‘We’d come up to London, staying in Denis’s club as usual. We’d phoned ahead – normally Marion was busy but this time she accepted our offer of dinner and asked if she could bring him. Of course, we said. It was autumn 2003. Apart from the beard – at least it was neatly trimmed – his appearance hadn’t changed. He was courteous, but aloof. No small talk. The only time he became engaged was to give us a lecture on the folly of British and American foreign policy. As it happened, we found little to disagree with but he delivered it with an air of superiority that Denis found insufferable. “I’ve got to get her away from that man,” he said later. I told him there was nothing to do but lie low and wait, she’d have to see through him for herself.’

‘Was Marion working?’ asked Sara. She calculated the timeline of Kareem’s progress, fitting it into Patrick’s chronology. The simultaneities of the summer of 2001 would have to wait.

‘She’d given up at the hedge fund and I think she just trailed after him. She had a little money of her own but he clearly had plenty, though I never gathered what he actually did to earn it.’

‘I suspect he didn’t need to.’

Elizabeth peeped through the door glass and went into the sitting room. Sara watched her raise Marion in her seat and puff up the cushion behind her. She placed a book, a marker inserted a few pages in, onto her lap, took her right hand and lay it on the cover. A mother who was not ready to give up the quest to repair her daughter’s mind.

She returned to the kitchen with a quizzical expression. ‘Did you know Kareem?’ she asked.

The question came from nowhere; Sara felt it like an arrow to the heart. ‘No,’ she smartly replied. ‘No, I didn’t.’

‘You seem awfully well-informed about him.’

Sara raised her eyebrows. ‘Do I? I hope so. Certain things have come to light. It’s my job to pull them together.’

‘I’m not sure I should be telling you any of this. This kitchen’s becoming a confessional.’

‘If so, I am the priest. It all stays between you and me.’

‘All?’

Sara found herself unable to lie. ‘All except one thing. The location of this so-called farm. I will never say how I got the information.’

‘And today never happened.’

‘Yes.’