“No. Nothing at all.” After a moment he said, “What about you? Usually she’ll speak to you.”

“Not this time. I’ve tried ringing. I went to her flat. She doesn’t answer the door if she knows it’s me knocking.”

“What about that boyfriend you said she told you about? She hasn’t said anything more about that?”

Jo deeply regretted mentioning that conversation to her parents. The information had slipped out, and Dad had clung to it, probably because there’d been nothing else.

“I still don’t know anything more. She hasn’t rung me, I told you.”

“You’re not just saying that because she’s asked you to pretend?”

“No, Dad. I wish I were.”

“It’s good that she’s found someone though, isn’t it?”

“I keep telling you, dad, it’s not a boyfriend. She just said she’d met some new friends and that one of them was a man.”

The driver’s license in the name of Gregor Franks came to mind, the face of the fugitive staring out. It occurred to her that they needed to add Gregor, the real Gregor, to the list of people they had to find. The list of people this invisible man had caused to disappear.

“Don’t be like that, Joanna. It’s a comfort, to know that she’s not on her own. Since last year we haven’t known who she’s with, whether she’s eating properly, nothing at all. Only the updates we get from you. I like to imagine he’s a lovely man, that she’s happy and settled.”

She took a deep breath before she said, “Her phone is switched off. Has been for a couple of weeks.”

“Oh no. Don’t tell your mother that, will you?”

“I’m not sure she’d remember if I did.”

“Marianne wants to give her something, a Christmas gift. She missed her terribly on her birthday. We never sent anything because we were hoping she’d come home. I hope it didn’t make things worse.”

Jo thought things couldn’t be much worse.

“If you see her, could you pass it on? Even if it’s just the card.”

“You’re not listening to me, Dad. She won’t see me either.”