The policeman was looking at him across the counter with an expression of kindly concern. ‘That’s all perfectly understandable, Mr Silver. Terrible things happened that night and people forgot themselves. You were probably half mad with cold. I know I was. I said to my mother that I could imagine what it must have been like for Oates on one of those Antarctic expeditions, I did.’ He went on in the same vein, telling Arthur his dull, pointless tales from the night of the flood. Arthur nodded and murmured interest, but he wasn’t listening. His words had flown up and disappeared. The policeman seemed to have no interest in the missing man at all.

But then the flow of reminiscing abruptly stopped. ‘You said you didn’t see Mr Doherty, Mr Silver?’ He said it as if it had only just occurred to him but Arthur’s heart banged hard.

‘I did, earlier on. Then I lost sight of him.’ This was a form of the truth.

‘I see. An Air Force officer called in the day after the flood, you see. Let us know there was one of theirs they were keen to locate. This Mr Doherty was the name he mentioned, funnily enough. Didn’t tell me why. I presumed he must have been important in some way for them to make a special point of mentioning it.’

Arthur’s blood raced. They had been looking for him. They just hadn’t connected Jack to him.

‘Tell you what, how’s about this? If it’ll ease your mind and mine, what about we do another trawl of the area, see what turns up?’

Arthur could not think of anything more horrifying. But surely, the body might never be found. Then again, he’d have a head start on the Air Force if he found it first. He couldn’t think straight. ‘Right. Yes, that would be good,’ he heard himself say but through a thick membrane of fog.