Tiredness was catching up with her, Esther realised, desperation mounting, as she plunged her hands deeper into the holdall. This time she dived so deep that her fingers found the edge of the flap covering the base of the bag, which was loose – an ideal black hole for things to disappear into. And there it was. Esther let out a small gasp of triumph as she plucked the passport free. It was half open at the mugshot page, the least favourite photo of her ever taken, by a kind chemist on a frazzled day when a family camping holiday in Brittany had loomed alongside the realisation that the expiry date had passed.

Except that it wasn’t her face, but Dylan’s that stared out from the page. Esther rubbed her eyes. She blinked. She closed the passport and turned it over. Then she opened it again, checking the date. That she had unearthed this possession from the gritty bottom of a bag used by her son was clearly not possible. Because Dylan was in Argentina. And it definitely was his current one, the photo taken in Cambridge three years before, Esther standing impatiently outside the booth while he crafted his hair into the spikes deemed mystifyingly necessary before pressing the start button. Esther held the picture nearer, recalling in the same instant, clear as a sunbeam, that her own passport was in the outside pocket of her handbag.

‘Anything is possible with technology these days.’

‘Fake postcards?’

‘Fake anything,’ said Carole airily. ‘There will be websites. You should see some of the cases I’ve prosecuted – the deceptions and intricacies that are now run-of-the-mill. Trust me, this is low level. And they’re not fake anyway, by the sound of it, just computer-generated, to look as if they have come from somewhere they haven’t.’