‘Megan’s four and Charlie’s three. He’s at nursery, and Megan’s just started at primary school. I had some time in lieu so I’ve taken it this week so that I could help break her in. They’re only in until twelve for the first month. Neil’s sister will be picking her up the next few weeks.’

‘What is it you do?’

‘I’m a solicitor. Harley and Pryde on Albion Street. Used to be in criminal but I moved to conveyancing a couple of years back as it’s just less depressing. Anyway, that’s neither here nor there.’

‘And your husband, is he a lawyer too?’

She gave a short, dismissive laugh. Jasmine wasn’t sure if she was ridiculing the idea of her husband as a lawyer or Jasmine for suggesting it.

‘No, Neil’s an IT consultant.’

She said this as though it should explain a great deal. To Jasmine it certainly explained why he didn’t look comfortable in a shirt and tie, but evidently it ought to cover many other shortcomings.

‘Anyway,’ Anne said, like she was frustrated to have been sidetracked, but only in the way that it was frustrating to have a cold-caller on the phone when you’re halfway through cleaning a really rancid oven, ‘my brother Charlie went with my parents that night because he was being breastfed. He was a very quiet baby, I recall. Just lay there asleep most of the time, which was why they must have reckoned they could take him to a restaurant. Or a hotel, rather.’

‘They were staying the night at the hotel?’ Jasmine asked.

‘No. They just went to this hotel restaurant, the Campsieview Hotel outside Lennoxtown. They were going to have dinner and go home to Bishopbriggs, then come and pick me up again on the Saturday morning.’

Anne’s mouth opened but she stayed silent for a second or two. She had to swallow before forming the words: ‘They never came back.’

She spoke slowly and deliberately, like she was trying to remember a speech rather than voicing what was going through her head right then.

‘My grandparents reported them missing later that day. According to the hotel, they left the restaurant about twenty-five to eleven, with Charlie in his carrycot. My mum was breastfeeding, so she wasn’t having any alcohol, and she couldn’t drive yet because she’d had a Caesarean four weeks previously, so my dad wasn’t drinking either.’

Jasmine couldn’t fathom the significance of them not drinking, but it was incanted like a prayer, so it had to mean something to Anne personally.