He shrugged. ‘Wary.’

‘Why?’

‘Like I said, I think he disguised who he really was.’

I watched him for a moment, replaying what he’d just told me. I wasn’t certain he was lying to me – I just wasn’t sure he was telling me the truth either. The way he talked about Vale, the way Vale had scared him: it felt erroneous somehow, insufficient, as if he’d left something unsaid.

‘Did you go to his funeral?’ I asked.

Zaid seemed surprised by the question. ‘Yes. Yes, of course. It was a very small occasion. His mother had already passed on and so had his father, and anyone else he might have been connected to back in LA had long since stopped talking to him, so he was cremated in a cemetery in Brockley.’

Zaid came back to the sofas.

‘Have you ever heard the name Jacob Pierce, Robert?’

He thought for a second.

‘No, I don’t think so.’

‘He’s a solicitor, based up in York.’

‘Oh, wait a minute: yes, I have heard of him.’

I studied him more closely now. His head was slightly ducked so I could see his eyes, but not as clearly as I’d have liked.

‘How do you know him?’ I asked.

‘I don’t really know him, I just know the company he used to work for. Before he moved up north, Jacob Pierce worked for Franklin Habash down here in London. They were the law firm that my dad used to use, run by an ex-pat Iranian, like him.’

‘Jacob Pierce was Adrian’s solicitor back in 1987.’

‘Yes,’ he said, ‘that’s right.’

‘Did you recommend Franklin Habash to Adrian?’

He shrugged. ‘He asked if I knew a solicitor. I said I did.’

‘But you said the two of you didn’t really talk?’

‘We talked enough over time.’

‘You mean, you grew closer?’

‘No, not closer,’ he replied, shaking his head, as if the idea offended him. ‘Adrian and I were never close. But we would talk a little on occasions, so when he asked me if I knew any solicitors, I gave him the one I knew. At that stage, in the hours after Beatrix went missing, I wasn’t really thinking about allegiances. I wasn’t even thinking that Adrian might know where she was. I was naive, I suppose. I thought maybe Adrian knew something that could help the police.’

‘So why would he need a solicitor?’

Zaid frowned. ‘I was twenty-two, David. I’d never even been close to anything like that. I didn’t think about it all that much. He asked, and I obliged.’

There was silence now from Zaid.

Silence in the house as well.

‘Have you ever heard of Black Gale, Robert?’

He frowned again.

‘It’s in Yorkshire,’ I explained. ‘It was in the news a few years back.’

‘Doesn’t ring any bells with me.’

‘The entire village went missing on the same night.’