As he drank his coffee, Nick began to wonder whether Caldwell was playing some kind of perverse game, trying to make himself seem mysterious and important with all this switching of times and days and implications of great revelations to come. Exeter was only a couple of hours from London by train. What exactly was his problem?

That thought prompted Nick to check whether Caldwell had phoned from Exeter. But another surprise awaited him. Caldwell had withheld his number. And Nick could think of no reason why he would do that. Other than the obvious one, of course. He wasn’t in Exeter. And he didn’t want Nick to know where he’d gone. Or maybe … he couldn’t risk Nick knowing.

What the hell was going on? And who on God’s green earth were Peter Ellery and Alison Parker?

FIVE

WADA VISITED HER mother on sunday afternoon. she generally substituted a lengthy telephone conversation for an actual visit until Haha’s complaints about never seeing her daughter became so insistent there was nothing for it but to turn up in person.

It would have been impossible for Wada to explain that the primary reason for her reluctance to visit the tiny house in Koishikawa wasn’t a wish to avoid her mother but the depression that always settled on her when she went back there. She didn’t quite understand why returning to the scene of her earliest memories dragged her spirits down, but certainly it did, despite many of those memories, particularly if they involved her father, being happy ones.

Wada steered well clear, as ever, of a mother and daughter heart-to-heart. ‘You are a mystery to me,’ Haha often lamented. Which was as Wada preferred it. As she’d grown older, she’d found more and more comfort in the privacy of her thoughts. On this occasion, she was also able to plead professional confidentiality as a reason why she couldn’t say anything about her trip to London beyond the fact that it was taking place. Conversation was therefore largely confined to Haha’s complaints about inconvenient alterations to the ward refuse collection arrangements and confusing changes of stock location in her local minimarket.

Wada wondered if Kodaka would call her at some point on Sunday to report on what he’d been able to find out in Fukuoka. But no call came that day and she knew better than to call him. If he needed to be in touch, he would be.

No call came the following morning either. Still Wada wasn’t concerned. Kodaka always kept as much information as possible to himself. She was confident she’d hear from him after she reached London. He’d said he expected to be back in Tokyo by Monday evening at the latest.