For two days the phone had rung incessantly in the Carroll home. On Wednesday I had been able to filter calls from media, politicians and friends. Yesterday Ian Prior of the Guardian, a sports journalist and old friend of Rory's, took his turn at manning the phones.
On the dot of 8 o'clock last night the phone rang again. Wearily Ian picked it up. "Dad?"
"Rory?"
Ian ran into the living room: "It's Rory."
Joe Carroll, Rory's father and a veteran journalist of note, was wrestling with the TV, trying to record The Bill. He turned, and his first thought was, "This is a bad joke".
"Dad, it's me." Joe's frown disappeared. Relief. Joy. Ian shouted: "It's Rory."
And mother Kathy and sister Karina tore into the living room to see a beaming Joe.
As Kathy ran upstairs to listen in on the other line, Karina went to the fridge for champagne.
"Where are you?" Joe asked.
"Safe - with a beer in my hand," Rory told him. He was okay, released by his captors, having travelled back to the centre of Baghdad in the boot of a car.
"I'm in Baghdad," Rory said. "Got all my limbs. I'm safe and well." He had been held in a cell somewhere in the suburbs for most of the day. He did not think he had left Baghdad.
It had been a long and painful 24 hours. Kathy had been on her own at 1pm on Wednesday when she had been called by the Guardian's editor, Alan Rusbridger, who said Rory had been "taken". She noted the euphemism wryly.
But Joe was off playing tennis and the terrible fear grew that he would hear the news on the radio. It was not to be. By 3pm he returned to be told his worse fears about his son's appointment to Baghdad had been realised.
Then the phones started to ring. It seemed incredible how fast the news had spread.
We clutched at straws. Experts said Sadr City meant it was Shias not Sunnis. Perhaps gangsters. That was good. So was the release of the drivers.
But the waiting gnawed at the family's natural optimism. Joe went into reporter mode to do interview after interview, outwardly calmness itself. Kathy made coffee and muttered about the besieging press.
In London the Guardian had set in place a major emergency operation, readied for such a crisis - reporters and friends of the paper plumbed their contact books. Irish and British diplomats were scrambled. And the wait went on.
After a difficult night there was another small straw of comfort. An email from a former Guardian reporter with a message from Ahmad Chalabi - a key figure in Iraqi politics with good contacts to Moqtada al-Sadr, whose writ runs in Sadr City. Chalabi said he was involved in trying to get Rory free and hoped we would hear something soon. But he cautioned against any undue optimism.
Word came that the Government was planning to send a mission - advice from British sources confirmed an Irish leadership role was crucial.
Joe prepared to brief gardaí on Rory's profile for the team that was going to Baghdad: they arrived at 8.10pm - grim-faced, prepared for the worst - to find a celebrating family.
For Kathy, it was "the best birthday present ever".
