LAURENCE O’BRYAN
The Manhattan Puzzle

‘Men’s evil manners live in brass; their virtues we write in water.’

Henry VIII, Act 4, Sc. 2, William Shakespeare

Table of Contents

Cover

Title Page

Epigraph

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

Chapter 38

Chapter 39

Chapter 40

Chapter 41

Chapter 42

Chapter 43

Chapter 44

Chapter 45

Chapter 46

Chapter 47

Chapter 48

Chapter 49

Chapter 50

Chapter 51

Chapter 52

Chapter 53

Chapter 54

Chapter 55

Chapter 56

Chapter 57

Chapter 58

Chapter 59

Chapter 60

Chapter 61

Chapter 62

Chapter 63

Chapter 64

Chapter 65

Chapter 66

Chapter 67

Chapter 68

Chapter 69

Chapter 70

Chapter 71

Chapter 72

Chapter 73

Chapter 74

Chapter 75

Chapter 76

Chapter 77

Chapter 78

Chapter 79

Chapter 80

Chapter 81

Chapter 82

Chapter 83

Chapter 84

Chapter 85

Chapter 86

Epilogue

The Manhattan that I Love

Acknowledgements

About the Author

By the same author

Copyright

About the Publisher

1

‘Go for it. The rougher the better, girl.’ The man had a black silk blindfold tied around his head. He spoke slowly, his voice thick with desire.

Xena went to the door and unlocked it.

‘What’s that? Getting your toys out? Wow, this is even better than you promised.’

Lord Bidoner walked into the panic room. He closed the door behind him and pressed the button to turn on the air management system. The scrubber in the roof could remove the smoke from a blazing fire and turn the output into a vapour trail.

The man, spread-eagled and handcuffed to the stainless steel bed frame, had an expectant smile on his face.

‘Go on, do it,’ he said.

The navy Calvin Klein silk suit hanging from the stool beside the bed gave an indication of who he was. Lord Bidoner examined the man’s wallet. His bank ID card, a credit-card-sized piece of aluminium with an embedded proximity chip and his family name, Hare, embossed on it, confirmed what they already knew.

The head of global security at BXH, one of the world’s few truly global banks, was lying face-up and naked in front of him.

‘Don’t keep me waiting, girl.’

‘I won’t,’ purred Xena. She stroked his leg, then his inner thigh. He quivered in anticipation.

The man’s wife would surely appreciate photographs of this event, but Lord Bidoner had more pressing concerns.

He nodded at Xena.

She was dressed in a low-cut skin-tight black catsuit that fitted her thin frame perfectly. The man laid out in front of them was expecting something memorable from the woman he’d met in the champagne bar opposite Grand Central, two weeks before. Xena’s story, about being an Ethiopian diplomat’s daughter, and her eager smile, had captivated him.

She ran her finger down the man’s stomach. It trembled under her touch.

‘Don’t stop, honey. Don’t stop.’

With her other hand Xena clicked on the silver Turboflame blowtorch, the most expensive model in the world with its 1500C flame. She held the gently hissing blue, inch-long flame up and watched it glow brighter as her fingers moved slowly down his stomach.

‘What’s that?’ he said.

She didn’t reply.

Hare’s voice was still confident when he spoke. ‘Was that your sister who just came in? Is she gonna join us?’

‘We have a surprise for you,’ said Xena.

The man pulled on the handcuffs, which began to cut into his skin. It had taken a bit of persuasion, since this was their third meeting, for Xena to get him to go this far, but he trusted her now. And he’d made it clear that he wasn’t going to put up with any crap. He’d break the bed if she didn’t release him when he gave the password.

She’d smiled, hugged him and agreed.

They’d even laughed about making a written contract.

‘What’s the surprise?’ He shook the bed, testing its resilience and the strength of the handcuffs. He’d assumed they were easily breakable toys, like a previous pair she’d shown him. But he was wrong.

And he didn’t know that the bed was bolted to the reinforced slab of the panic room floor, either. Though he might have guessed that there was something wrong when it refused to move under him.

‘Just a friend of mine. We have a little question for you,’ said Xena.

‘Yeah?’ He was still curious, still expectant of further delights.

‘What is the password for the security system at BXH?’

The man didn’t reply verbally. He shook the bed from side to side, trying to break free. He didn’t know that his only hope was if his thrashing managed to separate his hands from his wrists, and his feet from his ankles. And very few people have strength enough to do that.

Xena waved the blue flame, raised it, as if offering it up. It flickered higher.

The odour of the burning butane gas filled the room like bad perfume. The sound of the blow torch was a threatening hissing now. Xena placed the tip of the flame against the top edge of the whiskey tumbler the man had been drinking from. The glass turned blue.

‘Wait until you feel this. Then you will tell me,’ said Xena. Her tone had changed. It was demanding now.

‘What? Fu …’ The end of that confident word was bitten off by the piercing scream that came from deep within his throat. Xena had touched the flame against the pale skin of his shoulder.

He began thrashing. Like a fish flailing. He moved from side to side, squirming away from the skin-blistering heat. But he couldn’t move fast enough. And his legs and arms were stretched out tight.

Easy targets.

The smell in the room changed and the atmosphere with it. Pain and whimpering, sizzling and guttural roars filled the air.

The man had become a dog.

Then Xena asked him again.

‘The password, please.’ She spoke softly, as if they were still playing a game.

‘If you give it up, I will release you. You can explain these little burns to your wife. But the ones I will inflict next will require hospital treatment. Or the services of a morgue.’ She clicked the flame off, then pressed the hot tip hard and fast into the biggest blister she had inflicted, near his ankle.

‘What do you say, Mr Hare?’

The man answered with a defiant, animal roar. He shook the bed under him. The last vestige of his pride in working at BXH bellowed out of him.

Xena lit the flame again. She reached forward, touched it to his chest, and ran it fast down the middle until smoke from his burning body hair filled the room with a sickly odour.

‘Stop, stop!’ he screamed. His body squirmed to escape the heat.

‘It’s #89*99,’ he shouted. ‘Please! Stop!’

Bidoner keyed the password into his phone and pressed send.

‘I hope you’re not lying,’ said Xena. ‘I want all this to have a happy ending.’

She squeezed his thigh with her hand, then stroked it.

Tears streamed from under his blindfold. His cheeks were red. It was good he couldn’t see the weals on his body, because he would know immediately that he wouldn’t be able to explain any of them to his wife.

‘Please, let me go. I promise not to tell anyone. I swear, on my children’s lives.’

Lord Bidoner’s mobile beeped as an incoming message came in. He nodded at Xena. The code had worked.

‘I believe you,’ she said. ‘But there is one more thing I must do for you.’

She put the Turboflame down and went to the fridge. She took out a six-inch-long serrated knife, honed with care to a perfect blade, from the freezer section.

She held it in the air, admiring its cold edge.

‘Now you will find release,’ she said.

The man’s body went still. His toes, which had scrunched up, half straightened. The only sound was his pain-filled whimpering.

The panic room in the apartment on Fifth Avenue, overlooking the skyscrapers of Manhattan, was soundproof. It was why they used the room.

Xena flicked the blade across the man’s pale skin, once, then twice, fascinated by how quickly blood gushed, how fast it flowed from a few simple cuts.

‘This is for my brothers,’ she said.

‘Don’t,’ he whimpered. Fear trembled in his voice. ‘I have two children, a wife.’

She growled, psyching herself up.

‘Prima quattuor invocare unum,’ she said, as she grabbed him, jerking him upwards and castrating him with one swinging motion.

She held the bloody remains up in the air.

His screams of terror and pain vibrated through the room as blood spurted two feet high. A foul smell followed and the man’s words became a babbling.

Lord Bidoner held his nose. He’d seen enough. He went out to the main room of the apartment, with its view towards the glittering Jazz-era spire of the Empire State Building.

‘You did good, my dear. The first offering has been done correctly,’ he said, when Xena joined him.

She was panting.

‘Come here.’

He pushed her up against the inch-thick glass of the window, as Manhattan glittered behind them.

Afterwards, he handed her a balloon glass containing a large shot of Asbach 21. She sipped the brandy, then downed it in one gulp.

Then she lay down on the sleek oak coffee table that dominated the room. The canyon of lights stretching into the velvet Manhattan night reflected all the way along the length of the table and onto her ebony skin.

He reached down and stroked her shoulder. It was trembling.

‘Three more before the moon rises again. That is what the book says. That is what we will do.’

She smiled up at him. Her white teeth shone as she leaned her head back and stretched.

2

A creak rang out against the muffled noise of night-time London.

‘Sean?’ Isabel’s voice echoed. Her head was off the pillow. Was that a shadow moving? The moment of deep pleasure at sensing his return was replaced in a second by fear, as no response came.

She slid out of bed. Alek, who was now four, was in the next room. If that was Sean out there, playing some game, she was going to make him pay. Big time. She’d just finished one of the most demanding projects she had worked on during her time as an IT security consultant, and her brain had been fried to mush. She needed sleep.

She stood in the doorway.

There was no one on the landing.

She peered downstairs. The house felt deserted. The heating had been off for hours. She went into Alek’s room, checked his breathing and tucked him in.

Was this going to be a replay of that night a few weeks ago when he didn’t come home? The thought made her shudder. In all the time she’d known him he’d never done anything like what he’d done that night.

She remembered the creak that had woken her. What had that been about?

Had she imagined it? Her dreams had been strange recently. Images from Istanbul and Jerusalem came too often. Maybe that was what had roused her.

She went downstairs and turned on all the lights. Nothing was out of place, though there was an odd smell. A lemony tang, as if a cleaner had passed through. She stood near the front door. This was all Sean’s fault. She picked up the telephone and pressed redial. The call went to voicemail, again.

She slammed the phone down.

Bastard.

Stop it. He’ll be home soon.

She turned out the lights, headed back to bed, and tried to sleep. The icy wind buffeting the window didn’t help. Neither did the cold space where Sean’s freckled body should have been.

The matchbook-thin Bang & Olufsen docking system said it was five past three. How many years do you get these days if you murder your husband?

She lay there, seething, angry not only with Sean, but with the idiots at BXH too. And with whoever had decided to hold their stupid celebration the night before. It was bad enough that they demanded he work long hours, couldn’t they at least let him come home?

When she woke again after a disturbed sleep, London rumbled even louder. It was ten to eight. Her first thought was that he’d come back, and had already gotten up. He usually woke before she did. He could be down in the kitchen making toast with that new poppyseed bread.

He’d stick his jaw out when she asked him what time he’d come in, then run a hand through his thick brown hair and give her that blue-eyed innocent look, his secret weapon ever since she’d met him in Istanbul.

She turned.

His side of the bed was unruffled. A prickling sensation ran over her skin.

She picked up her phone, pressed his number. He’d better have a good explanation. A very good explanation.

The call went to voicemail. She wasn’t going to leave another message.

Her stomach tightened. She felt sick. Where was he?

Her life was not supposed to be like this. She was too young for all this crap. They’d gone through a lot when they’d first met, that watery tunnel in Istanbul, that hellhole in Israel, but all that was long behind them. Their life was peaceful now, family oriented.

So what about that last time he hadn’t come home?

It hadn’t been that long ago. Three weeks, to be precise. That had been a Thursday night too. He’d come home for breakfast, pleading for forgiveness, with that elaborate excuse on his lips. What had it been? Oh yes, a planning meeting that had gone on too long.

Did he think the bank’s mega-merger finally being completed would be enough to placate her? How could a celebration dinner, drinks, explain this? He wasn’t even a full-time employee there, he was a consultant, working for the Institute of Applied Research on a project that had already eaten up a year of his life.

She breathed in, told herself to calm down.

Someone would have called her if anything had happened.

He was late. That was it. That was all.

The same as last time. And she would make him pay properly this time. She listened for the soft click of the front door opening. He wasn’t going to let her down. Sean didn’t do things like that. They were going to Paris later that day. They were going to be soaping each other in a pink marble bath at the Franklin Roosevelt Hotel, just off the Champs-Élysées, before midnight.

That was his plan.

Everything was ready.

Since his uncle and aunt had invited them to stay in the hotel with them while they were visiting Paris, she’d been counting the days. And Sean knew it.

The trip was just what they needed. And such a great gesture from his uncle and aunt. They were the only people from Sean’s family that she really got on with. They’d insisted Sean find someone to look after Alek. The Louvre and the Opera House weren’t ideal places for a four-year-old, never mind one with a hyperactive streak. They deserved this weekend.

And they were booked into the hotel’s honeymoon suite. Tonight they’d be sleeping in a Louis XIV four-poster under a canopy of mauve silk. It was going to happen. No one was going to take it away from her.

