‘I honestly don’t know,’ I cry. ‘I think someone’s setting me up.’

‘Why would someone set you up?’ he asks, his voice high-pitched. ‘Who would want to do that?’

You, my father, my sister, Jacob’s wife, I want to say, as I imagine them all circling above me like vultures waiting to pick the meat off my bones.

The very thought that the man I love more than anyone in the world might be capable of stabbing me in the back and twisting the knife to such a degree devastates me. It’s as if my heart is being ripped out of me by the very hand I trust the most.

I shudder, unable to comprehend what he might have done to Jacob, even though it would be the last thing I could possibly imagine him doing. But didn’t I think the same about my father?

‘OK,’ he says when I offer no response. ‘So the police have got nothing other than a bunch of fake emails, and anyone could have set those up to look like they were from you.’

He says it as if it’s as easy as that, and I can’t believe that we haven’t yet had the hardest part of this conversation.

I swallow hard. ‘They have doorbell footage as well.’

He looks at me, unblinking.

‘I went round there the other night, when I was worried about him.’

‘So you’ve visited him at the flat?’ he asks incredulously, fixing me with a steely glare. ‘And you wonder why I don’t trust you.’

A sharp breath catches in my throat as the slight’s jagged edges make themselves felt.

There’s a distant ringing of a phone and I follow it to my bag on the back of the dining chair. It stops in the time it takes me to find it, but as I look at the screen, I see two missed calls from Anna.

‘Oh my god, Anna!’ I exclaim. ‘Has she been here? Have you seen her?’

Leon looks at me in disbelief. ‘Do you not think we’ve got far bigger problems to deal with?’

‘But she was supposed to be here,’ I say, making my way to the front door and lifting up the corner of the mat I’d thrown the key under when I left with the police officers. It’s gone.

My phone rings again, and I rush back into the living room and snatch it up from the dining table.

‘Don’t answer it,’ says Leon sharply.

‘But Anna might be in trouble!’

‘I swear to God, Naomi, if you pick that up—’

‘Just give me a second,’ I say holding one finger up. ‘Let me just make sure she’s OK.’

He throws his hands up in the air and I turn my back on him.

‘Hello?’ I breathe down the line. ‘Anna, are you OK?’

‘No,’ is all she says.