‘Hi, Pete, it’s me, ringing to properly fill you in on my police interview. Just woke up. Hope you’re not too hungover after your beerfest last night…’

Meredith stopped mid-message, her voice cutting out as if someone had unplugged her. She realised she didn’t even have the energy to speak.

‘Just call me?’ she begged instead, hanging up. At least she didn’t have to work today, and she was safe. Gemma was here. They could just stay holed up in the cottage all day, hopefully.

She went for a pee, opened the curtains, drank the glass of slightly stale water on her bedside table, put on her dressing gown and climbed back into bed, where, propped up on her pillows, she gazed for a long time out of her bedroom window at the fresh green morning outside. She wanted the sound of the birds tweeting in the branches and the sight of puffy clouds scudding across the sharp blue sky to wipe the mustardy-putrid nightmare rot from her head, but after ten minutes they still hadn’t. And Pete hadn’t called her back.

A worm of concern began to wriggle in her chest. Why hadn’t Pete picked up, or returned her call? He was never far from his phone and, since Ralph’s disappearance, he’d been extra-vigilant about getting back to her immediately if she called or texted. It wasn’t like him not to respond at all.

She checked the time on her phone. 08.46. He usually left the barge around now to get to the studio, so she supposed he might have been cycling over there when she was recording the voicemail.

She hadn’t had a lot of sleep before the nightmare; she’d lain staring at the dark ceiling with her eyes wide open, clutching the duvet up under her chin like a child, her thoughts racing, wishing she’d asked Gemma to drop her over at Pete’s after the interview rather than back here. She could have stayed and helped him drink the beers.

Meredith called him again, but once more the call went straight to voicemail. She tried the landline number of the studio, but that just rang out. She wished she had Johnny or Trevor’s numbers, but she didn’t. Just Andrea’s, she thought, a lump rising to her throat.

On a whim, she rang Andrea’s number and heard her familiar, accented voice: ‘Hello! I am so sorry I am not able to come to the phone, but please—’

Meredith killed the call, a tear spilling down her face. Why had she done that? It hadn’t made her feel remotely less crap – in fact, the opposite. She sniffed hard and swung her legs out of the bed, slowly, like an old lady.