Not even Sean Ryan.

3

The girl’s head rolled from side to side. There was no turning back now. The effects of Rohypnol wear off after a few hours.

He had work to do.

He ran his hands over her naked body. She winced as he pushed her legs apart, but didn’t wake. Looking at her splayed out made him want her properly this time. But he stopped himself.

He couldn’t afford for his DNA to be found.

He knelt.

The blade made a sighing noise as it cut through the air. There was a spasm of wet jerking as skin, muscle and artery were cut.

Even then she didn’t wake. The blood began to flow like paint cans tipped over, and as it did the shaking in his body slowed, then stopped, as if the flames of a fever were easing.

He was glad he’d done it quickly. The next job he had to do would be messy.

4

Isabel closed her eyes, willing herself to be calm.

They were going to have a wonderful weekend. Romantically speaking, the Franklin Roosevelt Hotel was about a million miles from Fulham, from working every spare minute helping people to find endless lost or deleted files on their computers and making sure Alek was dressed and fed and not wasting his life watching too much TV. And looking after Sean too, when he came home. She listened, and willed a faint noise to be the front door opening. She waited for him to bound up the stairs, for her life to go back to normal.

But all she heard was the freezing wind battering at the window.

And now the house felt different, as if she was in it for the first time again, even though the cream Edwardian armchair was in its corner, and the white rug – the snow carpet as Sean called it – was still in front of the dressing table, a little askew, the way she liked it.

Sean’s things stood out as she looked around. His books in a tottering pile under his bedside table. His watch collection in a row on top of it. His navy Macy’s dressing gown hanging on the back of the door. His silver pen on the dressing table.

She went to check Alek. ‘I love you,’ he’d whispered sleepily, looking up at her the evening before as she’d tucked him in. Alek, named after Sean’s friend who’d died in Istanbul, could make fuzzy feelings glow inside her just by smiling.

That morning he looked like a sleeping waif, his hair all over the place, his skin shining, ruddy from the warmth of his duvet.

She should have told Sean to skip the stupid merger celebrations.

She stared out at the back garden, shivering at the thought of how cold it had to be out there.

In the far corner there were remnants of the inch of snow that had fallen the day before. This winter was shaping up to be the worst in the city in years.

It reminded her of Decembers in Somerset, before her mother died. She shook her head. Those days were long gone. And anyway, they used to get proper snow then, a winter coat of it, not a thin veil like they did in London. At the bottom of the garden there was a snowdrift piled up against the six-foot-high red-brick wall at the back.

Something tightened around her, as if a ghost had hugged her.

Yesterday, as the afternoon light had been fading, she’d been out in the garden. In the corner, by the back wall, there’d been a mound of pristine whiteness. Now it all looked trampled.

Her nose twitched. That faint lemony smell was in the air again.

She glanced around the kitchen for anything else out of place.

Then she remembered the creak that had woken her during the night, the feeling that there’d been someone in the house.

She hadn’t experienced anything like that in a long time.

The buzz of the landline sent her flying to the phone. She held it to her ear, ready to scream at Sean as soon as he opened his mouth.

There was no one else she could think of who’d be ringing at this time.

5

Henry Mowlam scratched his head. The lights in the Whitehall meeting room were down low and everyone was looking to the front, so no one in the group of ten senior MI5 staff attending the presentation would see him, but still he moved his hand quickly back onto the table.

Major Finch was giving the morning presentation.

‘The information we have out of China is that there is something big brewing in the financial arena. New banking legislation, the biggest change since their Commercial Banking law of 1995, will negatively impact many of the richest men and women in China. The knives are out. Literally. Two middle-tier officials connected with this new law have already disappeared.’

Henry tapped the table hard with his red MI5 biro. ‘What’s the likely impact outside China?’ he said, when Finch paused to let others speak.

‘We’re still assessing that. But our current best guess is a big rise in Chinese firms taking over major companies in the West, as new sources of income and places to invest their surplus cash are sought out. I expect there’ll be a few hiccups.’

Henry looked down at the shiny mahogany table. This should be fun, he thought, monitoring managers trying to impose Chinese six-days-a-week work practices.

‘But the cultural impact of Chinese takeovers is not what we’re really concerned about today. Our concern is that this might lead to a backlash against Chinese communities in the United Kingdom. That’s why I called you to this meeting. We have reason to believe that has started.’

‘Excuse me,’ said Henry. ‘Is the Ebony Dragon hedge fund on the list of companies being monitored?’

‘No,’ said Major Finch.

‘You do know I submitted a report about the activities of its chairman, Lord Bidoner. Ebony Dragon has a source of funding in China now. They’ve been buying up British companies, even a few well known ones.’

Finch sighed. ‘You are barking up the wrong tree, Henry. I know you’ve been researching Bidoner’s link to that book that was found in Istanbul – what do they call a section of it?’

Henry looked at the faces around him. A few of them had heard what the title of a certain part of the book had been translated as. Their faces were even more expectant than the others, as if they were looking forward to a diversion.

He smiled back at them, then spoke. ‘The book of dark prayers.’

Major Finch threw her eyes up to the low ceiling as a few coughs in the room disguised some of the badly suppressed sniggers.

‘Yes, I read that bit, Henry. But what I don’t get is why that sort of thing should be of interest to any of us. This is the twenty-first century.’

Henry waited for some more coughing to stop before replying.

‘I don’t believe in it, but when people start copying the crap that is in that book I think we should all keep an open mind.’ He looked around. No one nodded in agreement.

‘You’re talking about those murders in Jerusalem. Those bodies being burnt, yes?’

Henry nodded.

‘But no connection with Bidoner or his hedge fund has been proven, Henry. We monitored him for six months, didn’t we?’

‘Ebony Dragon were the only people who profited from what happened around that time.’

‘We can’t investigate everyone who makes a profit, Henry. We’d be seriously understaffed if we did. We have no proof that anything illegal went on. And Ebony Dragon is one of the largest hedge funds in the world. I expect they have fingers in a lot of pies.’

‘That’s what worries me,’ said Henry, quietly.

Finch was already moving on to something else.

6

It wasn’t Sean on the phone. It was one of his colleagues from work, George Donovan.

George was a senior security manager at BXH who took an interest in Sean’s project there. He was a close-mouthed Iraqi war veteran, a borderline posttraumatic stress victim, Sean said, who’d rejoined his British army regiment when he’d heard they were heading to Afghanistan for a campaign.

She’d met him only twice. There was something weird about his stare. It felt as if he was wondering whether to kill you or not. He reminded her of Mark, her ex, who had died in Israel. He’d had a similar distant stare at times, as if he’d seen too much.

Sean had told her that George had been a hero. But why BXH needed that kind of security officer, he’d never explained.

‘Good morning, Mrs Ryan.’

‘Good morning, George.’

George cleared his throat. Isabel wondered was he at work, sitting in that neon-lit open-plan office on the twenty-ninth floor of BXH, the banking corporation worth the GDP of a fast-developing nation state, where he and Sean and ten thousand other Londoners worked like coal miners on twelve-hour shifts. Sean had been working late at the bank for months now, integrating the facial recognition software the Institute had developed with the bank’s IT systems.

And if he was at the office already, did that mean that any minute now he was going to rush into one of those breakfast meetings Sean was always telling her about?

‘Can I speak to Sean, please?’ George’s tone was stiff, proprietorial, as if Sean belonged to BXH, not to Isabel. Not really.

It was a tone Isabel hated. She had to tighten her hand around the phone to stop herself reacting.

‘He’s not here.’ There was no point in lying. ‘He hasn’t come back yet. I thought he was with you lot last night.’

‘I wouldn’t know, Mrs Ryan. Sean has a meeting here at eight thirty. I’m sorry to disturb you. I thought I might catch him before he left your house.’ He paused for a millisecond, to reload.

‘Aren’t you and Sean going away later today?’ There was the tiniest note of surprise in his tone. And something else too. Did he know something Isabel didn’t?

She chewed her lip. She hadn’t done that in years. The pressure in her forehead was intense suddenly, as if a blood vessel had become trapped.

‘We’re going tonight.’ She tried to make it sound as if they had plenty of time.

They had plenty of time.

George hummed. It sounded almost as if he was laughing.

Isabel wanted to explode. The pressure inside her was rising, like a wave.

‘What time did you last see him?’ she said, in as calm a tone as she could muster.

A dog barked in one of the other back gardens. Isabel felt the bones in her fingers pressing into the plastic of the phone.

‘Maybe six yesterday evening. He was expected in here this morning.’ There was a note of anger in his voice. Was he implying Sean was late?

A prickly warmth spread over Isabel’s face. She hated anyone criticising Sean.

‘I thought he had a day off today?’

A tiny snort came down the line.

‘What time had you been planning to leave for Paris, Mrs Ryan?’

It sounded as if George thought the trip was bound to be cancelled. The hairs on the back of Isabel’s neck rose like quills.

‘The train’s at a minute past six. Our taxi’s coming an hour before that.’

The journey from Fulham to St Pancras International station should take no more than forty minutes, even late in the afternoon, but Sean had wanted them to be early, to enjoy every second of what they’d earned, he’d said.

By five fifteen that afternoon at the latest, according to Sean’s plan, they’d be in St Pancras. And after that it’d be first class all the way. It was going to be a weekend to remember. A well-deserved payback for all the evenings she’d spent alone while he was working.

‘Should I tell Sean something when I see him?’ she said.

‘Can you tell him I’m looking for him? Thanks.’ The line went dead.

Isabel tapped Sean’s number into the handset and got that stupid voicemail message again. She cut the line.

She stood by the window, massaging her temples. An unsettling memory had come back to her.

Sean had said something the weekend before about a feeling he’d had that George was spying on him. Sean had reported some regulatory issue to the bank’s technology security committee and ever since he’d constantly been asking him questions, Sean had said.

Isabel had told him he was getting paranoid.

But there was something about George’s tone on that call that had almost been like a warning. Sean had also told her that Paul Vaughann had been taking an interest in his project recently. He’d complained that Vaughann brought out the worst in people.

Paul Vaughann III was the President and Chief Executive of the twenty-ninth-floor UK operation of BXH. Insiders called him The Shark, because of some mythical incident when he’d bitten a fellow trader’s arm to get his attention. And he loved the nickname so much, Sean said, that he’d had a shark’s jaws mounted behind the desk in his office.

Vaughann was also known for biting people’s heads off if they criticised the bank in his presence, whether they were the bank’s employees or not.

A low-flying jet on its way to Heathrow passed over the house noisily. Isabel looked up at the leaden sky.

Not far away, the traffic would be bumper to bumper on the King’s Road, cars full of slowly stewing people, buses full of workers anxious to get in on time, trucks spewing diesel fumes.

Isabel closed her eyes. ‘Come home, Sean.’

7

Pastor Stevson, the American pastor and tele-evangelist who had sponsored the most important archaeological dig in Jerusalem in fifty years, was coming up in the mahogany-panelled elevator of the Waldorf Astoria in New York.

He’d been sweating. His white hair and beard were sticking to his pink-mottled skin. His wife hated him looking this way, but there was nothing he could do.

He’d been out late and would have stayed out later if she hadn’t called and told him she was up and praying for his safe return, and that she’d tell everyone back in Dallas if he stayed out all night.

As he strode down the blue-carpeted corridor he rehearsed his lines. His wife, whose money had sponsored his first TV station, was not someone he wanted to fight with.

But he had to put her in her place.

The first thing he noticed when he entered the suite was that someone had pulled the floor-to-ceiling blue and gold curtains back, allowing the twinkling lights of Manhattan into the room. Had she been praying at the window, as she’d told him she’d done before when she’d been suspicious about his whereabouts?

‘Where the hell were you?’ were the first words out of his wife’s mouth.

‘I was walking the streets and praying. Why are you questioning me?’

‘You’ve been gone since dinner.’ She spat the words out.

‘That was no reason to call me, woman.’ Pastor Stevson pointed at his wife. His finger was shaking in righteous anger.

His wife stared at him, as if he’d just pissed on the floor.

‘You expect me to believe that?’ she drawled.

Pastor Stevson pulled a thin prayer book out of the inside pocket of his jacket. His cream suit was crumpled, but she had no way of proving what he’d been doing. Unless that whore had had a camera. He smiled for a second. Where would she have put it?

A memory of the redhead straddling him, her breasts bouncing, came to him. He wiped a hand across his brow. He had to put such thoughts away.

He bellowed at his wife. ‘How dare you question me! Ye shall be cursed. Remember Ephesians 5:22. Wives, submit to your husbands, as to the Lord!’ His hand shook as he raised it high.

