As soon as he was gone from view, I hurried back down the track, towards the Perrys’ house, and took out my phone, accessing the address book and zeroing in on the name Ewan Tasker. Just like Spike, Tasker was a source from my days as a journalist; unlike Spike, Task had gone on to become one of my best friends. He’d worked for the NCIS for a long time, a precursor to the National Crime Agency, and – even now, in his late sixties – he was still doing consultation work with the Met. If Spike was my key to things like bank statements, to information that existed on servers that I couldn’t access, Task was how I got into the police database.

‘Raker,’ he said as soon as he picked up.

‘Hey, Task. I’m not disturbing you, am I?’

‘No. I wish I could tell you I’m on the way to the gym, but the truth is, I’ve just picked up a latte and a chocolate muffin.’

‘Living the dream.’

‘And what a dream it is.’

I could hear traffic, people, the hum of the city – and all of it felt a million miles away from here.

‘Thanks for sending over that file.’

‘No problem,’ he said. ‘Is it helping?’

‘Hard to say yet. I’m still going through it.’

‘I remember reading about that case in the papers when it happened. Didn’t they vanish on Halloween night? “Like something out of the Twilight Zone”, right?’

I looked around the village, at its stillness, its solitude.

‘Right.’

‘So I’m guessing you need something else?’

‘I’m sorry to have to ask,’ I said, and that wasn’t a lie: I really did feel bad about pressing him for another favour. However careful we were – and we always were – every time he went into the database he was risking his work, his reputation, even his pension, so while I tried to even things up in whatever way I could, turning up to his charity golf days in order to be humiliated over eighteen holes, ultimately I could never repay him completely.

‘What is it you need?’ he asked.

‘I was hoping you could chase down a car for me.’

‘All right, give me a sec.’ The noise of the street dulled just a little: he’d clearly found a spot that was quieter and was digging around for a pen. ‘Okay,’ he said.

I read out the registration plate for the Lexus.

‘I think it belongs to a guy called Isaac Mills.’

‘Mills?’

‘Yeah. Or it could be a company car.’

‘Who’s the company?’

‘Seiger and Sten. It’s some sort of legal firm.’

After a short pause, I heard him start walking again.

‘Is there anything that’s going to burn me here?’

‘There shouldn’t be,’ I said.

‘That’s not the most reassuring response you’ve ever given me.’