There might even be a CCTV recording of her getting into a car, its licence plate clearly visible and its owner quickly apprehended. The car’s journey down to the Cotswolds would be captured on a succession of motorway cameras. There would be no escape in these days of total surveillance. While Thea abhorred this development in principle, she could relish the idea that only the most cunning criminals could evade detection. Except, she remembered, they very often did, regardless of the cameras. The monsters who slaughtered and then sold rare wild animals, for a start. Would Gladwin and her colleagues really manage to catch them and bring them to justice? And what would that justice be, anyway? What difference would it make to the worldwide trade that was going on?

Her thoughts see-sawed through optimism and dark despair at the wickedness of the human race. In the quiet of Tabitha Ibbotson’s living room, she pursued her stream of consciousness wherever it might lead her, with nothing to distract or interrupt her. She had experienced such interludes before, meditating on situations and dilemmas without flinching at the implications. It was something she shared with Drew, 148who was given to a very similar kind of musing. It had to do with his work, and with the fact that both he and Thea had lost partners they had expected to enjoy for many more decades. They shared an impatience with trivia and evasion. It had, she supposed, been quickly apparent to them both, from their first meeting, that they had this in common.

All of which prompted her to phone her husband some hours earlier than usual. She had a lot to say to him, starting with the abject apology due for forgetting their anniversary.

She tried the landline first, and was answered on the third ring by a young female voice saying, ‘Hello? How can I help you?’

‘Stephanie! Does Dad know you’re answering the phone? What if it’s a funeral?’

‘I can manage,’ said the child stiffly. ‘I know what to say.’

‘But where is he? Why can’t he answer it for himself?’

There was a pause, in which Thea could hear some whispering, and then, ‘Oh, he’s upstairs. Do you want me to call him?’

‘Yes please,’ said Thea firmly. ‘And who are you whispering to?’

‘Only Timmy. I’ll ask him to go and call Dad, shall I?’

‘Yes,’ said Thea impatiently. ‘Why’s he upstairs? What’s he doing?’

‘Oh – making beds or something. I don’t know exactly.’

The tone was artificially airy and Thea began to feel suspicious. The forgotten anniversary came back to bite 149her, and the need to speak to her undervalued husband became more pressing. ‘Hurry him up, then,’ she said. ‘Shout for him if you have to.’

‘Wait a minute, then.’ The receiver was put down and an echoey silence ensued for at least a full minute. At last Drew was there. ‘Hey – sorry,’ he said breathlessly. ‘What’s the matter?’

‘Nothing, really. At least – a few things, but you don’t have to worry. The first is to offer my grovelling apologies for forgetting our anniversary. It was yesterday, wasn’t it? I just never registered the date properly. I feel so awful about it, I had to phone you as soon as I had the house to myself.’