‘I am deep in God’s work and you dare question me! This is the time for belief, not listening to the tongues of the devil playing in your mind. Ye shall be cursed if you continue this.’ He walked to the curtain and closed it.

‘What are you doing with all the money you moved out of the church bank account?’

So that’s what this is about, he thought. Okay, I’ll tell her a little, just to keep her jaw busy. There can’t be any harm in telling my wife now we are so near the end.

He turned to face her. ‘You remember that dig in Jerusalem we financed?’

She nodded.

‘Well, I’ve been working with a group of believers since then. The money is invested with them. That dig in Jerusalem got closed down, but they couldn’t take away what I discovered.’ He pointed a shaking finger at himself. ‘A wonder that changes everything.’

The pastor’s wife, a thin, blonde woman, whose black dressing gown was pulled tight under her chin, waved her hand dismissively through the air. ‘You told me there was a fire at that site, that the locals burnt that whole building down.’

‘Samples had already been taken. I told you that too.’ He put his hand towards her; it was a fist now.

‘Cut to the chase, who the hell are these people and what the hell do they need all that money for?’ She had a habit of asking the tricky questions.

Pastor Stevson shook his head. He sat on the long yellow flower-patterned couch. It took up the area in front of the wall-mounted TV screen. He looked at the prints of Grecian urns that sat on either side of the TV.

‘What in hell’s name have you gone and done? I can’t believe this,’ said his wife. Then she held her hand out to him. ‘You are taking advantage of my family’s generosity.’ The oil price rise had done wonders for many families in their part of Texas in the last ten years.

It was galling for Pastor Stevson to think of all that money gushing out of the ground, just because they had farms in the right place. The Lord gave way too much to that family.

‘Don’t question me, Martha.’

His wife shook her head, turned away from him. She had a sour look on her face.

‘We’re going to bring forward the end times. His return. That’s what we’re working for. Our money is going to make it happen. And you have the gall to question this work?’

‘Why do they need all your church’s money?’ she said. She was shaking her head, slowly. Then she leaned towards the pastor, her face full of suspicion.

Pastor Stevson had his reply ready. ‘I’ll tell you why. Because if we don’t get this right, we won’t be heading to heaven. We’ll all be heading for hell.’

8

Sean had warned her about getting paranoid after what they’d been through in Istanbul and Jerusalem, seeing conspiracies everywhere.

Was this just paranoia? Wasn’t his work for BXH just another consulting project, even if it was a big one?

The BXH project had been going on for over a year. First there’d been a small pilot project, which the Institute, where Sean worked, had been keen on Sean managing himself, due to his knowledge of super-fast image analysis. Then there’d been a long wait for a decision on implementation, while they kept doing tests.

The whole thing should have been up and running by now, but it wasn’t. Sean had complained that he was at the end of his tether with it all.

Was there anyone she could call?

She knew a few of the other wives from the Institute well enough to go to coffee mornings with them, but she’d never had a phone call from any of them complaining that their husbands were missing.

There was only one person she really trusted; Rose. Their husbands had been involved with the bank for about the same time. And she was also looking after Alek for the weekend.

Most of the wives she knew from BXH were far too competitive to show any weakness publicly. Whenever she’d met them they talked about who was going to Ascot, what they were going to wear, the private schools their children attended, or their holiday homes in the south of France or Tuscany.

Having worked in Istanbul for years, for the Foreign Office, before retiring early after an incident in Istanbul, Isabel felt like an outsider when it came to the things those people seemed to be obsessed with.

She headed for her wicker chair in the conservatory. She had an hour before her coffee date with Rose and the handover of Alek to her for the weekend. It had been a big decision to leave him with Rose. One she’d doubted ever since, if she thought about it for more than a minute.

But everything was ready. And Sean had been so definite that it would be good for them both. She deserved three nights of peace. That was what he had said.

And he was right. She pushed the shard of doubt away.

Within twenty-four hours they’d be back to normal. She’d forgive him. He’d talk about the big merger and finally finishing the project that would secure the Institute’s future, their future. And that would be it.

A crunching sounded from the garden, as if someone was walking out there. She turned to the window and took a deep breath.

9

Henry Mowlam turned to the screen on his left. The hum of the office in Whitehall had hardly changed in the past few years. The only noticeable difference was that the screens they were watching at the monitoring stations were thinner and the light was yellower, more natural, it was claimed, though Henry didn’t believe it.

The secure PDF on his screen was the oldest military archive file he had ever accessed. At the top there was a summary by a Royal Engineers Major. Below was a handwritten report in a thin spidery scrawl enlivened by occasional twirls and flourishes. The name at the top was Captain Charles George Gordon.

Henry scrolled down the document.

It was a personal account of the destruction of the Summer Palace of the Xianfeng Emperor of China in Beijing during the Second Opium War in October 1860.

‘On the night of the 20th we were carrying out Lord Elgin’s orders and came upon a remote palace building, which had not been destroyed up to that point due to its location on an island and its small size. I ordered only the porcelain to be removed and the building to be left intact, but one of the Sergeants took it upon himself to break through a trap door and loot an underground room. He arrived back while we were loading up the boats. He was carrying a green jade statue, about the size of an owl. I confiscated it in the name of Barkers & Son, Bankers, whose kin had been tortured and murdered by the Chinese, and whose shipment of opium had been lost on the Pearl River six months before.’

Henry closed the PDF. Barkers & Son were one of the early manifestations of the BXH banking conglomerate. Henry switched to his right-hand screen and studied the report on Lord Bidoner that had recently been emailed to him.

So this was where Bidoner was going to invest the ill-gotten loot he’d escaped with after the Jerusalem incident. It couldn’t be proven that it was an attempt to provoke a war and then profit from the surge in certain shares of companies, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t true.

Henry still seethed at the thought of how much money Bidoner had made. He read the report again. It stated that Lord Bidoner had already built up a shareholding in BXH that should have been notified to the authorities, but hadn’t. And now he was doing more buying through nominee accounts.

What was he up to?

BXH was definitely in trouble, on the blocks for an immediate takeover. If that didn’t happen, the bank could very well be taken over by the US Government. And if that happened Bidoner would lose his investment.

Was there something going on that he didn’t see?

He read the email from Lord Bidoner to the CEO of BXH, which they had intercepted. It requested an inventory of the bank’s artworks. It also stated that Lord Bidoner had an artistic interest in a jade statue that the bank was rumoured to have in its possession since the time of the Second Opium War.

He turned to look at the report from Captain Charles George Gordon. Was Bidoner looking for the statue mentioned in this report? It certainly looked like it.

But why?

10

Isabel went to the back door and looked out, her face close to the window. She could feel the cold leaking through the glass. She moved away. The noise could have been a neighbour’s cat, hunting for mice. Or it could have been an early rising burglar. She checked the back door was locked, rattled the handle. Hopefully whatever it was would go away.

A memory of the thugs who had chased her and Sean from the hotel in Istanbul came back to her.

She put the back door key on the top of the mahogany dresser. The doorbell rang. It was one of those old-fashioned bells that emits a buzz for as long as the person outside wants it to. Whoever was pressing it clearly wanted an answer quickly.

She was at the door in seconds.

Had Sean lost his key?

Through the stained glass front door window she could see a bulky shape. It was Sean! He’d lost his keys. Her heart thumped like an overexcited schoolgirl’s. She swung the door open and froze, her body temperature cooling fast.

It wasn’t Sean. It was a young man with streaky blonde hair and purple skin eruptions, a before specimen from a magazine ad for acne treatment.

As he stretched his hand out to her she felt stupid at having opened the door so quickly. She could easily have checked in the security viewer. She stepped back and got ready to close the door, fast.

Mr Streaky Blonde’s suit was light grey. It had thin lapels and it looked way too tight, bulging in all the wrong places.

‘James Kilfeather, from Gold and Ferry in the City.’ He smiled at her, like a salesman who’d just seen his next bonus appearing in front of him.

The look on her face must have taken him by surprise. He stepped back, his expression changing from friendly to troubled in a second.

‘Is Mr Ryan here?’ He glanced over her shoulder.

Had Sean made an appointment he hadn’t told her about?

‘No, he’s not. I’ll tell him you were looking for him.’ She tried to sound friendly, but all she wanted was for him to go away.

That was when she saw the clipboard. It was one of those big blue plastic ones with a shiny silver clip to keep the papers down. Under the clip there was a sheet with printed boxes, as if he was about to fill something in. He was holding it as if it was his raison d’être.

‘Did Mr Ryan tell you I was coming to do the valuation?’

She stared at him.

‘Valuation?’ The word stuck in her throat, as if it were a piece of bread too big to swallow. She could feel herself getting angry, the muscles in her neck tightening.

‘Mr Ryan rang our office on Wednesday. He was very specific. He asked us to value this property. Are you Mrs Ryan?’ Streaky Blonde was getting peeved, as if it was her fault Sean wasn’t there.

Why would Sean need the house valued?

She felt light-headed. This had to be a practical joke.

‘You’re mistaken. We’re not selling up. I’ll get Sean to call you, sort all this out when he gets back.’

She smiled thinly, closing the door on his reddening face.

She watched his shadow through the stained glass, her pulse drumming. Would he go away? A second later he was gone.

What the hell was Sean up to?

That was when she noticed the silver front door key.

It wasn’t hers, she was sure of it. All her keys were on her key ring with the enamel apple she’d picked up on their last trip to New York, on a visit to BXH’s head office, which even the wives had been invited to.

Was it Sean’s key? She moved it near the pile of mail that had arrived for Sean the day before. Then she pulled her phone from her jeans pocket.

She tapped in his number. Number unavailable. This was getting too weird. She stood in the hall. The house seemed very quiet.

‘Alek,’ she called out. Anxiety exploded inside her. She rushed up the stairs. As she got to the top she saw Alek’s bedroom door was closed.

She pushed it open, fast. Alek was on the bed, moving a toy soldier up a pillow mountain. His amber locks looked adorable. She slumped against the wall and closed her eyes. Her heart was drumming rapidly. What the hell was happening to her? She wasn’t normally this paranoid.

‘Come on, Alek, let’s get ready. We’re going.’ Alek didn’t budge.

‘Remember,’ she said. ‘You’re going for a sleepover. And Rose is going to take you to that new movie.’

She felt a tug of guilt looking at his upturned face, but when he moved off the bed like a boy possessed, the guilt subsided. The thought of a new movie beat just about anything in Alek’s mind.

‘Pick one toy to bring with you,’ she said, as she left the room. Alek’s hands were full already.

Sean’s weekend Samsonite bag was in a corner of the bedroom. It was empty. She’d already packed hers with most of what she’d need for the weekend.

She threw some of his things into his bag: socks, two shirts, his leather jacket. She was determined to keep to the plan. He wasn’t going to let her down. They had plenty of time before the taxi came.

Just as long as Mr Vaughann didn’t insist he stay at work. And she would conveniently forget about that message George had given her until they were safely on the train. Sean deserved a break too.

They’d hardly had any holidays in two years. Not like some of them at the bank. One of the few financial downturn-induced changes at BXH, as far as Isabel could make out, was that some of the senior managers had been forced to call off their weekday golf outings.

A cruel punishment indeed.

The only other change Isabel could see was all the extra hours Sean had been putting in.

It was time to go. At least without Alek hanging off of her, she’d be able to focus on finding Sean, and getting away to Paris in time.

She stopped, and put her hand to her forehead. Was she crazy thinking their trip would still happen?

11

The dining table in Lord Bidoner’s Fifth Avenue apartment was set for breakfast. The silver coffee pot in the centre of the table was letting out a curl of steam.

Lord Bidoner was dressed in a black kimono, as was Xena, though hers went only to her thigh. He poured coffee into a thin gold-edged cup, as Xena went to answer the doorbell.

The two men who entered, the head of trading and the head of risk at the New York securities division of the Ebony Dragon hedge fund, were both Harvard educated and experienced in the animal world of Wall Street.

‘Come in, the coffee and pastries are both warm,’ said Bidoner.

The two men took coffee and stood near the picture window. They were both quiet and watchful. It wasn’t often that they were summoned to meet the chairman of the fund they worked for at his apartment. It had only happened once before for each of them, when they were being recruited.

‘Sit, gentlemen,’ said Lord Bidoner. He stood with his back to the wall of glass and its million-dollar view. The sun still hadn’t risen, but the buildings around them were starting to come to life.

The two men sat on the edge of the leather sofa, a few feet apart. Xena stood at the far end. Her long legs glistened, but neither man glanced at her.

‘As I told you when I approved your salaries, there will be times when each of you will be asked to do unusual things. This is one of those times.’

Neither man responded.

‘You know our fund has larger goals than simply making a profit.’

