Kate slept fitfully that night, the papers hidden behind a loose panel at the back of one of the kitchen cupboards. In the morning, she rose early, took the train to Clapham and walked the short distance to the small cinema. She stood with her back to it and looked across the road. In front of her was a line of terraced Victorian house conversions.

Crossing the road, she walked up the path of the first building, but the curtains were still closed in all the windows. She tried to peer through a tiny sliver of a gap but could see nothing. Hurrying up the path to the next, again she couldn’t see in any of the windows but, alongside the bright-red front door, there was a row of buzzers for each of the flats. The top one was for a Mr A. Langley.

She pressed it and waited for Adam to answer.

She pressed again.

And again.

It was only seven in the morning – surely, he hadn’t left for work already? Maybe he was in the shower . . .? Desperate, she tried a different doorbell, a Miss T. Evans.

‘Hello?’ answered a female voice.

‘Oh, hi, it’s –’ Kate glanced at the names written against the keypads; the basement flat belonged to Andrea Gibson – ‘Andrea from downstairs. I’ve just locked myself out!’

The buzzer sounded satisfyingly, and Kate walked in. Then from the flat on the ground floor, a young woman suddenly appeared, dressed in short pyjamas, a floral wrap and fluffy slippers. It took a second and then Kate recognized her. It was Adam’s girlfriend . . . what was her name? Trixie.

‘You’re not Andrea,’ said Trixie suspiciously. Then she frowned. ‘Hang on, I remember you. You came to talk to Adam . . . at his office.’

‘That’s right.’

‘What are you doing here?’

‘I’m looking for him.’

‘Well, get to the back of the queue,’ said Trixie, distinctly unimpressed. ‘We’d all like to know where he is.’

Alarm bells were faintly sounding in Kate’s ears. ‘We?’ she queried.

‘There was a bloke here earlier this morning from his work. Really early. Six o’clock, he woke me. Wanted to speak to Adam. Knew I shouldn’t have got the flat on the ground floor,’ she grumbled.

‘What did this man want him for?’

‘Apparently something urgent had come up. Adam was needed in to sort it out.’

Kate’s heart started beating faster. ‘Did that not strike you as odd?’ she asked.

‘What do you mean?’

‘That he was needed so early in the morning?’

Trixie pondered. ‘Well, I suppose . . . I don’t know really, he’s always so secretive about what he does. Science research or something. I guess I never really thought about it.’

‘Where did he go, this man?’ asked Kate.

‘Well, he went up to Adam’s flat, tried to wake him.’ Unease was starting to form on Trixie’s face.

Kate raced up the stairs, Trixie following. Kate stopped abruptly at Adam’s door. It was ajar, broken at the lock.