Our man, if it was our man, didn’t lie in till ten. Just before nine the door opened a crack and a black and white cat shot out, followed by a hand. This hand groped for the pint of milk on the doorstep, found it pulled it in through the crack. The door closed, and a minute later the downstairs curtains opened. Gail and I took a stroll along the road and watched from the corner. After about ten minutes a guy came out, closing the door behind him. He was a big man in his forties. He wore an Aran sweater and cord trousers and had very short sandy hair. As he came down the path the cat, which had been sitting on the wall, jumped down and fled. The man turned left and strode off along the street.

‘What d’you want to do?’ said Gail. ‘Follow?’

‘Naw. He’s not going far. Not dressed for it. Probably off for a paper.’

I was right. He was back in five minutes with a thickish roll of Sunday reading tucked under his arm. He turned into the gateway without noticing us and let himself into the house with a latchkey.

‘D’you reckon that’s our man, then?’

Gail shrugged. ‘Well, it wasn’t Captain Hook, and he seems to live on the ground floor, so I’d say yes, that’s our man.’

‘But he looks so – ordinary.’

‘He might be ordinary, Link. We don’t know he’s done anything, do we? The police found nothing suspicious.’

‘We know he was seen with Ginger and Toya,’ I said. ‘Just before they disappeared. And I know I’d give my left arm for a look inside that house.’

Gail nodded. ‘Me too, but it’s not possible. All we can do is watch.’

So we watched. We saw the cat return and sit there where the milk bottle had been. We didn’t see the upstairs curtains open, but when we sauntered by on the other side at half nine they were open. The sun had cleared the housetops and we strolled in watery sunshine under the trees. We didn’t like to stand in one place too long in case we drew attention to ourselves, and there’s a limit to the number of times you can walk up and down the same short street without somebody noticing. It was dead boring, anyway, and it didn’t look as though our man was coming out, so at a quarter past ten we decided to pack it in till evening. The cat was still on the step when we left.