I stayed on their website for a moment, flicking between three tabs at the top: Home, Who Are We? and Contact. The home page was in the same green as the sign hanging above their door in York, and the company name was in the same gold seriffed font. Below that, it said: LEGAL AFFAIRS | EST. 1896. On the Who Are We? page there was a short description of their recent history, with no specifics about what ‘legal affairs’ meant, just an invitation to call them. I knew, though, at least based on what Ross had told me, that they dealt with the complexities of house moves, and if they were looking after the interests of Randolph Solomon and Emiline Wilson – if their will was on file somewhere inside the walls of the firm – then the company obviously handled areas like probate, inheritance tax and distribution of estate.

I thought about Randolph and Emiline. There were bugs in their house, the same as the others’, but they were the only ones in Black Gale with an actual connection to Seiger and Sten, their vehicle was the only one unaccounted for, and something that Tori Gibbs had said to me the previous night had lodged in my mind and was tricky to shake off.

No one knows anything about them.

The bugs made me think of someone else too: Ross. He had keys to all the houses, knew all the alarm codes, and was directly associated with Seiger and Sten through his business. The question was how and why that association had come about. York was an hour’s drive from Leeds, so it wasn’t even close to his estate agency, and there were twenty law firms in Leeds – and twenty more in the areas surrounding it – that would have been a much more convenient recommendation to his customers.

I grabbed my phone and dialled his number.

‘David,’ he said once he’d answered. ‘How are you?’

He sounded optimistic, as if he were expecting good news, a break in the case, something fresh and positive. If he’d told me the truth the day before, I didn’t want to crush him inside the first ten seconds, because I needed him candid and clear-headed. But if he was lying to me, I needed to be able to hear that plainly too, so I said I was calling to check on a couple of things and then gave him a very broad overview of what I’d found out so far. It didn’t amount to much – certainly, nothing about the bugs – just enough to assure him things were moving.

‘I wanted to ask you about Seiger and Sten,’ I said.

‘The law firm?’

‘I’ve just got a few things I need to get straightened out.’ My eyes went to the laptop, where their pale green home page was still showing. ‘You said to me yesterday that you’d often recommend Seiger and Sten to homebuyers looking for a solicitor?’