The head of trading, who wore a black suit and a blue knotted silk tie, nodded curtly. The other man stared at Lord Bidoner, then spoke.

‘Isn’t profit what our shareholders want?’

‘And we will make a profit from all this,’ said Lord Bidoner. He walked closer to the two men. ‘A serious profit. And we will need it. There are scum out there who threaten us all. There is a change coming and you can be part of it.’

The head of risk, who had spoken, pressed his lips together and nodded.

‘Soon, gentlemen, we will know who will be the new slaves and who will be free in this world. You may think I overstate it, but when you see people lining up everywhere outside banks that have stolen their money, you will know I wasn’t lying.’ Lord Bidoner pointed at the two men, first one then the other.

‘Many things must be destroyed before they can be reborn. And you will have a role in this, if you follow my instructions to the letter. With no deviation. Is that clear?’

The head of risk spoke. ‘What exactly do you want us to do?’

‘You will spend every dime we have on BXH’s shares and options. And then you will start selling it all at a loss, until the price dives, because there is so much of BXH on sale.’

‘We could be ruined in a day, sir,’ said the head of risk.

‘That’s not your problem, gentlemen. Those are your instructions.’

The two men looked at each other. Both were pale under their perma-tans.

‘Are you sure you want to do this, sir? This is a major gamble,’ said the head of risk.

Lord Bidoner walked to where Xena was standing and whispered something in her ear. She went out of the room.

‘Gentlemen, consider this,’ said Lord Bidoner, coming up to the two men. ‘My friend is very strict when it comes to relationships. She was raised differently from us. An eye for an eye is what she believes in.’ He leaned towards the men. ‘It was said in her village that she wore a cloak of darkness after what happened to her family.’

He stepped aside to let her pass him. She was carrying a newspaper.

‘Would you like to see what happened to one of the other bankers I worked with, gentlemen? It was such a shock I kept the article.’

The two men just stared at him. Then the head of risk nodded.

Xena dropped the paper on the glass table. The newspaper was the Times of India. The main article was accompanied by a picture of a stretcher being carried out of an office building. People were milling around and whoever was on the metal stretcher was clearly dead, as they were in a fully zipped up body bag.

The headline read – CASTRATED BANKER DIES.

‘This was a few years ago, but it was a sad day for the man’s family, I can tell you. To die in such a way is dishonourable in India. It implies so much. But I am sure it was a lot more painful for him.’ Lord Bidoner picked up the newspaper and passed it back to Xena. She left the room with it.

‘This man didn’t believe my warnings. I hope that doesn’t happen with you two.’

The two men shook their heads.

‘I want you to understand where I’m coming from. There will be no turning back on my directive and there will be no discussion of what happened in this room after you leave here. Is that clear?’

The head of risk nodded first.

‘Yes, sir. You don’t have to worry. We will carry out your instructions to the letter.’

They walked slowly to the door and exited without saying another word. Lord Bidoner was already on his phone, as the front door of the apartment closed behind them.

Red, he typed into the email. Then he sent it.

12

Rose Suchard was sitting at a back table in the otherwise almost empty In Italy restaurant at the bottom of their street when Isabel and Alek got there.

In Italy was one of those new places with all white wooden tables and chairs. On the long side wall there was a giant map of a futuristic subway system made up of multicoloured dots. The restaurant attracted a young crowd who enjoyed the real Italian coffee, great pasta dishes and the atmosphere. Sean and Isabel went there regularly. It was one of the reasons she loved the area.

A waiter was flirting with Rose when they arrived.

Carlo, his name badge said, turned and smiled at Isabel as she sat down.

‘And for you, signora?’ he asked, as his smile said, you also look fantastic. The black wool sweater and midnight blue jeans she’d put on was her basic outfit these days. It was nice to be complimented, but she really didn’t need it.

‘A late breakfast, maybe?’

But Isabel wasn’t hungry. She ordered a latte and an orange juice for Alek. He was wiggling on the chair to her right. She took off his jacket.

Once he was settled she turned to Rose.

‘Sean didn’t come home last night,’ she whispered, leaning close to her, so Alek wouldn’t hear.

‘The bastard,’ Rose hissed back. ‘Are you okay?’

‘Not really, I still don’t know where he is.’ She put her hand to her forehead. Rose tutted.

‘If I’m arrested for killing him, don’t be surprised.’ She looked out the window, hoping to see his car going by.

‘I’ll stand by you,’ said Rose. ‘Did you see the news?’ She leaned even closer to Isabel. Alek was caught up with galloping an armoured knight across a corner of the table.

‘What news?’

‘About BXH,’ she whispered. She had an are-you-still-with-us look on her face.

She was scaring Isabel now. ‘You know I’ve sworn off TV in the morning.’

All the endless bad TV news was like an infection. She’d decided to keep it all out until the evening each day, when Sean brought enough of it home for both of them.

‘They were going on about the merger,’ said Rose. ‘Apparently BXH’s share price should be going up, but it’s not, it’s collapsing. You know what Terry said?’ Her voice dropped to a whisper.

Isabel shook her head, slowly.

‘He said if the merger doesn’t happen, BXH will collapse in on itself, like a black hole or something. They’ve been hiding …’ She leaned towards Isabel. Her voice went even lower.

‘Something big, he reckons.’ She glanced around, as if they were in a conspiracy movie.

‘I don’t like the sound of that.’

‘Me neither.’ Rose looked genuinely worried.

‘Sean said if the merger fell through, BXH would still be okay,’ she said.

‘Sure, but where is he?’

She opened her mouth, looked at Alek, closed it again. She felt like cursing Sean and BXH, but she couldn’t, not in front of Alek.

‘You know …’ said Rose. She looked sad. Her mouth opened. Her eyes were brimming. ‘It’s …’

Rose was crying. Big tears were running down her nose. Sympathy flared inside Isabel. Her problems suddenly seemed minor. Rose was usually so upbeat. When the western world had been about to melt down, she’d invited them around for a party.

‘We’re going … we’re going to lose our home,’ said Rose.

‘No way.’ Isabel glanced at Alek. He hadn’t noticed anything.

‘What happened?’ she said.

‘Terry’s overtime’s been cut. They’re cutting loads in IT. We borrowed so much to get this house. We’re going to lose it all. I just know it.’

Isabel squeezed her arm. Rose smiled at her and straightened herself up. It was the smile of someone determined not to let anyone else down.

‘Maybe it’ll be for the better,’ she said. ‘We don’t need such a big house.’ She sniffed and tried to compose herself. ‘Terry took out another loan. He didn’t even tell me.’ There was a wounded, shocked look in her eyes.

‘That’s terrible,’ said Isabel.

The waiter arrived. He made an elaborate show of placing their drinks in front of them. He was far too solicitous. Had he seen Rose crying?

‘You know what else?’ said Rose, after he’d gone.

She arched a neatly plucked brow, then started talking about how Terry had been acting odd recently. Isabel encouraged Rose to tell her more. After a few minutes she leaned towards Alek. ‘Are you looking forward to playing with Aunty Rosie?’ Alek nodded. She gave his hand a squeeze.

That was her signal.

‘I gotta go,’ she said, She’d hardly touched her coffee.

‘Make sure he tells you where he was,’ said Rose.

‘He’ll have some amazing explanation,’ she said. ‘Just like the last time.’

She gave Rose her long-suffering-wife smile.

‘Did I tell you Alek likes to sleep with the lights on?’ she said.

‘Three times,’ said Rose. ‘Go on. Have a good time. Making up is always the best part.’

Rose was definitely the most reliable friend she had. Alek would be in good hands.

‘Go on,’ said Rose. ‘Call me if there’s a problem.’

She pecked Alek on the cheek. He looked so cute. His little green weekend bag was under the table. She slid it near Rose. ‘That’s his things. You have my number, don’t you?’ Rose nodded.

Isabel took the bill.

‘This is on me.’ It was the least she could do.

A blast of bitter wind greeted her as she left the restaurant. She wanted to run all the way back to the house. She could picture Sean waiting there, standing in the hall, smiling, all apologetic.

A last-minute hitch to the merger could easily have stopped Sean from coming home. The merger was supposed to be a coup for BXH; the first time a Chinese state bank had ever taken a large stake in a major American bank, but God only knew what last-minute hitches might occur or what information was needed on Sean’s software initiative, facial recognition for all customers.

Sean had said the project would still go ahead, despite the takeover but she had got the distinct impression that he was worried about something, though he hadn’t elaborated about it. He’d been so preoccupied during the last few weeks that they’d hardly spoken more than a few words.

Even yesterday morning, when he’d called to tell her he’d be back late, he’d been strangely distant.

‘Be home, please,’ she mumbled, as the reality of what was happening hit her. She stared at the house as she neared it, looking for any sign that he might be back.

There wasn’t.

13

The policeman fixed the blue and white tape stretching from side to side of the alley. The two jumpsuited forensic officers who’d just gone under hadn’t bothered to secure it properly after they’d passed; typical.

They were probably too excited about the corpse to think about mundane matters.

It wasn’t often you found a murder victim with these sorts of injuries in Soho. He was glad he didn’t have to stand near the body any more. How anyone could do such a thing to a beautiful woman was beyond all understanding.

Maybe now, at last, they’d move the body. It was attracting far too much attention. The journalists and the TV crew were a gawping entourage.

‘Sorry sir, this area is restricted,’ he said.

A tall man with close-cropped dark hair and a weary expression pulled an ID card he’d seen only once before out of his pocket. It was in a brown leather wallet. It had the crown insignia and the words SECURITY SERVICES MI5 beneath it.

‘May I take your name for the crime scene log, sir?’ said the policeman.

‘Henry Mowlam,’ said the man, as he lifted the blue tape and passed underneath.

Henry went up the stairs slowly. They were narrow, nicotine coloured. He passed the policeman guarding the entrance to the room. This one had a better look at his card, which was a good thing, and then he let him through.

The room where the girl had been murdered was splattered in blood. There were trails of it on the walls and on the ceiling too. Henry stood in the centre of the room and turned slowly.

Then he went close to the splatter lines. Were they triangles?

He shook his head. ‘It’s just a coincidence,’ he whispered to himself.

Ever since he’d figured out that the square and arrow symbol in that old book could also be a representation of a skull, he’d been seeing them everywhere.

He been warned about how certain ‘cases’ could get under one’s skin at his last annual evaluation and they’d both known what the lady from human resources had meant.

But that didn’t mean he was going to heed the warning. There was no way he could just let all this go.

There was a lot more than a takeover and a murder going on here. He could feel it deep down inside him. He’d seen evil before, seen its effects, but he’d never seen it like this, part ancient, part modern. It was like a layered puzzle.

And Henry had a theory about it.

14

Their house, with its blood-red brick frontage, and olive-green eaves and sash windows, looked, she often thought, like something from an Edwardian fairy tale, when London stood at the centre of an Empire that stretched around the globe.

Living there was a fairy tale too. She hadn’t expected such happiness, and at times she felt uneasy about how quickly they’d achieved all this. She’d sold her apartment for a small profit. Sean had sold his house for a bigger one. A bargain had come on the market. And she’d deserved it.

Her first marriage, to Mark, who had worked beside her at the British Consulate in Istanbul had been a disaster. They’d lived in a dull Foreign Office apartment in the city and he used to go missing for weeks. The final insult had happened when he’d abandoned her in a house in northern Iraq that was under fire.

He was supposed to be her security escort.

Meeting Sean hadn’t seemed like such a big deal when it happened – he was in Istanbul to identify a friend’s body – but after they’d escaped those waterlogged tunnels under Hagia Sophia together, she’d wanted to be with him. The feeling was strong, unexpected, but he’d been what she’d needed.

She trusted Sean totally now. He wouldn’t let her down, like Mark had. He wasn’t like that. After Mark had died in Jerusalem, and Sean had rescued her from a hellhole cave in the Judean Hills, where she’d been held against her will for stepping across the wrong person’s path, their connection had become stronger, cemented.

She couldn’t imagine anything happening that could break it.

As she looked at her front door, her stomach was churning. She closed her eyes and said a prayer that he would be inside the house.

She remembered the day they’d moved in. They’d arrived together by taxi. And they’d found a window in the attic to stare out of. They’d both gazed over the slate roofs of London to the big wheel of the London Eye and the jumble of glittering buildings all around it. It had been a wonderful summer’s evening. The wind had been as light as a baby’s breath. They’d made love for hours.

Stay calm.

There were a lot of things she had to do. She had to finish packing, find her black jacket, get some cash out, check the timer switches on the lights, check their passports, tickets, and make sure all the windows in the house were closed.

She looked at her watch. It was eleven forty-five. He had to be back by now. Isabel put her key in the lock. She closed the door behind her quickly to keep the heat in.

