‘What? Yes. He was on a job. They’re building a wall at a nursing home. He called me about one o’clock, on his break. He mentioned coming to my darts night on Friday. That’s not someone planning to run away, is it?’

‘We put his van’s reg number in the Automatic Number Plate Recognition system. We got a hit. His van was logged at 1.21 yesterday afternoon. So, twenty minutes after he called you from, he said, Sheffield city centre.’

Puzzled, Anna said nothing.

Miller looked at her. ‘I really do apologise. The van was in Sunderland.’

Sunderland? They were saying that Nick was in Sunderland when he claimed to be lunching in Sheffield? ‘That must be wrong. Must be.’

Miller reached down to unclasp Anna’s seatbelt. She hadn’t realised she’d put it on. ‘If you don’t mind, dear, now we’re alone and getting used to the awkward dollops, I need to do another. I need proof that you’re Josie’s mother.’

Her head snapped round. Miller had pulled a plastic packet from her pocket. Anna knew she was looking at a swab kit. ‘You want my DNA?’

Miller opened the packet and said, ‘That’s right, dear. Not that we don’t believe you, of course. Dotted Is and crossed Ts. We have to officially make sure you’re her mother. You want to do it, or I can?’

‘It’s the other way round, isn’t it? You need to make sure she’s my daughter, don’t you? In case you only find a body.’

Hope you’ve got good pictures of Josie in your head. You’ll need them.

For a time the sheer absurdity and fantasy of that text message had kept it anchored far below the surface of her mind, but now it floated into the open.

The first thing she had heard when she returned to the house was Father continuing to interrogate the police, so she slipped into the bedroom. Jane had appeared moments later. Lying side-by-side on the bed, they had talked about anything and everything not involving the kidnap, or Josie, or Nick. It had helped Anna shed nerves to the point where she felt dozy. It had put Jane to sleep.

Her poor sister, pushed headlong into this nightmare. But at least she looked at peace now. Because she’d been sightless since the age of three, her dreams were always set on a beach burned impossibly bright by the sun, like a washed-out TV image. Jane theorised that her dreams were always burning white because there was too much black in the rest of her world. Anna had noted the irony of her sister’s situation: the world was meant to turn from black to white when the eyes closed, but for Jane it was the opposite. Anna hoped the beach was in her head now and not a nightmare about Josie.