‘For you to get in touch. I’m up in London, as per your request, staring down the barrel of spending some of my pitifully small pension on a hotel room. I’m not wasting my money, am I?’

‘I did not ask you to travel to London.’

‘You said we’d meet in London today.’

‘I said I was hoping we could meet in London today.’

‘And are we going to?’

‘No.’

‘So, I am wasting my money.’

‘Listen to me, Mr Holgate. Things have become … difficult.’

‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

‘I need you to make some enquiries … that I cannot make.’

‘Such as?’

‘Dr Michaela Morrisette is a climatologist at Cambridge University. There was an incident today at her house. Forty-four Alford Street, Cambridge. She was attacked by an intruder. I need you to find out what happened to her.’

‘Why?’

‘She is central to this matter. Without her …’

‘Without her I don’t have a story to flog? Is that what you’re saying?’

‘Yes. It is what I am saying.’

‘What do you expect me to do? Go up to Cambridge? Ask the neighbours? I’m just a retired provincial reporter, Wada, not the Pinkerton Detective Agency.’

‘I cannot do this, Mr Holgate. I am too exposed. We need to find out what has happened to her. Only then can we take the next step.’

‘And where are you going to be while I’m gumshoeing around?’

‘I have to stay out of sight.’

‘Great.’

‘Do you still want the truth, Mr Holgate?’

There was a long silence. Wada could hear Holgate’s wheezy breathing at the other end. Then he said, ‘Give me that name and address again.’

Nick and Michaela had no way of knowing what time it was or where they were. There were no windows in the shed. They had no phones. Nick had been abducted in Greenwich, Michaela in Cambridge. Halfway between the two, maybe? It was impossible to say. They were in limbo.

Something would happen eventually. They wouldn’t be left there indefinitely. But what would happen? If Nishizaki had had them kidnapped to put pressure on Driscoll, what would he demand as ransom? And would Driscoll pay it? Neither of them knew him well enough to say. Which left open a possibility that was chilling to contemplate. Nick didn’t put it into words and neither did Michaela. But he had no doubt it was in her mind, gnawing away at her, just as it was gnawing away at him.

He was also anxious about Kate. What would she think had happened? What would she do? The only certainty was that she’d be worried. And all he could do was worry about just how worried she’d be.

The only way to distract themselves was to talk, as they did, slowly becoming ever more open with each other about how they’d got themselves, by such very different routes, into this situation.