‘Sean,’ she shouted.

There was no reply. Had she missed him? His scarf was hanging at the bottom of the stairs. Had it been there when she went out?

She took it and headed upstairs, sniffing at it. Would she feel heat coming off it, if he’d just put it down?

She called out again as she reached the top of the stairs. Alek’s room was on this floor, as was their bedroom and the main bathroom. You had to go up again, to the top floor, to reach their shared office room. The doorbell rang. A short ring. She gripped the banisters and headed down fast, half afraid she might fall in her eagerness. Even before she got to the bottom though, she could see that it wasn’t him, and the thumping slowed to be replaced by a jolt of recognition as she opened the door. It was Sabrina, their Neapolitan cleaning lady. Isabel opened the door wide. Sabrina was overweight. She had to stand aside to let her in.

‘Ciao, Mrs Ryan,’ she said. She wore her trademark big smile, but it disappeared quickly when she saw the look on Isabel’s face.

‘What happened, eh?’

Isabel tried to smile. She didn’t think it worked.

‘I’m waiting for Sean. We’re supposed to be going to Paris in a few hours. But he didn’t come back last night.’ The words came out in a rush.

‘Men, huh? They’re all the same. He’ll come back, Mrs Ryan.’ She waved her hands in the air. ‘He’s not going to miss a weekend in Paris with you.’ She flicked her hands through the air again, motioning towards Isabel, in an almost jealous gesture. Then she headed for the kitchen. It would be a few hours before she’d finish the ironing and cleaning. Isabel was halfway up the stairs. ‘I’ll be down in a while,’ she said, as Sabrina’s back disappeared.

She’d wasted enough time. Sean had a laptop in their office. His electronic calendar was on it. If anything ruled his life, that thing did. If there were meetings he’d been due to attend today that might explain where he was.

His life was dominated by meetings. Trying to break in on one of them would be like trying to break into the Sistine Chapel when they were picking a new pope. But at least she’d know where he was.

She felt like an intruder as she opened Sean’s laptop. But she didn’t care. The air in their home office was often musty. Now it felt stuffy. She wondered if Sean still used the same password he’d had a few years before, when they’d both used the same machine.

To her relief he did.

She was in.

She opened Outlook. He had two meetings in it for this morning. One was with Paul Vaughann at eight thirty. Another one, re: merger/Mr Li, was at nine thirty. That was it. It had to be. She relaxed a little. He’d gone straight to the office after staying somewhere last night. He’d probably arrived soon after she’d spoken to George. That would explain it all. He was in that meeting right now, looking at his watch, wondering how he could get out, call her. She launched his web browser. The last page he’d visited was the Wall Street Journal.

She swallowed hard, as if a frog was going down, when she saw the main headline on the site: BXH UNDER INVESTIGATION

She read the story, her face tingling as the words scrolled in front of her.

The merger with the Chinese bank had not been completed. A UK Fraud Squad investigation was under way. The bank was claiming short sellers were spreading rumours about the company. The next paragraph talked about the layoffs that would happen at BXH if the merger didn’t go ahead. She took a deep breath. Rose was right. Talk about reality sneaking up behind you. Sean had been telling her for a long time that there was nothing to worry about, that the contract with BXH would save the Institute.

Was it all a lie?

She looked out of the window, down at the street. A car horn beeped. A siren echoed distantly. That stupid bank. She banged the window frame with her fist.

Their train tickets were lying on the nearby bookcase. She picked them up and checked the date, before putting them in her back pocket. Whatever happened, they were still going to Paris. To hell with all the rest. She took up the phone handset from beside the laptop. The first thing she should do was check in with BXH. She tapped in his direct dial number.

But it wasn’t Sean who answered, it was George Donovan.

Damn.

He announced his name as if he was on parade.

‘Hi, George,’ she said. There was silence. ‘It’s Isabel. Is Sean around?’ If Sean wasn’t answering his phone, he could be in that meeting.

‘Hello, Mrs Ryan. Hold on a moment. I’ll get him.’ His tone was as flat as an unruffled page. The line went quiet.

A burst of relief tingled through her. He was there. He was going to come to the phone. At last!

15

Xena closed the door of the apartment. Pastor Stevson walked slowly into the main room overlooking Fifth Avenue.

He poured himself a coffee, then sat on the black leather sofa.

‘I didn’t get much sleep, Lord Bidoner, but I’m here.’

‘Thank you for coming. We need to move things forward.’

‘You told me to get ready, sir. I’ve done that. The money has been rounded up and the laboratory is up and running. I’ve even told my wife that His return is near.’

‘Have you told anyone else?’ said Bidoner.

‘No, no. I did as we agreed. She knows nothing about how His coming will be achieved.’

‘Tell no one else. I told you this already,’ said Lord Bidoner. ‘He will return, but we must keep every detail secret. No more talking.’ He pointed at Pastor Stevson.

‘You ain’t got nothing to fear on that count.’

‘There are many who will try to stop us.’

‘The devil’s workers are all around.’

‘Your tests are finished, you said?’ Lord Bidoner stood up and began pacing.

‘You bet, they can clone from any good cell sample now.’

‘Good. They should be congratulated.’

‘It’s all working, like you said. This doc did some research for another IVF clinic, he didn’t even put it on their website.’ He shrugged. ‘It’s amazing. The whole process is simpler than I thought.’

Lord Bidoner smiled. ‘But he has no idea of our real plans?’

‘No idea at all. He still thinks I’m some crackpot millionaire who wants to clone a dead relative. He’s happy to get his payoff and then disappear. And he’s all ready. He’s tested injecting a whole range of DNA cells into defective human embryos at least a dozen times. Each live embryo has been a hundred per cent clone of the DNA sample. He hasn’t had one single failure.’

Lord Bidoner smiled. The process of producing full clones had been done with mice for years. It was illegal with human embryos, but once the embryo was planted in a womb no one would know the difference between what they had done and standard IVF treatment.

‘All we need now is that DNA sample,’ said Stevson. He leaned forward. ‘You’re sure we can find it?’

‘Yes. We had the carbon dating repeated on the page with the symbol on it. It came back again as the period around Christ’s death. The symbol will verify the DNA, when we find it.’ He sat down.

‘Most people assume that such a quest is a romantic fantasy. They have no idea that there is truth at the heart of it.’

‘That book resurfacing now, out of the blue, when we can do something with it, has gotta be divine intervention,’ said Pastor Stevson.

‘I agree.’ Lord Bidoner smiled. ‘It is an intervention.’ He was staring out of the window. There were flakes of snow driving up against it now. It was a surreal view.

Pastor Stevson smiled. ‘You know, I always liked that story about Joseph of Arimathea catching Christ’s blood in a cup.’ He smiled. ‘But I really never thought I’d be involved in a search for it.’ He sighed, shook his head, as if remembering something.

‘You are sure DNA survives from dried blood that old?’

‘Human DNA can survive thousands of years. That’s been proven, again and again. DNA cells from long-dried blood have been extracted many times.’

‘And you’re near to getting into the site?’

‘Very near. I’ve managed to persuade someone to give us some useful security codes. We have access.’

‘You’re sure it’s the right site?’

‘It couldn’t be anything else.’

The pastor shook his head. ‘Like I told you, it’s divine intervention.’

He leaned forward, put his hands out as if he was appealing to the heavens.

‘We have been chosen to open the Seventh Seal.’ He closed his eyes, went forward until he was kneeling on the thick white carpet.

Lord Bidoner had his hands together too.

Pastor Stevson whispered, ‘And the vials of his wrath will be poured upon the earth.’

Lord Bidoner stared out at the twinkling lights of the city. The skyscrapers looked like shards of sparkling crystal as the snow flurries gathered in intensity.

‘Have you made the transfer into the fund?’ he asked, after a minute had passed.

Pastor Stevson opened his eyes, then rose to his feet. His legs were unsteady under him. ‘That was a lot of dough you needed, but it’s done. A hundred million went into your fund this afternoon.’

‘The price of heaven is not cheap,’ said Lord Bidoner. ‘If there was another way I would have chosen it. Every penny I have is tied up in this. I can assure you of that.’

Xena came into the room. She placed a phone on the oak coffee table. It was vibrating. She was wearing only a gossamer-thin black shift, which came down to her thighs. Her thin body was visible through it.

The pastor stared at her.

‘I must take this,’ said Lord Bidoner. ‘I want you and my friend to pray together.’ He put the phone to his ear and walked to the other end of the long room near the double-height window. The glass shone as if it were a mirror. Outside the twinkling lights of other skyscrapers filled the air.

He listened for a few minutes. Then he spoke, forcefully.

‘You will make him cooperate. Do whatever it takes,’ he said.

He closed the line and put his hand on the window glass.

‘The last one is near,’ he whispered.

Then he turned and went after Xena and the pastor. She had left the door of the panic room open just a half an inch. Through the crack he could see her helping the pastor take his shirt off. He stood in the darkness of the hall and watched until they were both naked.

She ran her hands all over the pastor’s pudgy white body.

Few could resist the way Xena prayed. And this pastor certainly wouldn’t have needed much persuasion about the earthy spirituality of her ancient beliefs.

He had no idea what he was letting himself in for.

16

Isabel heard heels tapping across a floor. Then another voice came on the line. A woman’s voice. A voice she didn’t recognise.

‘Sorry, Mrs Ryan, Sean isn’t here. George asked me to tell you.’

Her balloon popped.

Anger threatened like a sudden storm.

‘But George said he was there two seconds ago. He went to get him.’

There was a long pause.

‘Sorry, Mrs Ryan, George was mistaken.’ She sounded like a doorman telling some loser she couldn’t get in to their club.

‘Please, can you check again? Sean is supposed to be in a meeting there now.’

There was a pause. This one was longer than the last. Isabel wanted to shout at the woman.

‘I’m sorry, Mrs Ryan, I have to go. Your husband is not here.’

‘Can I speak to George?’ She wasn’t going to get any sense out of this woman.

She replied instantly. ‘Sorry, Mrs Ryan, George is out for lunch. Was there anything else?’

‘But I just spoke to him!’

‘He’s gone out now.’

The conversation was coming to a quick halt. But there was one other thing she had to find out.

‘Was Sean in at all today?’

‘I don’t know, Mrs Ryan.’ She sounded irritated.

‘Okay.’ Isabel cut the call.

The activity light on Sean’s laptop was going mad. The Wi-Fi light was blinking. They had night-time only updates set on their machines. There shouldn’t be any Wi-Fi access going on that wasn’t user initiated.

She checked what processes were active. There was one taking up 90 per cent of CPU time. She killed the process. What the hell was going on? They had the best antivirus software in the world.

She checked to see what data streams had been active. It took her a while. The result caused a chill to pass through her. Someone had, in the last few minutes, taken a copy of a document from a folder called TAKEOVER.

She opened the document. It was a three-page executive summary of technical and data protection issues relevant to the Institute’s facial recognition project, to be resolved in the event of a takeover of BXH by a non-EU or -US entity.

She felt like a spy, thought about closing the document, but there was the possibility that it had something to do with Sean’s disappearance.

The second page was a list of EU and US data protection regulations that would need to be complied with in the event of a takeover. The third page contained a list of the bank’s officers who were to be tasked with ensuring compliance with these laws.

The final paragraph made an icy chill move up her spine. ‘There are significant data protection risks to the proposed merger. The identification and tracking of criminals, suspects, politicians, law enforcement and government officials will be greatly enhanced with widespread identity-validated facial recognition. Laws created to prevent privacy breeches can be circumvented, as previously described (BHZC124566/8.odm). There are significant state security implications to the project in its current form.’

She looked at the date of the document. It had last been saved the previous morning before Sean had gone to work. She checked his email sent box. He’d emailed it to a long list of BXH staff, minutes after it had been saved. The next thing he’d done was to come down and have breakfast with her.

She tried to remember what he’d been like. He’d seemed distracted, that was for sure. She looked at her watch. It was twelve fifteen. The second hand was moving fast, as if it was trying to tell her something.

Had George really seen Sean at BXH? Why hadn’t he told her Sean wasn’t there himself? Was Sean dealing with whatever had made him make that warning? She balled her fist, pushed it against her lips. It was a nervous habit she used to do in uni. She moved her hand away. She wasn’t going back to those days.

She should go to the bank, ask to see him. She closed her eyes. There was something depressingly familiar about all this. Rose had told her about one of the BXH wives who had arrived at the bank’s offices one day the previous summer and had demanded to know if her husband was in the building, after being told by an assistant that he wasn’t there.

Apparently he’d stood her up.

