I toyed with saying, “You didn’t ask,” but decided he wasn’t in the mood for flippancy. “There hasn’t been time. I’ve tried to fill in some of the gaps, but most of your questioning has been about what happened here.” I looked him straight in the eyes. “I suppose I could have insisted on talking about Baghdad, but wouldn’t that have made you more suspicious?”

His eyes didn’t drop, but a perplexed frown puckered his forehead. “I can’t make you out at all,” he said. “From Dr. Coleman’s description of the video, you suffered the most appalling abuse at this man’s hands…Alan Collins says you were so frightened of him you wouldn’t divulge his identity and went into hiding…Ms. Derbyshire says you haven’t eaten or been out for a week…your parents are in hospital…MacKenzie’s still free…yet you’re sitting here in front of me as cool as a cucumber.”

“Is that a question?”

He smiled in spite of himself. “Yes. Why are you so calm?”

“I’m not sure a man would understand.”

“Try me.”

“In the first place, my parents aren’t dead,” I said.

There was no mystery about how they both ended up at the flat as MacKenzie’s prisoners. My father did exactly as Jess described, set out to lure MacKenzie into a trap, using himself as bait. Afterwards, he was given the same lecture I received about vigilantism and revenge but, as Dad took most of the punishment, no charges were brought despite question marks over his purchase of wood and nails on Friday morning.

He wasn’t very forthcoming about the details of his plan-claiming only that his intention was to confine MacKenzie and call the police-and denied knowledge or responsibility for the homemade “stingers” that ended up in Barton House. Of course Jess and I did, too, which left MacKenzie as the guilty party. I told Alan privately that my father had made them, and MacKenzie had brought them to Barton House; but, with the law as it was, none of us was going to admit to it publicly.

Initially, my father had some difficulty agreeing with Met detectives that his idea of an ambush was ill-considered and naïve, but under pressure from my mother he ate humble pie. Perhaps it was a mercy he could only nod his agreement, because the air would have turned blue if he’d been able to speak. The only detail he genuinely conceded was that, had he entered the flat accompanied by a police officer, MacKenzie wouldn’t have taken him prisoner so easily.

It’s unclear how long MacKenzie had been there-several hours if his intensive search of the place was anything to go by-but my father had no inkling of danger when he let himself in on the Friday evening. The last thing he remembered was stooping to collect the post; the next, waking up trussed and helpless in the sitting-room. He’s even less communicative about this experience than he is about Mugabe’s thugs, but when he reached hospital sixty hours later, he had five fractured ribs, a dislocated jaw and so many bruises his skin was a uniform purple.

My mother says he refused to tell MacKenzie anything and would probably have allowed himself to be punched and kicked to death if she hadn’t decided to go back to the flat herself on Saturday afternoon. “I knew something was wrong,” she said. “I tried phoning him at the flat and on his mobile, but both went straight to voice messaging. Then I called you and the same thing happened.” She smiled rather ruefully. “I could have murdered you that morning, Connie. I was so worried.”

“Sorry.”

She squeezed my hand. “It all worked out for the best in the end. If you had answered…or if Jess had passed on my message a little more promptly…you’d have persuaded me to stay in the hotel. And where would your father be then?”

Six feet under, I thought. There’s a limit to how much punishment anyone can take, and MacKenzie’s frustration would have killed him eventually. He’s a good old boy, my Dad-a tough old boy-but he’s lucky one of his ribs didn’t snap completely and puncture a lung. I asked my mother why she hadn’t called the police, instead of going to the rescue herself, and she said it would have required too much explanation.

“Did you get the vigilante lecture?” I asked her.

She shook her head with a twinkle in her eyes. “I burst into tears and said how foolish I’d been…but then I’m not as bullheaded as you and your father.”

In fact, despite a gut-feeling that Dad was in trouble, she was more inclined to think there was a rational explanation for the phones not being answered. As I had done, she wondered if he’d gone out for food or was refusing to answer because he’d instructed her not to contact him.

“I expected to have my head bitten off for meddling,” she admitted, “but I couldn’t let the nonsense go on. You must have known he’d do something silly when you refused to talk to him. There isn’t a cut-off point when a man like your father stops trying to prove himself, Connie…any more than there is for you. I wish you’d learn that caring what others think is a form of slavery.”

Her safety net in the event of trouble-a little simplistic as things turned out-was to ask the taxi driver to wait while she went inside for his money. As he wouldn’t leave until she paid him, she must either return with her wallet or force him to come knocking on the door. “I was as naïve as your father,” she said. “I should have realized the driver wouldn’t care who handed over the money as long as he got it.”

MacKenzie must have been watching from the window because he was waiting behind the front door when Mum opened it. As soon as she was over the threshhold with her suitcase, he slammed it shut and had her mouth and hands bound with duct tape before she even reached the sitting-room. When the knocking began and an angry voice demanded payment, he calmly bundled her out of sight, took her wallet from her bag and paid up. “He’s not stupid,” she said reluctantly. “Most people would have panicked.”

“Did you?” I asked her.

“I did when I saw your father. He looked terrible-face all bruised and misshapen-body curled into a ball to protect himself. He started crying when MacKenzie threw me on the carpet beside him.” She shook her head. “That’s the only time I felt I shouldn’t have gone back. Poor love. He was devastated. He’d tried so hard to protect me…and there I was.”

She had no qualms about bargaining my address against their lives. “It would have been madness to do anything else,” she said. “While there’s life there’s hope, and I knew you’d worry if you couldn’t get me at the hotel. I prayed you’d phone that policeman friend of yours in Manchester. Your father was unhappy about it…but”-she squeezed my hand again-“I was sure you’d understand.”

I did. I do. Whatever nightmares I still have would be a thousand times worse if I were carrying my parents’ deaths on my conscience. My mother believes my father’s “unhappiness” related entirely to his fears for me, but his concerns were rather more practical. He was appalled at her naïve assumption that a man like MacKenzie would honour a promise to leave them alive if she gave him the information he wanted.

He tried to dissuade her, but his dislocated jaw had seized the muscles in his face, making speaking difficult. To stop any further attempts, MacKenzie muzzled him completely by winding several turns of duct tape round his head. The ironic upside was that, with his jaw supported, my father’s pain lessened, and he survived the next twelve hours in considerably more comfort than he would otherwise have done. The downside was that it increased my mother’s concern for him, thereby encouraging compliance.

“Weren’t you worried that MacKenzie would kill you anyway?” I asked her.

“Of course…but what could I do? He threatened to strangle your father in front of me if I refused. At least there were slivers of hope if I betrayed you…none at all if I betrayed Brian.” A small crease of doubt furrowed her brow. “You do see that, don’t you, darling? It was a card game…and you were my only trump. I had to use you.”