me. ‘Or just paranoid?’

‘Both. Neither. I don’t know, Xav. We met him and then – well, James swears Kattan introduced him to the guy who organised the shipping of the furniture. Only he’s disappeared off the face of the earth.’

‘Christ.’ Xav rubbed his eyes; they were already bloodshot.

‘And now – now someone’s told me he’s got immunity. The police aren’t interested in him apparently. Someone’s hiding something.’

‘Who?’

I felt my frustration mount. ‘Actually make that, everyone’s hiding something. I want to find out the truth. And I want to bloody well know where he is.’

‘But you’ve got no evidence?’