I groped on the bedside table for my phone, but no email had arrived yet from Christine, Whitehall clearly still unwilling to comply. Mikey was in his room, staring down at the garden, his small face gaunter than before. The wind had dropped overnight, not a branch stirring, as if the trees were coated in resin. ‘Want to go for a drive?’ I asked. He gave a rapid nod, then hurried away to dress. When he returned he was holding his drawing of the street where he’d escaped and the London A–Z. I didn’t have the heart to explain that his mother could be anywhere, adrift in a city with over eight million inhabitants. He opened the dog-eared book, poring over each page. ‘Are you looking for where you were found?’ It took moments to locate Walworth Road, at the centre of a dense tangle of streets due south from London Bridge. Mikey’s finger chased across the paper like he was deciphering Braille. He tapped the page insistently, but the police guard was less enthusiastic. The uniform was in his early twenties, face shiny with ambition, convinced that his sole mission was to keep us under house arrest.
