Around four in the morning his wife Evelyn woke up, realised he wasn’t there and started to worry. Desmond had a mobile phone, but he wasn’t answering it; at six she rang the taxi company he worked for, but he didn’t answer their radio either. At ten in the morning she rang the local uniforms. The initial report said ‘informant was distressed’, which is code for ‘freaking the fuck out’. The local guys checked hospitals and stations, found nothing, and told her Desmond was probably taking a bit of time to himself and would be back by evening. When he wasn’t, and the informant had got distressed enough that her doctor had to come round and give her a sedative, they called in Missing Persons.

‘Matches Lucy’s story,’ Steve says. He scoops a thick wad of dusty paper out of the box, hands half of it to me and slides over to his own side of the desk.

‘So far,’ I say. ‘Remember: go fast.’

Steve starts skimming. I swing my feet up on the desk and have a quick discreet scan of the room, over paper, but none of the floaters are looking our way; all of them are working away, busy as good little schoolkids, in the uneasy light.