Upstairs, a second light came on and I saw the daughter enter the next room along from her brother’s, still doing something on her mobile. Below her, Melia had exited the kitchen and was heading into the living room. I couldn’t see much of it, but I could see enough: the television was on in there and she’d collapsed into the sofa, curling her legs up and under her.

A side gate opened on to the back garden. It wasn’t locked, just latched, so I pushed at it, left it ajar, and then stopped short of the ground-floor window. When I peered in, looking through the kitchen into the living room, Melia was still where I’d last seen her.

But she’d left her phone on the kitchen counter.

Maybe I didn’t need to find a way to speak to her after all.

I glanced around me, along the row of terraces, making sure there were no eyes on me, but I was at too tight an angle for anyone to see. The only danger came from people walking along the alleyway that connected Melia’s street to the next.

I looked at her phone again.

Using the open window, I reached in and grabbed it.

As soon as I had it, I hurried back to the car – but then, almost instantly, it started chirping as a series of texts came through, their sound catching me totally unaware, resonant in the stillness of the evening. I tried to suppress the noise by closing my fist around the handset, but then it beeped again, and again, WhatsApp alerts blinking on the display, and as I got to the Audi, I looked back at the windows of the property, at the homes adjacent to it, expecting to see Melia looking out at me, or one of the neighbours, or both. But there was no one.

The street was still quiet.

I unlocked the car and slid in at the wheel, knowing what a risk it was taking the phone. I had no sight of Melia or her movements. She might already be looking for the mobile. That meant I needed to go through it as fast as possible.

There was a numbered passcode but, by tilting the phone to the light, I could see tiny clusters of fingerprints where – over a long period of time – she’d repeatedly put her password in. I tried entering the code, following the pattern of prints.

It didn’t work the first two times.

But on the third I got it.