The map Nick and Anna had seen earlier was back. The ˃ shape that traced the route of the hunted VW Passat from the lock-up garage now looked like an elongated Z, because another pin had been added, this time a mile east of the Nuthall mark, still in Nuthall but on the other side of the M1. The M1 was a line cutting the Z in half.

Miller waited a few seconds until Jane had put a tea before Anna and taken her seat. Nick stood behind both women, still fidgeting with excess energy.

Miller tapped the top left point of the Z: ‘03.11 text message from Nick’s mobile. At the lock-up garage.’ She dragged her finger to the top right corner: ‘05.02 call to your home. From the A38 near the two Ashfield market towns, east of the M1.’ Bottom left: ‘The 07.14 call to the hospital. From around the town of Nuthall, west of the M1. And lastly the bottom right point of the alphabet’s ultimate letter: ‘10 a.m. call directing Anna to the Rotherham phone box. Still in Nuthall, but barely a mile east of the call that came nearly three hours earlier.’

‘Seems to me they’ve reached their destination if they barely moved in three hours. So it’s Nottingham after all.’ All turned to the voice from the doorway. Middleton. He seemed to take their silence as a point proven, and vanished just as quickly as he’d materialised.

‘Ignore him, Nick,’ Anna said, fiddling with a watch she’d recently put on. ‘I’ll talk to him.’

Miller stared right into Nick’s eyes. ‘Nobody is accusing you of anything, Nick.’ She got back to business to quickly shift the subject. ‘As we’ve shown, they’re probably avoiding major roads like the M1 because of the cameras. The zigzagging south could be so we can’t determine a straight path to a particular place. But the movement west between the 07.13 and 10 o’clock calls is tiny given the three-hour gap. As Mr Middleton said, they might have reached their destination. Nuthall. Possibly the portion west of the M1, location of the 07.13 call.’ She jabbed the bottom left corner of the Z. ‘They might have made a little journey east for the 10 o’clock just to make sure their phones weren’t captured in the same spot. It’s possible they’re hanging around in Nuthall awaiting something and will move on. Of course, it’s possible they had a delay, like a puncture or such.’