A yes, then. Change the subject. ‘Listen. We don’t have much time. I need your help.’ I waggle the folder around. ‘This is Roxy’s case file and it’s empty. Do you know why it would be?’ Something occurs to me. A conditional allowance for sharing information otherwise exempt from public disclosure … if the party requesting the information is family. He goes to answer, fumbling for the words, but before he can, I ask, ‘Did you request the information?’

‘I mean, yeah – a week ago, though, and I don’t have it. Booker gave it to me for an afternoon and I had to give everything back. I took pictures. So I don’t know why it would be empty.’

A sound cuts the quiet – the doorknob to the front entrance, jiggling from the outside. A ray of light slices through the station.

‘Shit,’ I hiss, and my body flutters as if dropped from a height. Everything happens in one fluid movement – the cabinet is slammed shut just as the front door crashes open and then my hand is wrapped tight round Ellis’s arm and we’re ducking behind the cabinets.

I have no idea if we were seen. My teeth are clenched so hard I worry they might shatter. But when there’s no shouting I assume we weren’t noticed and I ease up, but only enough to quell the hammering of my heart to a few beats per second. I glance at Ellis, whose face is cracked open with terror, whites visible even in the dark, and I will him to calm down with my eyes, narrowed and unblinking. ‘Quiet,’ I mouth.

A flashlight. The beam is from a flashlight and it plays along the wall over our heads but never falls on to us; when it goes in completely the wrong direction I get too brave and poke out an eye and it’s Booker near the front desk. He’s there for a perceived eternity. ‘Anyone?’ he calls into the dark. No, no, no. This could ruin everything. I’d be out before I was even able to get started. My brain runs black. Please, I beg silently, to no one in particular. Please.

Please. Let me do this.

It’s so quiet I can hear Booker’s ragged breath.

I count the nine seconds more that pass before the light finally retreats and the door opens, then shuts.

A beat. The room settles.

‘Are they gone?’ Ellis whispers.

I give it another few seconds to confirm, and when nothing else starts I nod. ‘Yeah.’

Ellis gulps air. ‘Who was it?’

Outside, there’s the sound of an engine revving and a car driving away.

‘Booker.’ I emerge from behind the cabinet and Ellis follows. He’s rubbing the spot on his arm that I’d grabbed. ‘Sorry,’ I say.

‘What a g-g-grip.’

‘We should get out of here.’

‘What?’ Ellis hisses. ‘But he just checked.’