Determined to be able to tell the police that she had exhausted all reasonable avenues open to her as a civilian, she had opened the Yellow Pages with the intention of checking the local hospitals. When she saw the list, she realised that she could be at it a while, which was when it struck her that this normally worked the other way around. If Jim had been admitted somewhere, then the staff would have attempted to get in touch with his relatives. Nobody else had wind that anything was wrong, which meant the onus was on her to raise the alarm.

It had originally been her intention to sleep on it and go to the police in the morning if there were no developments, but she knew she wouldn’t be sleeping on it so much as lying awake all night worrying on it. Having spent all day doing just that, she needed the assurance that some kind of process was under way. She was also impatiently aware of police statistics dictating the importance of the first twenty-four hours after someone had gone missing, with the likelihood of success dwindling rapidly after that period had been breached. Or was that to do with solving murders? She couldn’t remember, but either way, she felt it was imperative she act fast.

Besides, it wasn’t less than twelve hours in reality: only twelve hours since she’d noticed. A check of that day’s Evening Times back page matched none of those on Jim’s hall carpet. He hadn’t been home since Thursday.

‘I understand,’ she pleaded. ‘His front door hasn’t been kicked in or anything, but I really feel very strongly that something is wrong. He didn’t show up to a very important meeting today. He is a very meticulous and conscientious person. He wouldn’t just drop off the map like this, I promise you.’

The officer on the front desk had been quietly spoken and reassuring, showing her to a small room just off the station’s main reception area, where he offered her a cup of tea while she waited. She declined, then wished she hadn’t, as it would have passed the short but fretful period before his colleague, Sergeant Collins, showed up. For some reason she had expected a plain-clothes detective, though that was an expectation coloured largely by optimism. When she saw the uniform, she was a little disappointed, but unsurprised. It immediately gave her the feeling of being processed, among a hundred other miscellaneous and trivial issues this man would deal with over the course of his shift tonight.