Nabi’s reply was: ‘But it’s a police system, so we’re hardly going to get confused. Anyway, they should have done SHERLOCK, which sounds better.’

Anna knocked on the door. ‘Nick? You okay?’

No answer. Nick would have responded, so there was probably a police officer in there. She was about to make sure with a louder knock when there was a burst of laughter from the living room. A moment of mirth highlighted her utter distress and it dug right under her skin. She banged the living room door open.

Nobody in the living room, but through the room divider she saw them in their little NASA control room. As guessed: Hicks and Nabi and three others, one of whom was a new face, all sitting around her dining table like Sunday afternoon dinner guests. She stepped up to the gap at the end. Hicks had a pained face and was rubbing one side of her bloated belly. Anna opened her mouth to shout at them – if Miller had ordered her people to stay in their little sanctuary to give Anna peace, it surely included not filling the house with their mundane chatter – but the anger quickly subsided. She was tired of anger on top of pain. The moment the detectives spotted her, she spoke.

‘I find it hard to picture Josie smiling in my head. Does that sound normal?’

The new face was caught halfway standing, as if to introduce himself. Everyone just stared at her.

‘The last thing I said to her before she went to bed… it was something bad. I told her off because she was being naughty. I last saw my little lady with a grumpy face, and now it’s the only face I can picture when I think of her. She said to me, you don’t love me. But I just left the room without speaking. What if I never get another chance to tell her I love her?’

Nabi didn’t seem to care, but Hicks got up and approached.

‘Don’t think like that,’ she said, standing close. ‘She’s coming back to you, and very soon.’

When the detective took her into a hug, Anna couldn’t stop a deluge of tears. She had sought a reaction, that was all, but hearing the words aloud drove their potency home. What if she never again got the chance to speak to her little lady? What if there was a dead spot in her mind, like a scratch on a vinyl record, and she was never again able to imagine Josie smiling?

What if… ‘She thinks she’s been taken from her mum and dad as punishment for being naughty?’

Before the detective could answer, they heard the front door close, and then a shout from another room, by Miller: ‘Did someone just leave the house?’