‘Well, maybe that’s best. I got a garbled tale from Dr Morrisette’s neighbours after knocking on her door and getting no answer. It sounds to me, based on what you’ve said, as if she might have been taken away against her will. But there wasn’t much for her neighbours to notice. A window-cleaning van no one recognized was outside her house for a while this morning, but that was about it. I talked the woman next door into using her spare key to go in and I tagged along. The house was empty. There was a kettle lying on the kitchen floor and the roof of the backyard shed had given way. There were no other signs of anything amiss. But the rear neighbour who I moved on to said a woman ran through her house this morning. That’s right. Straight through from the backyard and out by the front door, then not seen for dust. And she saw some bloke – or thinks she did – in Dr Morrisette’s backyard. She phoned the police, but they fobbed her off. Running through someone’s house isn’t actually a crime, apparently.’

‘I suppose not.’

‘That you, was it, Wada? It sounded like it might be.’

‘I am very worried about Dr Morrisette,’ she replied evasively.

‘I think you should be, because it seems she may not be the only person these people took against their will.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘I called Nick Miller. You spoke to him once, I think. And maybe you’ve come across him since.’

Nick Miller. The son of one of Martin Caldwell’s student friends. She’d spoken to him on the phone at Caldwell’s flat in Exeter. ‘No,’ she said. ‘I have not spoken to him since.’

‘Well, it’s a bit late to start now. I got his wife. She’s worried sick. Nick hasn’t been seen since this morning. He’s not answering his phone. Nobody knows where he is. What do you make of that?’

‘I am not sure … what to make of it.’

‘Is this something we should take to the police, Wada? Are Nick Miller and Dr Morrisette in danger?’

‘It is possible.’

‘OK. So, what are we going to do about it? More specifically, since I don’t know enough to do very much, what are you going to do about it?’

Michaela remarked at some point on the obstinacy of hunger. She had lots of grim contingencies to fill her mind with, but that didn’t stop her stomach growling when long hours passed without food. Nick hadn’t noticed until she said it how hungry he was himself. It was a kind of comfort in its way. They were alive and well, able to experience physical cravings. For the time being, at least.