I try the handle.

‘What are you doing?’ hisses Jess.

The door opens an inch, then stops. There’s some kind of cabin hook serving as a basic lock on the other side. I take out my pen, push it through the crack and flick up the hook.

‘You can’t do this!’ says Jess. But I can. I step through, and she follows, closing the gate behind us.

We’re in a derelict yard: tufts of brown grass, pots filled with lifeless plants, piles of old bricks, a broken fridge. Treading carefully, I make my way to the kitchen door. The dim glow I saw through the front room seems to be a hallway light that’s been left on. I can see the outlines of cabinets and a table through the latticed panes of glass in the door.

The door’s locked but, peering through the glass, I can see a key in the lock on the inside. I check the neighbouring houses. Dolly’s on the left looks empty, but there are lights on in the property to our right. I can’t let them hear me.

I wander over to the pile of bricks and pick up one that’s been broken in half. ‘Please don’t do what I think you’re about to do,’ Jess hisses.

Returning to the door, I take off my Gore-Tex cycling jacket and place it over one of the glass panes.

Jess grabs my arm. ‘For Christ’s sake, Gil! First you nearly die in a traffic accident, now you’re breaking and entering. Stop now. If we’re caught, it’s the end of our careers.’

I think of what Lorimer would say if he knew I was here and not sobbing into a handkerchief on Penelope McGovern’s sofa. ‘I’m on borrowed time.’

‘You’re mental.’

‘I’ve seen this so many times on the telly, but I wonder if it actually works?’

As I raise the brick, I remember my brother-in-law Charles on the day of Clare’s funeral. Someone broke in while we were out. Put a brick or something through the glass back door. Her office looked ransacked.

I know who they were working for, and what they wanted.

‘Fuck you, Breitner,’ I mutter to myself, as I smash the brick into the window.

Despite my precautions with the coat, the sound of shattering glass is unmistakeable. In my guilty ears, it sounds as loud as a bomb going off. Surely the neighbours must have heard it?

I freeze in fright and stand still for a few minutes. I’m ready to run for the back gate at any sign we’ve been noticed, but – amazingly – we don’t seem to have attracted anyone’s attention.

I shake a few splinters of glass off my coat, brush it down and put it on again. Then I carefully reach my hand through the jagged hole.