I rented a car. It was only six in the morning but the traffic was already heavy on the M4 into London; the frustrated, angry crawl of the absurdly named rush hour, made even slower because of the snow. We were going straight to the police station. I couldn’t make the heater work and our words were spoken puffs hanging briefly in the cold air between us. ‘Have you already talked to the police?’ I asked.

Mum’s words seemed to pucker in the air with annoyance. ‘Yes, for all the good it did. What would I know about her life?’

‘Do you know who told them she was missing?’

‘Her landlord. Amias something or other,’ Mum replied.

Neither of us could remember his surname. It struck me as strange that it was your elderly landlord who reported you missing to the police.

‘He told them that she’d been getting nuisance calls,’ said Mum.

Despite the freezing car, I felt clammy with sweat. ‘What kind of nuisance calls?’

‘They didn’t say,’ said Mum. I looked at her. Her pale anxious face showed around the edge of her foundation, a middle-aged geisha in Clinique bisque.

It was seven thirty but still winter-dark when we arrived at the Notting Hill police station. The roads were jammed but the newly gritted pavements were almost empty. The only time I’d been in a police station before was to report the loss of my mobile phone; it hadn’t even been stolen. I never went past the reception area. This time I was escorted behind reception into an alien world of interview rooms and cells and police wearing belts loaded with truncheons and handcuffs. It had no connection to you.

‘And you met Detective Sergeant Finborough?’ Mr Wright asks.

‘Yes.’

‘What did you think of him?’

I choose my words carefully. ‘Thoughtful. Thorough. Decent.’

Mr Wright is surprised, but quickly hides it. ‘Can you remember any of that initial interview?’