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Shepherd had paid six years earlier. He had made an offer on a house in Hereford, less than a mile from where his in-laws lived.
    His son was in the sitting room, eating a sandwich. A glass of orange juice stood in front of him. Liam’s mouth was full so he waved at his father. Shepherd went to the kitchen, made himself a mug of instant coffee, then returned to the sitting room and dropped down on the sofa next to his son. ‘Did you do your homework?’ he asked.
    ‘Sure,’ said Liam, and drank some juice. ‘I had to do a book report.’
    ‘Which book?’
    ‘ Animal Farm . George Orwell.’
    ‘Great story,’ said Shepherd. ‘“Four legs good, two legs bad.”’
    ‘You’ve read it?’ said Liam, surprised.
    ‘At school, same as you,’ said Shepherd. ‘It’s a classic.’
    ‘You don’t read books.’
    Shepherd raised his eyebrows. ‘What?’
    ‘You read newspapers.’
    Shepherd wanted to argue but his son was right. The last time he’d read a book for pleasure must have been four years ago when he was on holiday in Spain with Sue and Liam. He rarely had time to read these days, and when he did have a few hours to spare more often than not he’d just vegetate in front of the television. In his younger days he’d been an avid reader – Ian Fleming, Len Deighton, Jack Higgins, John le Carré – but his work as an undercover police officer meant he no longer enjoyed crime stories. Real-life police work was never as cut and dried as it appeared in fiction, and the truly guilty rarely got their just deserts.
    Before he could reply, Katra came in. She was wearing baggy khaki cargo pants and a loose sweatshirt. With no makeup and her hair tied back in a ponytail she looked younger than her twenty-four years. ‘You’re back early,’ she said. ‘Liam was hungry so I made him a sandwich.’ She was from Slovenia, but she had lived with them in London now for two years so her accent had almost gone.
    ‘No sweat,’ said Shepherd. ‘I’ll order a pizza later.’
    ‘Is it okay if I go to the supermarket?’
    ‘Sure,’ said Shepherd.
    Liam picked up the remote control and switched on the television. ‘You don’t have time for TV,’ said Shepherd, as his son flicked through the channels.
    ‘Anything you want?’ asked Katra.
    ‘Toothpaste,’ said Shepherd. ‘The stuff for sensitive teeth.’
    ‘You have toothache?’ asked Katra.
    ‘Just a twinge,’ said Shepherd.
    ‘Receding gums,’ said Liam. ‘It happens when you get old.’
    ‘Older,’ corrected Shepherd.
    ‘Your hair gets thinner, your skin gets less flexible and your bones weaken.’
    ‘I’m so glad we had this little chat,’ said Shepherd. He held out his hand for the remote control. ‘Now, give me that and scoot. And I want to see the book report before you go to sleep.’
    Liam tossed him the remote control and Shepherd hit the button for BBC1. On the screen a middle-aged man with a mahogany tan and a woman half his age with gleaming teeth were laughing about nothing in particular. On ITV another woman, with equally sparkling teeth, was talking about the weather as if her audience had learning difficulties. It was going to rain in Scotland. Grin. With a chance of hail in Aberdeen. Bigger grin. But London would be sunny. Mega-grin with sly wink. Shepherd flicked to Sky News. More expensive dental work. Two newsreaders, a man and a woman, with tight faces. In a square frame in the top left-hand corner, a man in an orange jumpsuit was kneeling in front of a banner. Shepherd froze. He increased the volume as the frame expanded to fill the screen. The man in the jumpsuit was in his late thirties, his hair close-cropped. He was glaring defiantly at the camera. It had been six months since Shepherd had seen Geordie Mitchell. Then, his hair had been longer, he had been a few pounds heavier and he had been wearing a Chelsea FC shirt, not an orange jumpsuit.
    ‘A British man working as a security guard in Iraq has been taken hostage by a