The rasp in her voice like virgin snow. He had thought that she liked him; she had never said that she didn’t. Their interactions were friendly before he met Marvar, so that must have been genuine.

How badly he’d underestimated her. He had failed to recognise the warning in her eyes until she stood naked before him with her hands buried in the depths of Marvar’s pockets. Never had he received such a look, it was a horse-kick. He realised, then, how utterly she’d bamboozled him.

Of more urgent importance: had Katya believed Dyer when he told her that all Marvar had given him was a hangover?

‘You English. I only believe when you are joking.’

Suddenly, his fate, Leandro’s too, seemed to hinge on a stupid quip.

Dyer couldn’t see Leandro’s bicycle propped against the wall.

He looked up at the clock. He was late, the playground deserted.

She must have collected Vasily and left.

‘Have you seen Leandro?’ he went over to ask Mr Tanner, who since Tuesday had planted himself in a visible position by the gate.

‘Wasn’t he on his bike?’

If so, Mr Tanner said, he was bound to have left by the exit on Phoenix Lane. He avoided any reference to Samir or to Samir’s father.

Dyer drove quickly home, his mind making odd leaps. Under the lethal stimulation of Katya, he had taken his eye off Leandro. Brushing aside the legality of speaking on a mobile phone while driving, he called Leandro as he turned sharply into St Margaret’s Road. His panic intensified to receive no answer.

He parked beneath the church tower, and jogged along the pavement.

At the far end of Canal Street, his next-door neighbour was stooped over a brown paper bag. Its bottom had ripped, spilling her shopping into the road. The spectacle of Paula scrambling after cans of Co-op beans and pineapple chunks pulled Dyer up short.

Against his every wish to press on and check if Leandro had arrived back safely, he stopped to assist Paula, gathering up the scattered cans, and then carrying them in his cradled arms round the corner, into her kitchen. It smelled of air-freshener and the skirting was painted in blue veins to look like marble. He was set to leave, anxious to be home, when he noticed, through the nylon lace curtains, an unfamiliar car.

The curtains were translucent like the wings of a damsel; he didn’t need to open them. There was a man seated in a parked brown Skoda. He leaned forward far enough for Dyer to see that he was watching his house, but not far enough to see Dyer.

Paula crumpled up the torn bag and dropped it into the bin.

‘How did Leandro’s history test go?’

‘I haven’t heard. Listen, Paula, can I climb over your fence? I’ve locked myself out.’