However, this was nothing like Noah’s relationship with his brother, and he had to make the police understand that. He knew better than anyone else when something wasn’t right.

‘I have to go,’ Mattsson said. ‘If there’s nothing else . . .’

Noah took a chance.

‘What time of day was it when my brother said he was going to a meeting?’

‘Funnily enough, I do remember that. I was having lunch and I happened to belch down the phone. I’d had a kebab, the best in town. Do you know that place in the Soder district, on Hornsgatan? They deliver if you order the day before.’ But Noah wasn’t listening. He was online, checking out the time in Australia.

‘So you called him around lunchtime?’ he said.

‘I just told you. I don’t have time to talk to you any more.’

That pierced Noah’s heart like a barb. Mattsson didn’t have time to talk to him. Other matters took priority over the search for Dan.

‘So I’m guessing we’re talking about twelve o’clock, something like that?’

‘Maybe.’

‘Which is ten o’clock at night in Sydney,’ Noah informed Mattsson.

Silence, then: ‘So?’

‘You said my brother was on his way to a business meeting.’ Noah could feel his pulse rate increasing; at last he’d found concrete evidence for what he’d been trying to put across for so long. ‘Who goes to a business meeting at night?’

Silence.

‘And maybe you ought to reconsider this whole “business meeting” scenario,’ Noah went on. ‘My brother is a psychologist. He never uses terms like that. Just as he never swears at me the way he did in that email.’

He could hear Mattsson speaking quietly to someone else. He held his breath; surely the police had to take him seriously now?

‘Listen, Noah.’ Mattsson’s tone was gentler now. ‘We have a counsellor here at the station who’d be happy to see you – if you think that would help?’

Noah ended the call, absolutely devastated. He wouldn’t contact Stig Mattsson again. He had to get hold of someone else who could help him, someone who understood how unbelievable it was that an entire family had been missing for weeks, and that the police had refused to look for them. Someone who would listen.

He closed his eyes and rested his head on his hands. Maybe there was one more lifeline. Maybe. The only problem was that Noah was hampered by what he could and couldn’t do as a funeral director. There were certain contacts that could be exploited, others that couldn’t.

At that moment the bell tinkled; someone had come in. He took a few seconds to compose himself, then went into the reception area to see who it was. A young woman was standing just inside the door. Noah had never seen her before, and yet she said: