Now the first of Mr Mayhood’s elevations was complete, the halls of residence were looking more coherent, but, in Charlie’s view, the new design was lacking something. He went to sit at his own board to see if he could understand the problem, working from his memory of Florence’s initial sketch. It didn’t have that sense of openness they’d all been striving for. Perhaps if he could strip it down to its component parts, as though it were an engine, he could tune up the design. He drew it hurriedly in charcoal, trying not to think too much about his motions. What if separate structures could be formed in concrete, mirroring each another? Not triangles exactly, but right-angled shapes like this, with slopes joining their axes. Concave. Shallow. Shallower than that … With frames of steel rising upwards, making stairwells? See-through. They could panel them with glass. And if the buildings could be set apart, like this – perhaps a little further – the entire space would open up. A tulip shape, implied by where the two slopes merged, just like they wanted … He felt sure of the idea and couldn’t get his vision on to paper fast enough. The more he sketched, the less he noticed how much time was passing or the twinge of hunger in his stomach. It was nearly five o’clock when he finished and the draughting room had emptied out. The embers of the fire were long dead in the hearth.

He found the Mayhoods in the kitchen. A solemnity had settled in the house, in part because the winter darkness seemed to spread so suddenly in Ockham that it prompted Florence to switch on the wall lights in the hallway by late afternoon. But more than that, the voices in the kitchen were downbeat and fitful: ‘I don’t know.’ ‘Of course you do.’ ‘It’s odd, I’ll give you that.’ ‘We have to, don’t we?’ ‘Yes, but I’m still loath to do it.’ As he waited on the threshold, Florence stood up from her chair. ‘We’re wondering what we ought to do about your sister,’ she said. ‘Can you pitch in making supper? She was going to bake a Woolton pie, but we’ve got stew left over, if you don’t mind doubling up on it.’

‘Sounds good to me,’ he said. ‘Just let me know what I can help with.’

‘Maybe we could do a crumble with those Bramley apples?’

‘I’ll get my pinny on.’ He rolled his sleeves up, fetched his apron. ‘Are you going to be phoning Kimball, then?’

‘We’ve not decided yet,’ said Mr Mayhood from the table. He was reading the conditions document again.

‘I’d prefer it if you waited.’

‘How much longer?’ Florence said. ‘A day? A week?’

‘At least another couple of hours. They’ll get the wrong idea about her.’

‘Charlie, listen. It does seem we’re getting to the point where something’s needed. At the very least, we should’ve heard from her by now. She could be hurt.’ Mr Mayhood leafed another page, eyes down. He didn’t seem prepared to look at anything besides the paragraph he was absorbing. ‘Florence has just phoned the Duke of Wellington. No one there’s seen hide nor hair of her.’