Jasmine put his age at early forties, but allowed for a margin of five years either side; he was clearly a man who kept himself fit and healthy, yet something about his face suggested a very hard paper-round. His eyes gave the impression of having seen a great deal more than he would have liked. There was a stillness about them that hinted at chilling cold and perilous depths, where something truly frightening lurked beneath the surface.

‘Ah, Mr Ingrams,’ Rita said familiarly. ‘This is Jasmine. She’s down from Glasgow. She’s a private investigator and she says you spoke to her colleague a while back regarding a missing person. She’d just like a little of your time to ask some questions.’

Ingrams stared at Jasmine again, a trace of confusion playing briefly across his face before it returned to its previous look of suppressed hostility. This time, she really didn’t think she was being paranoid to suspect that the confusion was born of his failure to equate the words ‘private investigator’ with what he saw in front of him.

‘I don’t have anything to tell you that I didn’t already tell your colleague,’ he said. ‘And I didn’t have anything to tell your colleague.’

He walked straight to the sink and poured himself a glass of water, standing with his back to Jasmine as he gulped it down. Closer by, Jasmine could see the wetness that was hidden by the black of the T-shirt and a thin film of sawdust adhering to his skin, held there by a layer of sweat. His hair was close-cropped, shaven in tight at the back and sides, pale lines of scars amidst the salt-and-pepper dots like the canals on Mars or fragments of crop circles.

She glanced anxiously at Rita to see how she was taking his response, in particular the indication that he hadn’t been quite so helpful to Jasmine’s ‘colleague’ as she had implied.

‘I don’t imagine Jasmine’s travelled all the way down here if there weren’t perhaps some new questions to ask,’ Rita said, giving her an apologetic but unsurprised look. He might be Mr Sun-kissed, but clearly he was seldom Mr Sunshine.

‘I don’t have time,’ he replied. ‘I have to go to Heddon to the garden centre, plus the wood-shredder’s finally given up the ghost, so I need to pick up a replacement.’

‘Well, why doesn’t Jasmine accompany you and she can ask her questions on the drive? That way you’d be killing two birds with one stone.’