He ran into the spare room, where all their documents and old bills were kept in a battered bureau that had been in the family for years. When the baby was born it would have to go to make room for the cot. It was a hideous thing anyway.

Jamie pulled out a fat foolscap document wallet and carried it into the living room, where the policeman was examining the DVD collection.

‘Here it is. Ms L Pica. But the only address given for her is this one. Hmm, the flat was only in her name. No mention of her boyfriend.’

‘That’s not unusual.’

‘I guess not.’

The policeman made a note of the name. ‘OK. We’ll see what we can do. But any help you can give us will speed things up. To be honest, at the moment we have absolutely no evidence that a crime even took place.’

‘But I was away when the emails were sent. I have proof of that.’

‘Is it not possible to program a computer so it will send an email at a future date? And besides, don’t you have a smartphone?’

Jamie paused. ‘Yes….’

‘Well, there you go. Frankly, sir, at the moment, as far as the law is concerned, you’re wasting everybody’s time.’

As soon as the policeman – whose name, Jamie found out, was Lockwood – had gone, Jamie phoned the solicitor who had handled the sale for Miss Pica. He was put on hold for five minutes before finally getting through to him.

‘I’m afraid Ms Pica left explicit instructions that her new address should not be passed on to anyone.’

‘But it’s important. I have to talk to her.’ He started to explain about the break-in and what the policeman had said, but the solicitor interrupted.

‘Whatever story you have to tell – and I imagine it’s a very long story – it won’t change the fact that I cannot give you the address.’

He hung up.

‘Bastard,’ Jamie shouted. Then he had a thought: Surely Ms Pica and her boyfriend must have left a forwarding address with one of the neighbours just in case any mail turned up here for them? That was what Jamie had done at his last address, just in case anything turned up after the Royal Mail stopped redirecting their post. Who was the most likely candidate? Maybe Brian and Linda, though he didn’t really want to talk to Brian at the moment. He would try Mary first.