The security manager at BXH’s reception had relented under the woman’s you’ll-have-to-arrest-me-if-you-want-me-to-leave glare and had told her that her husband was in the building and that he would personally find him. Isabel had been shocked at the story at the time, and glad that Sean wasn’t the type of person who just disappeared.

And now she was going to the bank on a similar mission.

She opened her eyes. Okay, let’s get it over with. At least she could get there quickly. Sean always bragged about how it only took twenty minutes on the underground from Sloane Square to get into work.

She ran down the stairs. She could be there and back by two thirty, maybe earlier, if she went straight away.

She knew exactly where his office was in the BXH building too. She’d been to a reception that the bank had given six months earlier. Sean had pointed down a wide, fawn-carpeted corridor to the door behind which he worked. The atmosphere had been hushed in the whole building, as if they had giant machines sucking away noise in every corner. Should she text him, she wondered, as she picked up her leather shoulder bag, tell him she was coming?

No.

She smiled. He hadn’t bothered finding a phone to let her know what had happened to him. He deserved her turning up at his office unannounced.

No doubt he’d have some merger-related excuse; the project was collapsing or whatever. And maybe she would forgive him, eventually, but he was going to find out how pissed off she was, right down to the soles of his shiny black Loake shoes.

Sabrina simply smiled at her when she’d told her where she was going.

Outside, the wind was even icier. She glanced at Rose’s house as she passed. It looked dead, except for a light on upstairs. Had she taken Alek to the movie? She didn’t have time to find out.

At Canary Wharf station the metallic grey escalators were crowded. The steel and glass canopy above seemed to be holding up the gunmetal clouds as she came up to street level.

She could sense people getting ready for the weekend, for their Friday night out. No matter how many offices were gutted by redundancies, there was always an appetite for a good time in London. If anything, she’d heard it had increased in the past year, as people threw caution to the four winds.

This was BXH’s world.

As she crossed the road on Bank Street, past the gleaming towers of fund managers and little-known banks, she shivered as the ice-sharpened wind cut into every exposed piece of skin. What does this say about our marriage if I have to go to his office to find him?

As she came up to the BXH building she noticed the airplane-wing shape of a black Mercedes S-Class standing at the curb. A trickle of white smoke was slipping from its exhaust.

Paul Vaughann had an S-Class. As she passed the vehicle she gave it a quick glance.

There was someone in the back. Her snow-blonde hair was hard to miss. It was Vaughann’s wife, Suzanne. She was staring at her.

She didn’t nod, or shown any sign of recognition. Was she surprised? No. They’d met only once. That time she’d had the demeanour of an ice sculpture too.

She was probably waiting for her husband to come out of the BXH building. With the bonuses he’d notched up in the last few years there wouldn’t be any change in their lifestyle, whatever happened about the merger.

She felt underdressed as she entered the marble and glass canyon-walled reception area of BXH, but she didn’t care.

The place had been designed to look like the home of money. Intimidated was how you felt in other, lesser institutions. Here the feeling was of total awe. There was a hush in the air, broken only by the click of heels, a big shiny gold logo filled the far wall, and the smell of money, of leather and sweet marble polish, was hard to ignore.

She waited in line, like a supplicant, at one of the queues in front of the reception desk. There was a group of five, mainly Chinese, businesspeople in front of her.

They were muttering among themselves. They looked sleekly prosperous in their well-cut suits and shiny hair. The security guards on each side of the reception desk overseeing the glass turnstiles, which were the real access points to the building, looked like heavyweight boxers.

Behind the reception desk there were four model-type receptionists, all wearing black uniforms and with TV-advert hair. They must have spent half their spare time keeping themselves glossy.

It was her turn.

The girl behind the desk smiled, her pencil-line eyebrows raised, as if she too was surprised to see Isabel standing there in her fashionably torn jeans and slightly distressed suede jacket, but she was far too polite to say.

‘Can you ask my husband, Sean Ryan, to come down, please?’

Isabel returned the girl’s smile with equal insincerity. She had emphasised the word husband. She knew that for many of these receptionists the pinnacle of achievement would be for them to marry one of the bankers who slipped past their desks every day with few sideways glances.

‘Certainly, Mrs Ryan. Please wait over there.’ The receptionist pointed at a cluster of black leather sofas to her right. They weren’t in the best position in the foyer, the Chinese were occupying that, but it wasn’t the plumber’s entrance either.

She went to her allotted place, anxiety burrowing through her gut, as if it was trying to break out.

‘Please be here,’ she whispered to herself.

She watched the elevators. If Sean were to appear, a worried smile on his face, she’d be tempted to hug him, but she might just hit him instead. Hard too. He deserved it. Every time one of the elevator doors opened her nerves jangled. And every time it wasn’t Sean, her heart contracted as if an angry hand was squeezing it. She saw a few faces she knew from the reception they’d been to, announcing Sean’s project was going live. None of them gave her a second glance.

Then the buzzer the receptionist had given her, a thick credit-card-shaped thing, was making a noise in her hand.

She stood. A woman she didn’t know was talking to the receptionist.

She was waving at her. Isabel hurried towards her.

‘I’m sorry, Mrs Ryan, your husband isn’t here. We’ve checked.’ Her smile was sweet, like a goodbye kiss.

17

Henry Mowlam closed the document he’d been looking at. He stretched. The files he’d extracted from Sean Ryan’s laptop were of less interest than he’d hoped. The description of what had happened to Sean and Isabel in Jerusalem he’d checked before.

The implications of the facial recognition project he was already aware of. The matter had been discussed at length within his unit and beyond. The project raised lots of red flags. The ability of a bank, and by implication a state’s security, revenue and police departments, to know who had what amounts lodged where throughout the world, gave unprecedented powers of oversight to any who had access to that information.

By matching databases of who was controlling individual bank accounts you could uncover undeclared income, suspicious money flows and match accounts in alternative names for people with multiple passports and identities. High definition security cameras that could identify individuals at half a mile meant opportunities for hiding wealth or ill-gotten gains were disappearing.

Facial recognition data, matched with global bank account statements would give foreign powers access to information on the wealth of individuals, regulators, businessmen and even politicians, as they arrived in that country.

Such data would provide endless opportunities for coercion of the unexplainably rich and the embarrassingly poor.

But they hadn’t reached that point yet. Thankfully. The software was still only being piloted in a few locations at BXH.

What concerned Henry more now was the fact that he didn’t know where Sean Ryan was.

The man in charge of the most sensitive information technology project in the United Kingdom, possibly in the western world, had disappeared into thin air.

He didn’t like it. And it wasn’t his only worry about Sean Ryan. The number of unanswered questions swirling around him and BXH was growing at an alarming rate.

He felt like a theatregoer watching actors pushing hard into the stage curtain while they moved around unseen behind it. There was something going on and he was only glimpsing part of it.

What he knew for sure was that there was a connection between the murder in Soho and Mr Ryan. The connection was looser than it might be, but it was real. The book Sean Ryan had found in Istanbul contained pages sewn in about obscene prayer practices from the early days of Christianity. It listed prayers that required real blood being poured and drunk, fire rituals, the castration of offenders and the murder of heretics and apostates, including cutting patches of skin from victims.

The most gruesome ritual involved murdering four people in twenty-four hours, each in a more sadistic way.

The purpose of that ritual was given in a Latin phrase above the small line-drawn images of how each murder should be carried out.

The phrase was: Quattuor Invocare Unum.

It had been translated as Four to Invoke the One. Henry shook his head. Whoever the sick bastard was who’d killed that poor girl, at least he hadn’t started the ritual where four people were going to die. He never wanted to see someone being murdered the way it was shown in those drawings.

Because they were the cruellest things he’d seen in a long time.

18

Isabel held the edge of the desk. She was getting the runaround. Something was going on that she wasn’t being told about. That’s what it felt like, even if she couldn’t prove it.

Yet.

‘Is the security manager available?’ she said, as calmly as she could, addressing the receptionist.

The woman looked at her, her mouth slightly open. Then her expression changed. Her mask of smiling professionalism slipped back on.

‘Certainly, Mrs Ryan. If you’d like to wait over there, I’ll see if she’s available.’

Isabel sat on the front edge of one of the sofas, examining everyone who passed by. Was it still too early to call the police? Would BXH be a bit more accommodating if she had a police officer with her or if she told them they were on their way?

She looked at her watch. It was still only eight or nine hours since he should have been home, not twenty-four. She took a slow breath, then counted to ten. The world around her was continuing in real time; prosperous-looking people were going out for their lunch break. Though many of them were grim-faced, others were smiling, as if they had nothing to worry about and the stories all over the media about BXH were just lies.

The buzzer in her hand went off again. She turned. Standing beside the receptionist was a small, wide-shouldered, cropped-haired woman. There was going to be no friendly smiles with this lady.

‘Are you the security manager?’ were Isabel’s first words.

‘Your husband is not here, Mrs Ryan.’ Her tone was as definite as a punch in the ribs. ‘His car is in the car park all right. It’s been here since last night. The rules of this building are quite clear. No employee is allowed to leave a vehicle overnight. When you see your husband, will you ask him to remove it?’ She looked at Isabel as if she had a contagious disease.

‘Can I speak to George Donovan?’

‘You’ll have to call him later. He’s out.’

‘A lot of good that’ll do.’

The woman recoiled, as if Isabel had slapped her.

‘It’s all I can suggest, Mrs Ryan.’

She thanked the woman for her help, and crossed the foyer, pulling her coat tight around her as she left the building.

The black Mercedes was still standing, purring at the curb.

Then it came to her. Maybe the wonderful Mrs Vaughann might know something about what had happened last night. Her husband had probably been with Sean.

She headed for the car and tapped on the window, hard. Mrs Vaughann stared at her, eyes wide, as if Isabel was a beggar. She knocked again, harder this time.

The window slid open less than an inch.

‘Mrs Vaughann, we met last summer. I’m Isabel Ryan. My husband works with Paul.’

‘Isabel,’ Mrs Vaughann shouted, as if she’d found a decades-lost friend. The door clicked open.

Mrs Vaughann leaned forward. She looked like someone waiting desperately for something, the way an alcoholic looks while waiting for a bar to open. Her eyebrows were raised. Her skin was pale. Her cheeks hollow. Her brow was all scrunched up.

Isabel stepped inside, then pulled the door closed behind her. It made a perfect reassuring clunk. The driver was in front behind a wall of thick glass. He didn’t even turn his head as Isabel got in.

‘I have to tell you,’ said Mrs Vaughann. ‘I almost didn’t open the window.’ She sounded amazed at herself that she had.

‘Thanks. It’s horrible out there.’ Isabel shivered. ‘There’s something I want to ask you. You always have your finger on the pulse.’ This was the woman most of the other BXH wives wanted to be.

Mrs Vaughann smiled, like a Siamese cat enjoying being stroked. ‘Please, call me Suzi.’ She put her hand on Isabel’s arm. Her skin looked translucent, as if she was made of expensive porcelain.

‘You poor thing. You’re wet.’ She handed Isabel a tissue.

‘I’m okay.’ Isabel rubbed her hands together.

Mrs Vaughann leaned back, looked at her appraisingly. She made an exasperated noise.

‘You know, I’m glad you came over. I do hate sitting here. You know they’ve gone too far this time.’ She sounded angry.

‘Who’s gone too far?’

Mrs Vaughann picked up a copy of the Evening Standard lying on the floor near her feet. It was folded open at an inside page. She pushed it towards Isabel as if it had a bad smell. Her hand was gripping the paper so hard her knuckles were white. Then she uncurled them, as if she didn’t want Isabel to see how anxious she was.

‘A few BXH people were at some horrible place last night.’

Near the top of the page there was a picture of police tape cordoning off the front of what looked like a crummy restaurant. On a canopy above the door was part of a word – Magnol. Isabel’s pulse was beating on both sides of her forehead.

The headline above the picture read: ‘Lap Dancer Murdered.’

A prickling sensation ran up her neck. ‘BXH people went there?’

Mrs Vaughann looked at her as if Isabel was a slow learner.

‘They were there when that poor girl was murdered.’

Sean couldn’t have anything to do with this, could he? He’d been working late last night.

Please, God, make it so that he isn’t involved in this.

‘What is it you wanted to ask me, Isabel?’

She swallowed. ‘Sean’s missing.’ Her voice cracked. ‘I wanted to find out if you knew where they were last night.’

Mrs Vaughann’s eyebrow arched. ‘Since when is he missing?’ She sounded almost happy at the news.

‘He should have come back at two, maybe three this morning. He hasn’t turned up.’

Mrs Vaughann sucked air in through her pursed lips. ‘Paul didn’t come back either,’ she said quickly. ‘We’re in the same boat, my dear.’

