Nula couldn’t talk to Charlie about this. But there was the woman from the adoption agency, didn’t they still have her number? Nula went into Charlie’s study and rummaged through the only filing cabinet he kept unlocked, the one that contained household paperwork. It was a faint hope, and she spent a good hour sorting through the mounds of crap that every household accumulates. It was no good. There was nothing there.

Nula paused, looking around the study. Charlie’s desk was clear; nothing on it except a dog-eared pink blotter and a silver paper knife. She went around the desk and sat in the studded ruby-red leather chair and yanked at the drawer handles. All locked.

Damn.

She looked again at the blotter, the paper knife. Oh fuck it. She snatched the knife up and jammed the blade into the top drawer, above the lock, and heaved. The drawer snapped open with a crunch, and Nula gulped as she saw the damage. She’d broken the damned thing now. Charlie would be livid. But for fuck’s sake! If the bastard wasn’t so damned shifty, she wouldn’t be driven to do things like this, would she?

She opened the first drawer and checked through the contents. Nothing. The next – and it was sort of satisfying now, levering the drawer open, hearing the wood give way – nothing. Some brass knuckledusters. A pile of invoices. Goods Inwards notes. The next drawer? Nothing again. She was getting fed up with this. And nervous. She was wrecking Charlie’s desk, and he was not going to be happy. She’d do one more, and then she’d get the stupid thing repaired, get a cabinet maker in, before Charlie got home; he’d be none the wiser.

Nula tried the next drawer and there it was.

She pulled out the copies of the official forms both she and Charlie had signed, and there was the letter from the woman who’d delivered Harlan to them, and there was her office phone number. Nula was sweating lightly with nerves. She wiped her hands on her skirt, then pulled the phone toward her and dialled, aware of her heart thwacking hard against her ribs. She knew Charlie wouldn’t like this, her going over his head this way. But she had to do it.

‘H’lo?’ asked a female voice.

That threw her. The woman sounded half asleep.

‘Hello?’ said Nula. ‘Is that Mrs Bushell?’

‘What?’

Nula was starting to get impatient. ‘Mrs Bushell, it’s Nula Stone. We got a little boy from the adoption agency, you remember? Harlan?’

‘Oh!’ There was movement on the other end of the line, what sounded like more voices, and when the woman spoke again she sounded sharper. ‘Yes. Mrs Stone. How can I help you?’