I unlocked the front door, looking out at the break of light on the horizon, a pale sliver between dark sky and hill. The garden was empty, a quiet settled over it by dawn. I shut the door again, put the phone on the hall table and went back upstairs. I pulled the curtains tight and got back into bed between the two children, moving Freddie, who was sprawled in a diagonal across the whole mattress. Then I got out again and checked on Effie next door, invisible apart from a tuft of hair sticking out from under her duvet.

So James had lied, as I’d suspected he had, about being at Albion Manor. And Danny Callendar had been creeping around my garden whilst we slept. Nothing made sense, least of all the strange knot in my stomach.

Try as I might, I couldn’t get back to sleep again.

Chapter Seven
GLOUCESTERSHIRE, MARCH 2008

I was due at the Chronicle the next day, but I was so tired I couldn’t concentrate, and I was conscious I was stalling Tina about the Kattan piece. Consciously I’d made the decision to have nothing to do with him, but I was aware that deep down I still felt more allegiance to Xav than the Chronicle, and that maybe I owed it to him too. And it was eating away at me; in honesty I was loath to give up the story entirely; it just wasn’t in my professional nature and I thought Xav was right: there was definitely something going on. I thought of the man being dropped onto the gravel; the stacks of petrol canisters, the Islamic tattoos; the unmitigated tension. I made a few surreptitious calls to a few contacts from the old days: Louise at the Press Association, Guy at Reuters, just putting out feelers on the family; and then I wrote a review of the Cheltenham Players’ rendition of A Little Night Music (truly dreadful, but the refreshments had been cracking, so I wrote a lot about them).

I stopped at the upholsterers on the way to collect the twins; they were re-covering our old divan with an incredibly expensive red velvet that James had left over from the Paris VIP room. As I entered the dark little shop, the quaint bell above the door jangled.

‘Oh, Mrs Miller.’ The salesgirl seemed slightly flustered as she emerged from her lair of fabric rolls and ribbons.

‘Is it ready?’ I smiled expectantly.

‘Actually we haven’t been able to finish the order yet because I couldn’t process the credit card.’ She busied herself refolding a bundle of golden silk. ‘Mr Ballantine’s such a terrible stickler, I’m afraid. Shall we just check we have the right details?’

Flummoxed, I gave her the card. It failed again. I found another one; to both our relief, this one worked. I’d have to remind James to top up the account. He was so slap-dash about money.