So he had been here. He’d probably just gone out to get groceries. She breathed a sigh of relief, but found her anxiety replaced by irritation. It was already five past. She opened the briefcase and pulled out the various documents that Wright would have to sign. She occupied the next five minutes examining everything yet again. Finally, at ten past, she rang Wright’s new phone.

It wasn’t on.

She sighed, and then realised that of course, having served thirty years inside, he probably only had the haziest idea of how to use one. She left a voicemail message asking him where he was, then for good measure sent him a text asking him to reply. She went to the lounge and looked out of the bay window into the street. She couldn’t see him, so she exited the front door and walked out onto the pavement, looking both ways. There were no pedestrians. She turned back, went inside and closed the door.

She kept busy answering her emails until she saw it was 11:25 a.m. Anxiety bubbled up. He wasn’t coming back, obviously. What if he had never had any intention of co-operating in this elaborate and expensive resettlement programme? Would they blame her? Perhaps that was why Verity gave her the job – to be the fall guy, having suspected all along that something like this would occur. Perhaps he had gone to a pub and got drunk, like so many ex-cons on their first day out. That was a much more likely story. Alternate waves of optimism and pessimism swept through her.

What if he had immediately gone out to reoffend?

At quarter to twelve, she realised she could no longer delay calling Verity. But she was terrified to do so. Even though it wasn’t her own fault, it would inevitably be seen that way. She had read enough coverage of high-profile failings in every aspect of social work to realise that there are always well-funded lawyers and officials with plenty of time after the fact to comb through the mistakes of even the most junior employees. But there were never enough people at the coalface to keep the workload to a reasonable enough level so mistakes weren’t made in the first place.

Leticia decided to make the first call to a more easy-going authority, Graham Morgan. She got through and described what had happened. The Special Branch detective inspector didn’t seem particularly worried at Wright’s failure to show. ‘You’ve got to understand, Leticia, that someone like him is always playing games with the system. I’ve seen it all before. They’ll muck you about, being late, forgetting documents, and try to get under your skin. They have developed a pathological relationship with authority that almost demands being a pain in the arse. He’s just asserting himself, particularly as you are less experienced than some.’