When I go back outside, Vermeer’s deep in conversation with someone on the phone, so much so that she doesn’t see me until I’m right close by. She covers her discomfort well once she spots me, holding her hand over the phone’s mic whilst she talks to me.

‘Lost your dog?’

‘They definitely handled her affairs, but they’re not going to give them up without a bit of badge waving.’

She rolls her eyes. ‘All right.’ She tells whoever’s waiting on the line she’ll get back to them and follows me inside where she duly slaps her badge down in front of Beernink.

‘You got it from here?’ she asks me, but heads back out before waiting for an answer. Whilst Beernink taps away furiously on his computer – Vermeer seemed to have quite the effect on him – I think of Beving and his demand that I had to keep tabs on her. Once again, I wonder why.

‘Okay, got the file references here,’ Beernink says, hitting the enter key with a flourish. ‘Oh.’

‘What?’

‘They’ve been archived.’

‘So unarchive them.’

‘They’re actually kept off-site. We have secure storage for all our clients’ documents and –’

‘Surely you’ve got something on the computer?’

Beernink shakes his head. ‘We only keep files we’re currently working on on our servers, though it’s true that if the client corresponds with us via email we’ll have more. Many of our elderly clients don’t use email, though, and from what I can see here Marit Berkhout was one of those.’

‘It’s really important we see those files; how long is it going to take to get them?’

Beernink checks his watch. ‘I’ll try for today but it may be first thing tomorrow.’

‘It’s going to need to be quicker than that,’ I tell him.

Back at reception Kush is lying on his back, front paws praying mantis style, having his chest rubbed by the receptionist.

‘He’s so cute,’ she says, not even looking up. ‘Cute, cute, cute, cute, cuuuuute,’ she says, rubbing his belly some more.

Kush lets out a low groan of pleasure.

Vermeer, on the other hand, lets out another type of groan when I tell her where we’re at. She’s leaning against the car, arms crossed, a frown on her face. Beernink walks out of the building and across the car park to a silver Lexus. He does a half-wave to me as if he doesn’t know whether it’s appropriate or not.

‘Looks like you’ve got a new friend,’ Vermeer says.

‘We bonded over legal stuff.’

‘He’s going to the archive now, is he?’

‘That’s what I told him to do.’

The Lexus reverses out in a smooth arc as Vermeer’s phone goes off. Kush strains at the leash, trying to sniff a patch on the ground, darker than the surrounding asphalt, which is just out of reach.