‘I understand.’ Sara shuffled her bag, began to turn and stopped mid-track. The father hadn’t closed the door and was still watching her. She detected a yearning within him; it was worth a try. ‘I don’t want to intrude but might you consider taking my contacts?’ This time, Sara picked out her card from Knightly Court. ‘It’s where I was working before I started this. You can always get me through them or on my mobile. No need to go near the Inquiry. Just me. Nothing official. You never know, you might need a lawyer sometime.’

He looked down from her eyes to the card she held. She felt her heart thumping.

‘All right, love.’ He took it, smiled and closed the door.

It was midday – Patrick’s train was due at Preston in twenty minutes. Blackburn had for the moment yielded its secrets; there was no point in hanging around. She would meet him at the station, dump the hire car and jump on the next train south. She felt a touch of glee at the pointlessness of his journey wiping the grin off his face.

‘You can turn round,’ she said, stepping out of the car to greet him. ‘We’re done here. Time to go home.’

‘Let’s drive down!’ beamed Patrick, not in the slightest put out. ‘We can return the car in London.’

‘What?’

‘Point one. Cars are better for talking – you can’t bury yourself in that laptop. Point two. As I say to my boy, once I’ve got you in the car, you can’t get out. Point three. I didn’t come all the way up here on one train to go straight back down. Point four. We have the pleasure of each other’s company. Point five—’

‘OK, Patrick,’ she laughed despite herself, ‘I’ll accept point one. And you can do the driving.’

‘Yes, ma’am.’ He doffed the imaginary cap, chucked his bag in the back and glided into the driver’s seat with apparently effortless elegance. Heading out of the town, she described her brief encounters with Iqbal Jamal Wahab’s father and the man who must be Asif Hassan’s father – unless his mother had remarried. She doubted it – the man’s grief was too apparent.

‘Strange,’ he said.

‘Yes, why would Sami hear something they didn’t?’

‘Probably trivial. A rumour’s just a rumour.’

‘Iqbal seems more tangible somehow. If he’d gone abroad to fight or been killed, I’m sure his family would know. What’s odd is that he seems to have returned, been reunited with the family, and then gone off again without giving them any clue where.’

‘Can’t read much into that,’ said Patrick.

‘OK, what about Sami’s story?’

‘Yeah, I was thinking about that,’ he said with an untypical lack of enthusiasm. ‘Doesn’t really fit, does it?’

‘What do you mean?’