We called the police. My mother had no details, she didn’t even know the make of the car, but she’d thought it was James’s, she was sure she’d seen him driving it before. Something big and grand, like the Americans drive, she kept saying. And the man, the man seemed so friendly, she kept saying. He wore sunglasses and a dark coat with a hood, and she didn’t know what colour hair he had because he had a beanie hat on pulled down low, but he definitely wasn’t dark. Well, she didn’t think he was. Perhaps he was a bit dark – but she’d been running round fetching the children’s stuff and making sure they had their sandwiches and done a wee and she just couldn’t think straight, she was so panicked she couldn’t think straight. He had an accent, maybe, she thought, some kind of accent. He knew James, she was sure of it; she’d met him before, she knew she had, she just couldn’t remember where, but she was sure he was James’s driver. He said he was. And the kids seemed happy to go with him, they knew him, they even kissed him hello – but she just couldn’t remember his name, or if he’d said it at all. My father had deleted the message from the answer-phone and so there was no way of hearing it back. I tried not to shout at my parents for being so careless; I knew it wasn’t really their fault. It was mine. I should never ever have left them. ‘They knew him,’ my parents kept saying, bleating in terror. ‘They definitely knew him.’

How could they know the thoughts that filled me full of terror now? My mother just repeated helplessly that she didn’t know cars, she didn’t know the make, whilst shiny black Range Rovers kept careering through my head.

The police promised they would send someone round to interview her. Were we sure it wasn’t a family member, though, they kept asking.

I slumped on the sofa and James put his arm around me. Momentarily I was grateful for the contact, but I was soon up again, unable to sit still. I’d rung Hadi Kattan’s house immediately after we’d spoken to the police, but there was no answer. And then when James went to make more tea, I found Danny Callendar’s mobile number from the text he’d sent last night and I rang him. He didn’t answer either, but I left a message asking him if he knew where my kids were.

An hour or so later, the doorbell rang and I ran for the door, skidding on the rug in the hall. As I plucked it back, I had never been so eager to open a door in my life. But it was only the milkman, come to settle his bill.