A few minutes later, he heard the car start up and reverse out of the garage. He went to the living room window to peer out. A tiny front garden separated the house from the pavement and the street beyond. Sanders’ Cavalier backed noisily into the road and started off, gathering speed. Hepton could see no sign of the security man, who presumably was closing the garage doors again. In the lamplight on the other side of the road, an overdressed woman stopped to let the tiny dog she was walking do its business in the gutter. She looked middle-aged, her face heavily made up. Hepton stared hard through the window at her, trying to find Harry’s features beneath the make-up. But he couldn’t. And the woman didn’t even glance across the street. She just watched her dog, cooing at it, and then walked on again, her heels noisy in the silence of the night.

Hepton turned towards Jilly. Her eyes were open and she looked around in bemused fashion, studying this new environment.

‘Where are we?’ she asked, her voice slurred.

‘Come on,’ he said, feeling himself relax for what seemed the first time in days, ‘I’ll show you to your room.’

Hepton’s sleep was dreamless, and he awoke early, refreshed. He ran a bath and lay in it until the water turned from hot to tepid. There was a portable radio on the windowsill, and he switched it on, letting the morning’s news programme wash over him like so much water. There were traffic reports, relaying stories of five-and six-mile tailbacks on some of the roads into London. The world, it seemed, kept on going as though it were just another day, and in London that meant millions of people setting off to work.

The thought was too much. He sank beneath the water, then surfaced again. Drying himself, he switched off the radio so he could concentrate. There was an idea in his head, an idea about what was going on. But what could he do with it? That was the problem: apart from Jilly, there was no one he could trust, not completely. So he mulled over his idea and tried to fit together the remaining pieces of the puzzle.

In the kitchen, he found all he needed to make breakfast. There was bacon in the fridge, and eggs, butter and milk. A fresh loaf of bread sat on the breakfast bar, along with a new carton of orange juice, a jar of coffee and a pack of tea bags. There were pots of honey and marmalade in the cupboard, and a bowl of sugar, too. Everything had the look of having been put there only the day before.