Bella clearly wasn’t well and he could see that it was now beginning to worry Annie even though she was trying to hide it.

‘I’ll take her along to the surgery if she’s still like this tomorrow,’ she’d said earlier. ‘I’m hoping that all she needs is a good night’s sleep.’

Bella still had a slight fever and a cough, but she did take her feed and smiled when James made faces at her. She was now in her cot and spark out, and Annie was sleeping on the sofa in Bella’s room to keep an eye on her.

James had their bed to himself and they’d agreed that if he had to leave early in the morning and they were still sleeping, he wouldn’t wake them.

As he slipped beneath the duvet, he felt limp with fatigue and his thoughts were muddy. The full weight of the day’s events hit him when he closed his eyes and he felt a surge of anxiety.

He was still lying there some ten minutes later when he heard a text message ping on his phone, which was lying as usual on the bedside table. It was from Stevens asking him if he was still awake.

James rang him straight back and when he answered, said, ‘What would you have done if I hadn’t responded?’

‘I’d have assumed that you were asleep and left you a message,’ Stevens replied. ‘What I have to tell you can wait but I thought you’d prefer to know asap.’

‘Okay, fire away then.’

‘Well, it took us a while to get to the relevant people at the university and that’s why I couldn’t get back to you any earlier,’ Stevens said. ‘We found out that Carlo Salvi is indeed a research fellow at the university – specifically a geographer specialising in the study of the landscape and climate change. He’s been on a year’s secondment, which actually came to an end last Friday, and he was due to return to Italy in a week’s time.’

‘And have you tracked him down?’

‘No, we haven’t. He’s been living off campus in a rented flat in Ambleside, which is where I am now. His landlady, a Mrs Banister, owns the building and lives in the flat above. She’s just told me that he packed up and left today. She’s not sure what time because she spent New Year’s Eve with her brother and his family in Carlisle. Salvi was gone when she arrived back late this afternoon and he’d left a note thanking her for making him feel so welcome this past year. She said his rent is paid up until the end of the week so it surprised her that he’d gone and hadn’t even bothered to phone her.’

‘Does she know where he is now?’

‘She thinks he must be on his way home to Italy, though he gave no hint that he was going to leave early. She also told us he’s been leasing a car from a local firm.’