‘Liv’s being a pain in the arse at the moment,’ she said, her words soft. ‘“School’s boring, I hate school, I hate learning” – all of that. I try to laugh it off, try to tell myself it’s just a phase she’s in, but it grinds me down. I had her in one ear, and then all this lesson prep, and I just …’ A pause. ‘Someone called this morning.’

‘What did they want?’

‘He said he was a friend of yours.’

A low-level alarm started to grip me.

‘Okay. What did he say his name was?’

‘That’s the thing, he didn’t, and I didn’t ask. I know that’s stupid.’

‘It’s all right,’ I said, attempting to sound calm, even though I didn’t feel it. I tried to imagine who’d call Annabel claiming to be a friend of mine, without offering a name.

I could only really think of one person.

‘Did this guy have an accent?’ I asked her.

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘He sounded cockney.’

Shit.

‘What did he ask you?’

‘He just wanted to know if I knew where you were. He said you and him had been working on an investigation together but he hadn’t been able to get hold of you on your mobile. He said, in those circumstances, you’d encouraged him to call me because, if you weren’t in London working, you’d generally be staying here with us.’

That was a complete fabrication.

The alarm started to turn to anger now.

‘Did you tell him where I was?’ I asked her. There wasn’t a hint of accusation in my voice, but it still felt like some kind of an attack on her, especially as I’d phoned her yesterday evening to tell her I was working a case in the Dales. Apart from Healy – and the calls I’d made to Ross Perry, Rina Blake and Tori Gibbs to offer to help – Annabel was the only person who knew where I was heading.

‘No,’ she said. ‘I didn’t tell him you were up north.’

I felt the relief wash through me.

‘Okay,’ I said. ‘Okay, that’s good.’

‘After he asked me that, I thought to myself, “Something’s not right.” I realized he hadn’t offered his name, and when I began asking him who he was, he tried to talk his way around it again – and when that didn’t work, he hung up on me. Have you got any idea who it was?’

‘No,’ I said, trying to make light of it. ‘Probably some chancer.’

Except it wasn’t.