She put a hand on Isabel’s thigh. It was a sisterly gesture, she knew, but Isabel was tempted to say her husband wasn’t like Mr Vaughann. Sean had told her that Vaughann liked to be friends with lots of women in the bank. Friends with benefits was the rumour.

Sean wasn’t like that.

‘You should know,’ said Mrs Vaughann, ‘that if I find out there’s another woman involved or if he’s got anything to do with what happened to that dancer, I’ll cut his equipment off myself. He won’t be a big swinging dick if I do that.’ She sounded like she meant it.

Mrs Vaughann pressed her hand to her pale forehead. She looked the picture of a wronged corporate wife in her Jimmy Choo shoes and steel-grey Agnès B dress. She’d probably just come back from one of her charity coffee mornings, which she was famous for.

‘What about your husband? Do you have any idea why he …?’ Mrs Vaughann’s voice trailed off. Her pencil eyebrows were raised even more now.

Isabel imagined what she was going to say next. Was Sean cheating on her? She’d been pushing the thought away all morning. But she couldn’t do that forever.

Her standard reply to any girlfriend, who suggested he might stray, was to say that he never stayed out late. But she couldn’t even say that now. She plucked at her sleeve, as if there were fluff there. There wasn’t.

‘I don’t know what to say.’ She knew she sounded uncertain.

Mrs Vaughann looked at her and smiled. Her teeth were perfect. Most of the wives of the bank’s top executives had tight-lipped superior expressions. Most of them still had a personal masseuse, trainer and a holistic therapist pampering them every day or two. They usually tried to hide how superior they felt to the rest of humanity, but not very successfully.

Smugness oozed from them like the rotting smell from a carcass. But Mrs Vaughann was different. Her smile was genuine.

‘All men are bastards,’ she said.

‘I trust Sean,’ said Isabel. But there was a hollowness in her tone, as if she didn’t believe what she was saying. Her mouth was dry too.

She shook her head, glared out the window at some people leaving the bank.

‘I’m sure you’re right about Sean,’ said Mrs Vaughann. ‘It’s probably just bad timing, him going missing.’

Isabel turned to her. There was something sad about the way Mrs Vaughann looked, all taut, like a wire about to snap. Suddenly she felt sorry for her.

‘Have you talked to Paul about all this?’ She pointed at the Evening Standard.

If staff from the bank, senior staff, had been in that sleazy club when a dancer was murdered that was definitely bad news for the bank. Their reputation would be in the gutter. But did Isabel care? Sean mightn’t have even been there. He certainly wouldn’t have done anything stupid there.

‘No, I haven’t. Not yet. But I’m not leaving here until I do.’

Isabel stretched towards the door handle. Outside, hail was ticking and slithering against the window. Great, even the weather was conspiring against her.

‘I have to go.’

Mrs Vaughann squeezed her arm, held it.

Then she coughed, and bent forward. As she did Isabel caught a glimpse of her neck, and saw rows of wrinkles. She looked older than Isabel had imagined. There are some things even Botox and plastic surgery can’t hide.

‘Prepare yourself, Isabel. The media will be all over us because of this takeover.’

Her eyebrows rose. They looked to be in the wrong place now. Her eyes were fixed on Isabel, as if she was working out if she could trust her. Her lips were pressed tight. Mrs Vaughann looked out of the windows on both sides, as if she thought someone might be listening to them.

‘Your husband is leading the facial recognition project, isn’t he?’

‘Yes. Is there a problem with it?’

Mrs Vaughann’s eyes narrowed. ‘There’s a problem with everything at the moment, Isabel. I just hope your husband is able to cope with the stress.’

She looked worried.

‘I have to go.’ Isabel opened the door. The urge to leave was getting stronger by the second.

She had to find Sean. And she wasn’t going to do that listening to Mrs Vaughann. She stepped out of the car and didn’t look back.

The hail was coming down like a million icy arrows. She raced for the entrance to the underground.

19

Adar got out of the taxi. He headed for the coffee shop overlooking Bank Street. He could see the front and side entrance to BXH from one of the window seats.

He put his backpack on the floor and sat in the empty chair opposite the older grey-suited man who was talking softly into his phone. He eyed Adar with surprise and suspicion. A minute later he stood and left the coffee shop.

Perhaps it was the way he’d stared at him, unblinkingly, or perhaps it was the hood that covered his head, which he kept pulled down to the level of his eyebrows.

The only time he’d taken it off had been when he was walking through immigration at the City Airport corporate terminal twenty-four hours before. Immigration officials like to be able to see who they’re letting into the UK and for people to smile.

He accommodated them.

The Bombardier Global 5000 he had arrived on would be ready to fly back to La Guardia on Long Island, in New York State, in a few hours. It was the fastest private long-range jet available. The leasing company they had hired it from had allowed Lord Bidoner to provide his own crew.

Adar’s flight record was well beyond the number of hours needed to pilot long distance with only passengers, and La Guardia was used to the odd arrangements of the sporting and corporate elite, heading for their Gold Coast Long Island mansions. He put his day old pay-as-you-go phone down in front of him and downloaded the email app. He looked at the saved message in the draft folder.

Red, it read.

He added the word ‘green’ to the message, then saved it. That was enough. Lord Bidoner would be able to see that he was about to proceed.

He downloaded the Instagram app, and logged in as the agreed identity. His next message would be a picture of a London black cab. That would mean he had completed his next task and was on his way back with the package. He glanced at the entrance to BXH as he put the phone away.

He didn’t want to miss him. He had a message for George Donovan. All he had to do was work out how to deliver it.

20

This was all getting ridiculous, Sean wouldn’t have gone to a strip club – he was not that kind of man. But it would explain the late nights. The thought of Sean visiting that club left an ache in Isabel’s chest. The weekend in Paris didn’t matter now. He’d been the best thing in her life since they’d come back from Istanbul. She could almost feel his arms around her when she thought about him.

As the cab came up the street she saw a police car outside their next door neighbour’s house. A dark Ford was double-parked outside their house. She got out of the cab by the police car, and peered in. What was she expecting, Sean to be in handcuffs in the back?

He wasn’t. She fumbled for her keys. The black paint on their front door glistened. The glass was opaque. She could see a shape moving on the other side. She heard someone behind her, turned.

It was one of the neighbours. She was wearing a bobble hat. She glanced at Isabel, then looked away as she passed, as if she suspected that the police car had something to do with her. Isabel didn’t care. She turned back to the door. She wanted her old life back. Now.

She took out her keys. Her hand was trembling. The mist on her breath filled the air as she turned the front door key.

Before she even got a chance to take it out, someone on the other side yanked the door open, almost catching her fingers. A burly, hard-eyed policewoman was looking at her as if she were a criminal.

Isabel felt weak. Blood was rushing the wrong way inside her. Her knees had stopped working.

The police were in her house.

‘What’s going on? Where’s my husband?’ Her words came out in a rush.

‘Are you Isabel Ryan?’ the policewoman said. She’d have been able to find a place on a Soviet-era ice hockey team, she was that big.

‘Yes?’

The policewoman looked at her. For a heart-twisting moment Isabel thought she was going to say that Sean was dead.

Then another man, in plain clothes, said something Isabel didn’t catch, and the policewoman stepped aside.

‘I’m Inspector Kirby,’ said the man. His accent was from the north of England. He was tall and had a sickle-like jaw. He was standing at the bottom of their stairs, as if he’d just come down.

What was going on?

‘Don’t be alarmed, Mrs Ryan. Your cleaner let us in. We have a search warrant.’ He patted his breast pocket.

She didn’t want to see any search warrant. She had nothing to hide.

‘Is Sean okay?’ she said quickly.

‘We thought you might be able to help us with that, Mrs Ryan.’

The weakness in her legs came rushing back. She put a hand out, steadied herself against the wall. The policewoman reached towards her. She shrugged her away, straightened herself, and focused on the inspector.

‘Why the hell are you in my house?’ She knew she sounded angry, but she didn’t care.

‘We’re investigating some serious matters, Mrs Ryan.’ His voice had a passive quality, but his eyes were as hard as granite.

‘Under our search warrant powers we’re permitted to remove all the computer equipment in your home, and any papers or any other items related in any way to the matters under investigation. All these powers have been granted under regulations contained in the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000.’

It sounded like a set of words that he was well practiced in delivering.

‘Your cleaner showed us your husband’s office.’

‘Sorry, Mrs Ryan. There was nothing I could do,’ called out a weak voice from down the corridor. Sabrina’s head poked up over Inspector Kirby’s shoulder.

‘It’s all right, Sabrina. It’s to do with the bank.’ She closed her eyes for a moment. She had to focus. She couldn’t care about them being here.

‘You’re trying to find my husband?’ She rubbed her forehead. It was slick with sweat.

‘Yes,’ was Inspector Kirby’s curt reply. His tone made it clear he thought she should be the one answering questions.

‘I have to go, Mrs Ryan.’ Sabrina pushed past the inspector, gave Isabel a weak smile, and patted her arm as she went by.

Sabrina opened the door and then went out.

A gust of freezing wind swept in. The policewoman followed Sabrina outside, pulling the door closed behind her. ‘We need to ask you some questions, Mrs Ryan. Where can we do that?’ Inspector Kirby looked like someone who’d seen everything the world could throw in front of a policeman.

‘You probably know the house as well as I do by now, Inspector. Where would you suggest?’

‘The kitchen.’

She led the way. The walls seemed to be closing in as she went down the corridor, as if the house was suddenly smaller than it had been, as if it wasn’t hers any more.

‘You have a nice house,’ said the inspector. His tone was cool, official, but there was a hint of something else in it, as if he was questioning how they could afford such a big place.

She entered the kitchen and stared at Alek’s baby drawings on the wall, which Sean had framed so beautifully and simply, in black wood with a thick white border. A lump formed fast in her throat.

Had he done something stupid?

Why would the police be here if he was innocent?

Her fingers felt icy. She hadn’t noticed the cold when she was outside, adrenaline must have been warming her up, but now she was back in the house, and with the police here, they felt frozen.

There was a picture of her on a cork notice board on the kitchen wall, from the time before Alek had been born. She looked pale, smiling tentatively. Sean had been so concerned about her back then. She sat in the green wicker chair at the end of the kitchen table. It was a giant well-worn table, the type they had in the kitchens of big old English country houses. And now a policeman was sitting at it with her. She gripped the edge of the table with both hands. She must have looked stupid, or mad. But she didn’t care. Inspector Kirby sat, leaning over his notebook. She forced herself to breathe. They hadn’t told her he had done anything wrong. Not yet.

21

The pastor was spread-eagled on the steel bed. There was a gag in his mouth. He was naked. His eyes were wide open. He’d been hours in that position.

Xena had persuaded him once again to allow her to put handcuffs on him, but now he was definitely regretting it. She hadn’t been in the room for a long time. And she hadn’t left him like this the first time they had done it. Lord Bidoner had told him she was a bonus for him then, but he was starting not to like it.

If this was some technique of hers, it wasn’t doing anything for him.

What time was it, he wondered. Martha would be going mad. He hadn’t told her where he was going or what he was doing.

As if he could.

He tried to break the handcuffs again, pulled at them hard, but they were too strong.

That thought worried him. And his heart started beating faster again. He should have taken his medication before he came out. All this excitement would not be good for him.

He thought about shouting for Lord Bidoner, but he decided to wait a little longer. She had to come back soon to release him. He had things to do in New York.

He shivered. Maybe he shouldn’t have told Lord Bidoner that he had discussed anything they were doing with his family. Hadn’t he heard him rant after he found out what had happened in Jerusalem?

He listened.

The door to the room opened. In walked Xena. Pastor Stevson began grunting. He couldn’t speak properly, because of the gag, but it was clear he was appealing to be let free.

And then his eyes widened some more. She was naked. And the snake tattoo around her thigh rippled as she walked towards him. This was getting interesting again.

What was she going to do?

She leaned towards him, rested her hand on his big white belly.

‘Secunda quattuor invocare unum,’ she whispered.

That was when he felt something cold and sharp touch his belly.

22

‘What’s all this about, Inspector?’ She tried to sound collected. The hesitation in her voice didn’t help though.

Inspector Kirby was holding a silver pen as if it were a baton, and he was about to conduct an orchestra.

‘We don’t want to alarm you, Mrs Ryan, but we need to speak to your husband, urgently.’

‘That makes two of us, at least.’

He smiled.

‘Has he done something wrong?’ She dreaded the answer, shifted her body back a little, as if it was a blow she was expecting.

The inspector shrugged, noncommittally.

‘I don’t know, Mrs Ryan. We believe he has information that could help us with our enquiries.’

She let out her breath.

‘What enquiries?’

‘I work for the City of London Financial Crime Unit. We’re investigating activities at BXH.’

