Ingrams, for his part, didn’t appear to have noticed anyway: his focus was on the road, and when he briefly turned to address her (only at junctions), his eyes were locked strictly on hers, something for which she was not entirely grateful. If he was being gentlemanly, then it was the only thing he was doing to put her at her ease.

‘I hope you enjoy the ride, because it’s the only thing you’re going to get from this trip. I don’t know anything about this guy you’re looking for. I’ve nothing to tell you.’

‘I haven’t told you who I’m looking for. And you don’t know whether you’ve nothing to tell me until I ask you some questions.’

Ingrams just sighed, though coming from his frame it was close to a growl, a kind of ominous rumbling more associated with plate tectonics. Jasmine decided to play the only angle she felt she had.

‘You know, your friend Rita gave me the impression that she expected you to be more polite.’

Ingrams raised his eyebrows at this.

‘You think you made an ally back there?’ he said. ‘Believe me, you didn’t. Rita just suggested you come along with me because it was the quickest way to get you out of the house. She doesn’t like anybody snooping around, and neither do I.’

Jasmine was determined not to let him rattle her. It also occurred to her that if he really had nothing to say, he wouldn’t be acting so put out. He had been evasive since the moment he clapped eyes on her. Then there was that accent. It initially reminded her of hearing tennis players and golfers being interviewed: people who spent much of their time on tour, permanently surrounded by a babble of voices speaking English as a second language. However, the more he spoke, the more she began to identify inconsistencies in his pronunciations and inflections, and to her ear, attuned by a couple of years of drama school, his accent sounded suspiciously put on.

He kept checking his rear-view mirror, and eventually Jasmine twisted in her seat and looked through the Land Rover’s back windscreen. It was a left-hand drive model, indicating that Ingrams had acquired it overseas, and she found it a little disconcerting to be in the right-hand seat without a steering wheel in front of her, particularly when they passed oncoming vehicles. She could see a black Audi A4 behind them, driven by a bloke wearing a baseball cap. In her experience, such attire worn inside a vehicle did often mean ‘wanker’, and Ingrams might well have reason to be wary of some imminent act of highway stupidity, but he seemed to be giving it undue attention.

He took note of her turning, aware that she had picked up on his vigilance.