‘Yes,’ said Olive. ‘That’s really bad.’ She paused. ‘I don’t suppose there’s any news yet, is there?’

‘I don’t think so,’ said Bertie. ‘The police are looking for her. Maybe she just got lost.’

Olive looked at him with pity. ‘I don’t think so, Bertie, do you? You don’t get lost at the end of your street, do you? No, I don’t think she’s lost.’

‘She’s probably kidnapped,’ suggested Pansy.

Olive considered this possibility. ‘Maybe,’ she said. ‘People do get kidnapped, even if they don’t have all that much money. Maybe they mistook her for some rich person and are holding her in a cellar somewhere.’

‘Or an old castle,’ said Pansy.

‘Could be,’ said Olive. ‘Somewhere like Tantallon – you know that old castle near North Berwick? We went for a picnic there once and I thought that it would be a really good place for kidnappers to hold people. Do you know if the police have looked in Tantallon yet, Bertie?’

Bertie shook his head. ‘They’ve put notices up in Scotland Street,’ he said. ‘They have pictures of my mummy on them.’

Olive looked disapproving. ‘I don’t think that’s a very good idea, Bertie. That could annoy the kidnappers. They don’t like people going to the police.’

‘No, they don’t,’ said Pansy. ‘That’s probably made it a whole lot worse.’

Olive agreed. ‘I wonder if they’ve sent a ransom demand yet, Bertie? Have you had a letter yet?’

‘I don’t think so,’ answered Bertie. ‘My dad hasn’t said anything about it.’

Pansy remembered something. ‘Sometimes they cut off the person’s ear, Bertie. Then they put it in an envelope and send it to their house. That shows that they’ve got the person.’

‘That’s correct,’ said Olive. ‘I’ve heard about that. That happens quite a lot in Italy. But now we’re all in the European Union.’

‘They may have sent your mummy’s ear already,’ said Pansy. ‘Maybe your Dad just thought it was junk mail and threw it away.’

‘That’s quite possible,’ said Olive. ‘We never open our junk mail. We just throw it away. It never crosses our mind that there could be somebody’s ear in the envelope.’

‘Usually it’s just from Chinese restaurants,’ said Pansy. ‘They send takeaway lists, but most people just throw them away without reading them.’

Bertie said nothing. He wished that Olive and Pansy would leave him alone; he did not want to talk to them, nor to anybody. He only wanted to be by himself.

‘You will let us know if we can help,’ Olive now said. ‘I think that your dad will find it very difficult to look after Ulysses by himself. You know how useless men are with babies.’

‘Very useless,’ said Pansy. ‘Boys too.’