‘I don’t want to go back to O’s.’ My voice is shaking. I’m so cold.

‘Shandy and I will be staying with you until this is resolved.’

I lean into his warmth. ‘I’ll tell you how to resolve it. Arrest Martin Elstree.’

‘I’m not in a position to arrest anybody. We need to build a case before we can have him picked up.’

We board the bus and stagger to the back. I see myself reflected in the bus window. Sporting that dead-fish look.

‘Come on, you’re shocky, bruv,’ Shandy says. ‘Take my coat.’

* * *

In the wee hours we find O’s flat occupied by Roman’s sister Elena, the bike messenger, and her partner Monk. It smells of fish fingers, possibly because their three kids are there, too, crashed out in sleeping bags in O’s sitting room except for the one sleeping against Monk’s shoulder.

‘There’s nothing more we can do,’ Elena tells Roman. ‘Unless you want one of us to get on a ferry and go to Brittany.’

Roman shakes his head. ‘No, I’ve got Donato working on that end. I’m sorry it’s so late. Do you want help getting the kids home? I’ll call a car.’

‘Already done. We have a friend coming in five.’ Monk is packing bottles and toys into a nappy bag one-handed while Elena rouses her kids and shepherds them down the stairs. O would flip out at the thought of her privacy being invaded this way, but the domestic scene is exactly the kind of surreal I need to calm me down after everything that’s happened. I grab sleeping bags and stray toys and follow Elena and her kids downstairs while Monk and Roman talk about the practicality of tracing a pigeon in France. Elena is cool and efficient, getting the kids in the car and the bikes on the rack without any apparent effort. I find myself thanking her profusely for her help.

‘My brother likes to rescue people,’ she says. ‘You’re not one of those suicidal sleepwalkers, are you?’

‘Not suicidal, no,’ I say, handing her a partly chewed lion cuddly toy that she promptly passes to a crying daughter.

‘Good. Listen, my brother asked me to break into your friend’s filing cabinet. You might want to take a look at what he finds before he gives it all to Donato.’

She gets in the car and buckles herself in just as Monk emerges from O’s building with the baby.

‘He what?’ I say.

‘You heard me. Listen, I have no clue what’s going on with all this, but I’ve listened to your ASMR and I don’t think you can be a bad person if you made those recordings to help people calm down. So I’m telling you straight – check the files. Once Donato gets them, you’ll probably never see them again. Good luck.’