If he’s in a car, she’ll challenge him, explain that Mark from the gallery saw him driving past this morning. It would mean he wasn’t in his London flat when they spoke earlier. For most of that conversation, he was just a blur on her phone.

‘You going to facetime him?’ Bex asks.

‘On my laptop – connected to the big screen next door.’

Bex gives her a quizzical look. ‘Really?’

‘That way we can see the background properly, work out where he’s calling from.’

Ten minutes later, they’re all set up in the sitting room, Kate’s laptop connected to the vast TV set. Rob is going to appear much bigger than he is in real life. Huge. As big as he was last night on the French news. If they’re looking at someone else, it will show. At least, that’s the theory.

They both sit on the sofa and Kate opens up FaceTime, her desktop mirrored on the large screen.

‘This is so weird, Kate,’ Bex says.

‘You focus on him, I’ll look at the background.’

Kate’s still not sure whether she’s strong enough to do this. Her fear is that the moment Rob appears on the big screen, she’ll feel like she did before and have to end the conversation. She can’t deal with the disorientation, the overwhelming sense that the man she loves has been replaced by a stranger. It’s like a rug being pulled from under her feet so hard that she’s spun upside down. Also, she’s been trained to look at a face as soon as she sees it, beginning with the nose and then taking in the whole, studying it for likenesses. Holistic facial recognition. Will she be able to look away quick enough?

She dials his number on FaceTime. Rob answers almost immediately, an image flickering into life on the vast screen. She can’t cope. Keeping her eyes averted, she gets up and walks to the door, where she hovers.

Bex looks over to her anxiously and then turns back to the screen.

‘Hi, Bex. What’s up with Kate?’ Rob says. ‘Everything OK down there?’

It sounds like Rob and he appears to be talking from a room rather than his car. The voice is loud and clear, coming from all around them, thanks to an array of sunken Bose speakers. At least he’s not in Cornwall. Not visiting some floosie in Truro.

‘Hi, Rob,’ Bex says, casting another imploring glance at Kate.

From where Kate’s standing, she can listen to his voice without having to look at him.

‘She was here, but…’ Bex falters. Kate rolls her hands encouragingly, urging Bex to carry on, to bluff. She’s great at charades. ‘There’s someone at the door,’ Bex continues. ‘Rang the bell just as we were calling you.’

Kate raises both hands in the thumbs-up sign to encourage her.