It had been close to five before they left the refuge. Ingrams had finished off what he was working on, then driven off again to retrieve some things from home. He returned inside forty minutes with a black canvas bag slung over his shoulder, the contents of which she did not wish to speculate upon. As it hadn’t taken him long to make this round trip, she wondered why they couldn’t just have gone there en route, which was when she deduced that he hadn’t wanted her to know where he lived.

She had waited in the garden, on a wooden bench in the shade, watching Ingrams work. He was shredding the branches of an overgrown hydrangea he had spent the morning taming with a hedge-trimmer. He gathered the chippings in a plastic bucket and transferred them in batches to a hopper in preparation for mulching, his actions always briskly industrious but unhurried.

She saw Rita again only briefly, immediately upon their return.

Ingrams had parked the Land Rover around the back, where she wouldn’t see that it was damaged. Rita had heard the engine and come out to meet them. It looked like a welcoming gesture until Jasmine discovered its true purpose, which was to tell her to stay outside the building so that the women wouldn’t have to remain in their rooms. She was polite and almost apologetic, but Jasmine heard the steel behind her quiet tones and recalled Ingrams’ caution that Jasmine had been wrong if she thought she’d made an ally. Ingrams disappeared inside with Rita for several minutes, during which he presumably explained a few things and eluded quite a few others.

Jasmine filled him in on the drive north, her blow-by-blow being a means of stretching the very little she actually knew over the longest number of miles. After that she kept prattling about herself because she was so uncomfortable with the absence of any conversation between them. She’d catch herself wittering on, wondering why she was telling him this stuff, some of it personal bordering on inappropriate: all about her mum and how she came to be working for Jim.

Ingrams seemed considerably less unnerved by silence, but he didn’t seem to mind her talking, as he would ask her something every so often and set her off again. He wasn’t going to oblige her by way of reciprocity, though. Occasionally she’d chance her arm, hoping some kind of bond was being forged or even that she might just catch him off guard.

‘You’re actually from Glasgow?’

‘Originally. A long time ago.’

‘Did you know this Glen Fallan guy? Know of him?’

‘No.’

Now Ingrams climbed awkwardly out of the Honda and stretched, his height emphasised by the low-slung vehicle. He ambled slowly towards the van, twisting his neck and loosening his limbs, then bent over to peer through the broken window.