The ticking of the clock called him back to reality. He’d never understood how Alicia could stand the relentless clop-clop-clop of it, but she said it was comforting and it helped her sleep. She’d been gone half an hour. She might not be back for hours more. She might walk in any second. He had to be fast.

Where to start? First, a brief rifle through her desk, although this seemed unlikely. She’d been writing in bed last night. Would she really get up again just to leave her diary somewhere so obvious? Nonetheless he checked. Sometimes, not hiding things properly became brilliant concealment. He frisked the pillow, the mattress, the bed. Many people chose beds to hide things in, even huge uncomfortable things like bricks of cocaine and guns. But there was no sign of the journal.

She might have taken it with her to Katie’s. But he kept looking.

Her bookshelves were in transition too. The Chronicles of Narnia sat beside Twilight and Carrie. She’d borrowed the Jeremy Clarkson book that Mike (almost certainly prompted by Anna) had given him for Christmas. He wondered why she’d bothered. As far as he was concerned, it was unreadable. She’d also taken his copy of Crime and Punishment, and marked her place with a piece of string. She’d made it to page one hundred and twenty-one. Had she stopped, or was she just pausing for breath? The book by her bed was The Hunger Games. He’d driven her and three friends to see the film one Sunday, and spent the afternoon reading in a café. Still no sign of the journal.

Her drawers next, guilt growing hot in his belly now. Checking her bed was one thing (‘I was changing the sheets!’), rummaging her bookshelves was another (‘I was after that book of mine you never gave back!’) but there was no defence for rummaging through her underwear. He forced himself to forget that these were his daughter’s things, to go through the familiar motions of checking and seeking and cataloguing. Nothing, nothing, nothing. He was violating her privacy for nothing. Would she know he’d been here?

He found it at last in the place he should have looked first – in the backpack she was normally inseparable from, hanging on the back of the door. He didn’t even see it until he sat down heavily on the bed to regroup, causing the door to swing slightly closed. Eight years away from his old life and his skills were finally leaving him.

He took out the journal and looked at it. The corners were rubbed smooth and there was a tear in the flowery cover where Alicia had tried to peel off the barcode sticker. It was about one-third full.

He’d found it. Now what? I put it to you, Mr Emory, that in reading your daughter’s diary you were merely indulging a prurient curiosity. - Absolutely not. I was concerned for her welfare. - Why did you feel concerned? - I’d read something before that. - Ah, so you’d already invaded her privacy by reading her diary on a previous occasion? - If I could finish, what I was going to say was what I read gave me reason to believe she might be sexually active. - Sexually active! So she referred to having sex? - Not exactly but I felt I had enough grounds to go back and have another look just to make sure. She’s still underage. - Mr Emory, isn’t it true that you only decided to investigate after you began a liaison with a married woman? Is it possible you were merely displacing the guilt you felt about betraying your wife? - That’s a bit deep for a brief, isn’t it? - Ah, but this isn’t a Court of Law, is it? This is the Court of Your Own Conscience. We can go as deep as we like.