‘What activities?’

‘I am not at liberty to discuss that. Let’s just say our investigations, since the eurozone crisis, now cover the management and the supervision of all financial institutions.’

‘What the hell does that mean?’

‘I’m not here to defend or describe our investigations, Mrs Ryan. But we do have the power to carry them out. The public expects robust supervision and that is what we provide.’

It sounded like a pat answer he’d learned by heart. She licked her lips. They were dry, rough. At least he hadn’t said they were investigating him for murder.

‘Can you tell me the last time you saw your husband, and the last time you spoke to him, please?’

‘I saw him yesterday morning before he left for work. We haven’t spoken since. He sent me a text message telling me he was going to come home late last night. But he never turned up.’

‘And you’ve tried his mobile phone?’

‘Lots. It must be switched off or the battery’s dead.’

‘Is that unusual for him?’

‘Yes, totally.’

‘Did your husband discuss his work with you, tell you anything about what’s going on at BXH?’

Had other men’s wives, who he’d interviewed, told him everything they knew, just because he’d asked them so politely?

‘No.’ She shook her head, took her hands from the edge of the table, rubbed them across its waxy surface, taking comfort from the reassuring smoothness.

The inspector had an I’m-glad-I’m-not-you expression on his face.

‘Why are there so many police officers in my home?’

‘We need to do a proper search, Mrs Ryan.’ He shrugged, as if none of it was his doing.

She felt a blast of icy wind coming from the corridor.

He turned, looked over his shoulder. Then he stood.

‘Wait here, please.’

She did as she was told.

She heard voices, the sound of people creaking the floorboards upstairs. She stood, then sat down again. A part of her wanted to fight them, ask them all to leave, shout at them. But she knew it wouldn’t do any good. She rubbed her hands together, trying to warm them.

The policewoman came into the kitchen. She dominated the room, smiling at Isabel as she sat down. It was her turn to ask the questions.

She started by questioning Isabel about her relationship with Sean, whether he had gone missing before. Isabel told her what had happened a few weeks ago. The policewoman took notes. Then she asked Isabel whether Sean told her much about his work.

‘No, he doesn’t talk about anything to do with BXH. I told your colleague.’ She leaned forward. ‘Why aren’t you concerned about his safety? He’s missing. Anything could have happened to him.’

The policewoman’s expression was not sympathetic.

‘We are concerned about your husband, Mrs Ryan. A missing persons alert has been issued. If we find out what has happened to him you will be notified.’

‘What do you do when someone’s reported missing?’

‘We check out all the likely places, hospitals, police cells, the river police, the security people at his work.’

‘The river police?’

The policewoman looked at her, assessing her, it seemed. ‘In case he committed suicide.’ Her expression softened a little.

She swallowed hard. Suicide. She held the edge of the table tight, her fingers white with the effort.

‘Are you all right, Mrs Ryan?’

Isabel nodded.

The policewoman went on, leaning towards her. ‘Did you and Mr Ryan have any marital problems?’ She emphasised the word, marital.

‘No.’ Isabel looked her in the eye.

‘How does your husband normally react to stress?’ She reminded Isabel of a cat playing with its food.

‘Nothing gets to Sean. He just keeps rolling, bouncing off things. That’s how he puts it.’ She sat up straighter, the memory of him saying that playing through her mind.

The policewoman smiled at Isabel, as if she didn’t believe her.

‘We were supposed to be meeting Sean’s uncle and aunt tomorrow. They’re on holiday in Paris.’ A pang of guilt ran through her. Sean’s uncle had been diagnosed with Huntington’s a few years before. The last thing he needed was for his dead brother’s son, who he’d promised to look out for, to disappear and for the police to be investigating him.

How was she going to tell them?

‘Did your husband organise this holiday?’ The policewoman’s eyebrows were up.

‘No, I did.’

‘Was there any particular reason for the timing? Isn’t BXH pretty busy right now?’

‘We’re going to meet Sean’s nearest relatives. This is the time when they come over to Europe. And we need a break. I deserve it. Sean deserves it. He’s been working very hard.’ Isabel gave her a paper-thin smile.

‘Have you any reason to believe your husband might be with another woman?’ The policewoman leaned forward. Her eyelids were drooping.

‘No.’

She made a note in her notebook, then glanced at Isabel. She wasn’t smiling now.

‘I’ve never even suspected him of anything like that.’

‘We’re just trying to understand where he might be.’

There was a stubborn look on the policewoman’s face, as if she wasn’t at all convinced that Sean wasn’t with a mistress somewhere, enjoying himself.

‘We found passports upstairs, but not your husband’s, Mrs Ryan. Does he keep his somewhere else?’

‘I thought they were all upstairs.’ Had Sean taken his with him? Her hands felt cold again. She spotted the red apples and Conference pears she’d bought the day before to snack on. The thought of eating made her stomach tighten.

‘What did you study in college, Mrs Ryan?’

She didn’t answer for a few moments. It suddenly struck her that she might be a suspect too; that her background made it possible that there was more going on here.

She’d become an IT security consultant because she wanted to do something that took advantage of her security experience while she was with the Foreign Office.

‘Biology,’ she said. When she went to the University of London, she’d imagined biological science would be a great course to get dates on. As it turned out, most of the other students were either too painfully shy to talk to a girl, or they acted like superior nerds.

The policewoman sniffed. ‘I see.’ There was a pause while she wrote something down. ‘And have you worked for BXH at any time?’

‘No,’ she replied. ‘I worked at the Foreign Office until a few years ago. But you will be aware that I’m not allowed to talk about my work there.’ They had to know about the Official Secrets Act. They would have signed it themselves.

From the curious look on the policewoman’s face, Isabel got the impression she thought Isabel was hiding something.

‘My husband is working on a project for BXH. That’s all.’

The policewoman gave her a nod.

‘Did your husband keep anything from his office anywhere else in the house, aside from in that room upstairs?’

‘No.’ She shook her head.

That was when she noticed all the drawers in the kitchen cabinet, one of those old ones with shelves for showing plates and jugs, were a little pulled out. Had the police been through every corner of their house already?

‘When will you be finished here?’ Isabel waved at the house above them.

The policewoman countered with, ‘Do you mind showing me where your husband kept whatever he did bring home?’

As they went upstairs she saw a plainclothes officer exiting the front of the house carrying one of those bright blue plastic storage boxes.

When they got upstairs Inspector Kirby was pulling out books from Sean’s bookcase in the office, flicking through them one at a time, putting them back haphazardly. Sean would have gone crazy if he’d seen him.

‘This is the only place Sean kept anything from work. If he did bring anything home it would be in this room. And that laptop is mine.’ She pointed at her shiny black Toshiba. It was in a pile with Sean’s laptop and some papers near the door.

‘I’m afraid we’ll have to take that one too.’ The inspector’s tone could have sliced steel. He looked at the policewoman. They were communicating in some unspoken language.

She should have been raging, fuming at them, but she wasn’t. Every file on her laptop was stored on the internet, in a cloud. None of what they were doing mattered. The only thing that mattered was getting Sean back.

She stood there, watching him as he took out and looked through the last of the books on the bottom row of Sean’s bookcase. After he was finished he stood and surveyed the room.

The plainclothes officer she’d seen carrying the other blue box came into the room. He had an empty box in his hand now.

‘Just one more, Tom,’ he said. He bent down and put the laptops into the box. He dropped them in, as if they were far more rugged than you’d imagine they would be.

‘Be careful,’ said Isabel.

‘Thank you for your cooperation, Mrs Ryan. We’re finished, for now.’

‘You’re going?’ The weight on her chest diminished.

‘Yes, Mrs Ryan. We’ll let you know if we find out where your husband is, and please, don’t forget, call us if he contacts you or you hear any news about his whereabouts. We wouldn’t want to disturb you again. We do take into account the impact our investigations have on families. We try to be as reasonable as we can.’

To Isabel that sounded like a threat.

He took out his card, handed it to her.

When they were all gone she sat on the stairs, trembling. She felt exposed, vulnerable. They’d poked into every corner of the house, of their lives.

Her watch said 4:20 p.m. She held her head. She felt as if she’d aged ten years in the last few hours.

23

The dirty white van with the ACE PLUMBING sticker on its side shook a little as the police car went by. The two men inside didn’t react. They were in the back of the van and could see the front door of the house the police had come from and the entrance to the lane that ran around the houses without moving an inch. But they couldn’t be seen. The black one-way filter on the back windows of the van made sure of that.

Each of the men had two plastic bottles. One to drink from. A second to piss into. It could be a long night. A lot of people stay at home, weeping, when their lives fall apart. Others head for relatives or friends. Some ramble the streets or visit people they blame for what’s happened to them.

Their instructions from Henry Mowlam had been clear. Report on the movements of the target, photograph everyone she meets. Watch out, in particular, for anyone else taking an interest in Isabel Ryan or her house. It was unusual for Henry to request live surveillance, but when he did there was always a good reason.

As the larger of the two men moved in his seat, he reached down and adjusted the holster strapped above his ankle. It was unlikely he’d have to use the weapon, but he always carried it. You never knew what way a job like this could go. There had already been one recent murder in London related to the woman they were watching and further incidents in the past.

He pulled his trouser leg down, hiding the gun.

‘Did you hear what happened to that dancer who was murdered’ he said, softly. Then he leaned towards his companion.

‘Whoever did that was pure fucking evil. This ain’t no ordinary murderer we’re tracking. Just make sure you stay awake on your watch, mate. I don’t want no pieces of my skin getting cut off.’

24

Had the police got what they wanted, Isabel wondered? Did Sean have anything she didn’t know about on his laptop?

She pulled her phone out of her pocket. The button on the side, which set it to ring silently, had been moved. It did that of its own accord occasionally, just to annoy her.

Had he called?

She checked.

No. No one had.

In front of her, on the hall floor, jutting out from under the crimson curtain that hung down on one side of their front door, was a small pile of letters. She picked them up, more out of habit than anything else. Her hand was trembling. She pressed it to her lips, forced the trembling away.

She went to the kitchen and opened the letters. There was an early Christmas card from Rose, a letter from the gas company, a request for immediate funds from Save the Children, and a bill from their mobile phone company. She was about to put them all in the dresser, in the usual place, when something struck her.

A few months before, when they’d been planning to switch phone companies, she’d gone through one of these phone bills. She’d wondered whether they needed all that detail, all those pages. Shouldn’t they have stopped getting this paper by now? Hadn’t she asked for an online-only bill years ago?

But maybe this was exactly what she needed, details of who Sean had been calling recently. If, and this was definitely one of her total nightmare scenarios, he was seeing someone else, if that was the explanation for all this, there had to be a chance that someone else’s number was in this bill.

Her hand hesitated as she looked at the pages. She didn’t like prying.

Would it be better that he had been with someone else, than that he was involved in some fraud at his office or something worse? She closed her eyes for a moment, rubbed at her forehead. It wasn’t a choice she wanted to make.

She examined the bill. She felt compelled to look, to check the numbers. She examined each page. Some of the numbers she recognised. Their home number, her mobile number, his office number. Then there was a sprinkling of other numbers, some the same, many different.

This was totally impossible. How could she ever figure this out? There was no way she was going to be able to find out anything except by ringing these numbers, and if she did ring them, what was she going to say? Are you and my husband having an affair? Is he hiding out with you?

Yes, that was going to work.

And then she noticed something.

Right at the end, there was a series of calls to the same number. Sean had made ten calls in one day to the number, five the next. Then the calls had stopped. That was two weeks ago.

Who had he been calling ten times?

Why had he stopped?

Her breathing quickened. She could imagine some woman answering the phone, laughing, then cutting the line, if she called the number, asked if Sean was there. Would she hear his voice in the background? Would the woman say something about Sean? Was Sean’s real life somewhere else? She stood, gripped the back of a wooden chair, held it tight with both hands. It was clear what she had to do.

Bzzzzzz.

The front doorbell. Was it Sean? Hope switched on like a floodlight in her brain. Then she heard a strange voice, and the floodlight switched off again.

‘Taxi.’

It was the taxi she’d ordered to take them to the station.

She pulled the door open fast. What the driver thought she had no idea, but she expected the £20 note she gave him helped.

As she tapped in the number Sean had been calling into her phone, she caught a glimpse of herself, hunched over, in the mirror in the hall. She looked haunted.

Bzzz. Bzzz.

An urge to end the call gripped her, as if she was a teenager ringing a boy for the first time. She pressed the phone tighter to her ear.

‘Hello.’ A jolt of recognition passed through her. It was George’s voice. This was his mobile number. As the cogs in her brain turned she opened her mouth, closed it again. Nothing came out. Then a panicky feeling hit her.

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