He walked towards the gate. As he walked, he rang Bea, but it cut off. Two beeps, and off. He dialled again. He reached the road. There were bushes and nettles at eye level, swelling from the hedge, and he couldn’t see around them. He took a tentative step, trying to look. Dufour would come from that direction. He kept expecting to see the police car. He thought he heard it. They were on their way. He looked round the bulge of green, and saw one headlight and a corner of gleaming blue. He straightened up and squared his shoulders. He made his walk purposeful and aggressive, and stepped out. The BMW was tucked in on the other side of the recycling bins.

‘Hey! What are you doing here?’ he said.

The car was empty. There was a slowing of every moving thing around him, and every detail came into focus. It felt like a very long time; the moment between seeing the car had nobody inside, and hearing the sound behind him. In the slowness, he saw the brightness of the day, amplified and sharp. The sunlight throbbed. He felt the warm air on his skin, and wished with every part of himself that he could go back. He wanted not to have walked out of the gate, and not to have looked for the car. He should have gone back. He needed to warn Bea. He was afraid. The moment ended. He glimpsed movement in the corner of his eye and sensed the rush of air behind him, and in a hair’s breadth of that broken second, felt dreadful sadness.

Her phone rang. It was Dufour. She turned and paced the room as they talked. He said he was on his way, and apologised. She thought she heard Dan call her name, and picked up the book and snakeskin. Dufour was telling her he’d have at least one other man with him. He was talking about the paperwork for the money, and saying they had passed Russ Bannam’s description to the Police Nationale. The line beeped over his voice.

‘What did you say?’ she asked Dufour.

She finished the call, put the phone on the ledge, and looked down from the window. She couldn’t see Dan, just the empty driveway, and the Golf, parked below. She leaned out. She saw the folded letter, on the ground. Her phone rang again, jumping on the painted sill. It fell, and lay crooked on the floor. Griff. She picked it up – rejected the call and saw she’d missed Dan.

She went down to the hall, holding Alex’s book, and letting the snakeskin flutter, looking at it. The front door was open a few inches. Dan wasn’t there. He wasn’t in the car. The letter lay on the gravel. She looked out, down the drive.

‘Dan?’