‘Like …’ I take a breath to give myself a moment to think. Should I tell him about the bracelet that was sent to Nick? I’d like to share my fear with him; after all, he is my boyfriend. Someone I’m preparing to up sticks and move in with. I should confide in him. I’d want him to tell me if it were the other way around. ‘Nick told me something yesterday …’

‘God, what now? Is he trying to stop you—’

‘No, no. Nothing like that. A parcel came here for him a couple weeks back. And it turns out it was something linked to Nick’s cold case.’

‘Linked? How so?’

‘It was a bracelet. Identical-looking to the one belonging to a missing girl from the Seventies. A cold case he’s working on.’

‘Jesus, really?’ The line goes quiet. I imagine Richard is attempting to absorb this information before giving me his appraisal of the situation. Surely, he’ll be of the same opinion – that this is bad news and means potentially a murderer knows where I live.

‘Yes, really. Nick seems to think it’s from someone trying to tell him there’s a link between his cold case and Tim – his missing brother who he’s convinced was also abducted and murdered by the same person.’

‘That’s heavy,’ he says, simply.

‘I’d say!’

‘So, Nick believes whoever sent the bracelet not only knows he’s working on the cold case but also that his brother went missing in the late Seventies. Isn’t that a bit of a stretch?’

‘Possibly, but to be honest, that’s not my concern.’ I can’t believe Richard hasn’t immediately come to the same conclusion I had – the obvious one.

‘Oh, I don’t think you should be concerned, Amber. If you’re thinking a murderer has sent this bracelet to your house, you’re going down the wrong rabbit hole.’

‘Really? What makes you so sure? You don’t know who sent it and why.’ Indignation punctuates my tone. I don’t understand how everyone is being so blasé about all this.

‘Because it doesn’t make sense for the murderer to be sending his trophies to a detective after all this time. Why now?’

‘He might be dying or something, and wanting to gain closure, or own up to what he did before he’s judged by God.’

‘In which case, why not simply hand himself in to the police? Or write a confession and send it. Surely he wouldn’t have known Nick’s address to send it to him? No, I think this is something different; maybe just a coincidence – something entirely unrelated to the missing girl. What does Nick think?’