He and his fellows snuck out, leaving one woman on the door and Julian alone inside. Royce doubtless wrote this off as some Secret Service business, operating at a pay grade over regular police work. What Julian actually felt like doing was not act like a security professional but rage and weep and curse the skies like a Shakespearean tragic hero. Instead, he looked up catteries within a reasonable radius of the place, like a sane and non-distraught person, and arranged for them to pick up Simms on his tab. He would have them liaise with Royce and forensics so there could be a handover at the threshold without anyone else contaminating the crime scene. There, all done, all that sensible adult stuff.

He thanked PC Hendry, who would remain to keep an eye on the place until the next phase of police involvement arrived. Royce would keep him posted; Julian knew he would. He phoned the office to update them. He was already braced for someone to suggest that Alison had orchestrated this herself. Her personal file didn’t paint the most stable picture, after all. Had she found out something, dropped off the radar and gone under cover as though she was a spy in hostile territory?

Julian wanted to smash his fists against the wall. Something had happened to Alison, and whatever the hell it was, he was powerless to fix it.

Instead, he went home, because that was what people did. He wasn’t going to tell Josie anything, but in the end he was so bad at covering his upset—which leaked out as irritation and sarcasm despite his best efforts—that she insisted on it. He expected a fight, then, but she stared at him, said quietly that she was sorry, and went to tell John that he shouldn’t bother Dad for a bit.

Julian ended up in the garden, looking up at the night sky that was ninety per cent streetlamp-stained clouds. The summer heatwave was dragging on, and the louring cover above seemed like nothing more than the weather taunting people below. Rain would have been welcome, just for the sense of something breaking.

His phone rang. He glanced at the display and answered it without thinking.

“Matchbox?” And then, “Who is this?,” because he knew her phone was in a police evidence bag.

For a moment he heard only static and distant retorts, like something vast breaking or fissuring a long way away. He was about to speak when he caught her voice. “Spiker…? You hear me? Spiker, you won’t believe what…—iker, it’s…Listen to me, they…” Then nothing, and even the groan and crack that had underscored her words was fading.

“Matchbox?” he demanded once, and then again. The first time he heard an echo of his own voice shuddering back to his ear. The second, nothing, and then the very definite silence of a call having ended.