Silas has now established an exact date: 13 February. Jake said he saw Rob when he was coming in for a chat about his book, a meeting that Silas had written in his diary.

  ‘Do we know who he was visiting?’ Ward asks.

  ‘No.’

  Ward lets the word hang in the air. No need to say any more, point out the further lack of evidence. There was no record of Gilmour or Rob having signed in to visit the station. Silas checked earlier. He’s had enough.

  ‘The Major Crime Team in Truro is struggling, sir,’ he says. ‘Doesn’t think the death in Cornwall was drugs-related. I’d like to take the lead on the case.’

  ‘I know you would,’ Ward says. ‘Leave it with me. I’ll talk to the SIO down there, see what he wants. And I’d rather you don’t go troubling Rob unnecessarily. He’s proving a very good friend to Swindon.’

  A very good friend to Swindon. What the hell does that mean? All Rob’s done is put on an art show in the local hospital. Silas is about to ask when Ward knocks the wind out of him with a parting question.

  ‘How’s Conor by the way?’ he asks, standing up to signal that the meeting is now at an end. ‘Heard he’s fallen in with the wrong crowd.’

  ‘He’s fine, thanks,’ Silas says, doubling up inside. ‘We’re getting him help.’

  ‘Glad to hear it. Wasn’t sure if it was just more hearsay. You know how gossip can spread around here – like wildfire.’

  The bastard. How much more does he know about Conor? Silas walks out of his boss’s office, keen to put some distance between them.

  81

  Kate

  ‘The weekend results were truly exceptional, you know,’ Ajay says, glancing up at Kate from across the kitchen table. His manner is forced, as if he’s playing up for the cameras. ‘You’re almost back to how you were before the crash.’

  Kate tries not to think too hard about the words he’s just written in his notebook. Ajay is attempting to act normally and she must do the same.

  He can see and hear everything.

  The whole apartment must be wired up with hidden microphones and cameras. Is it the same with the house in Cornwall? Has Rob been monitoring her every move? This isn’t about her security. Something else is going on.

  ‘I missed one,’ she says, recalling the rapid series of faces she was shown down in Cornwall. She spotted Jeff but Brucie got away.

  ‘It was a hard test,’ Ajay says. ‘No one’s ever spotted both.’

  She would have done in the past. And she wants to again. Ajay explains that she’ll be shown a mugshot of one person for ten seconds. She must then watch up to sixty minutes of real CCTV crowd footage and try to spot the person. Analysing CCTV is particularly draining, but she will do this final test – for Ajay. And also for her. She’s determined to recover – identifying Conor at the station in the village gave her a surprising thrill – but she never wants to revisit the police life she’s left behind. She just wants to paint people again, see them for who they really are.

  ‘Would it be useful if you also looked at some of my latest drawings?’ she asks.

  ‘Sure,’ Ajay says, ‘I’d like that.’ But she knows he’s humouring her.

  ‘And afterwards?’ she asks. ‘I must go to Brittany?’

  He nods, but his manner’s become forced again, not like Ajay at all. He turns to his attaché case, open beside the laptop, and pulls out a circular device of some sort.

  ‘Rob wants you to wear this for the next test,’ he says, holding up what looks like a grey rubberised necklace punctuated with flat metal contact points. He places it on the table next to the laptop.

  ‘What is it?’ she asks, suspecting that it’s another fitness gadget that Rob’s company has invested in.

  ‘The latest wearable technology,’ he says, but he’s not looking at her. He’s busy on the laptop. ‘It measures various biometric data while you’re studying the CCTV footage. Blood flow through the carotid artery, that sort of thing.’

  He stands up and comes over to her side of the kitchen table.

  ‘We’ll need to take this off,’ he says, nodding at her beach-glass necklace. ‘It might interfere with the readings.’

  She lifts her chin up and unfastens it, then lets him slip on the rubber device in its place. His hands are warm, sweaty.

  ‘Comfortable?’ he asks.

  She’s not listening. She’s looking at the image on Ajay’s laptop, her target mugshot. It’s a photo of Rob, staring directly at the camera. At least she thinks it’s Rob.

  ‘Are you ready?’ Ajay says, following her gaze and then glancing at his watch. ‘Ten seconds.’

  She leans in to examine the photo more closely, searching the eyes for a clue. She’s no longer sure.

  ‘Is that Rob?’ she asks quietly, slipping a finger inside the neckband to loosen it. It’s too tight.

  ‘It doesn’t matter who it is,’ Ajay says. ‘You’ve just got to spot his face in the crowd.’

  82

  Silas

  After Silas has finished with his boss, he picks up his laptop from the Parade Room and heads straight for the station’s main entrance. He knows the reception staff well. These people are on the frontline, dealing with the drunk and the drugged, the violent and the damaged, anyone that Response brings in off the streets.

  ‘Still coping with the fame?’ he asks ‘Bodie’, one of the two female receptionists who were recently featured in a fly-on-the-wall TV documentary about Gablecross. It’s not her real name but everyone at the station calls her Bodie.

  ‘Graham Norton this week, Hollywood the next,’ she says drily. ‘You know how it is.’

  He waits as a pair of uniforms walk past, escorting a young homeless man out of the main door. It could so easily be Conor.

  ‘I need to look at the car park cameras out front,’ he says, once they’ve gone. ‘From February this year.’

  ‘You’re in luck,’ she says. ‘We’ve both been watching Marie Kondo.’

  Silas cocks his head quizzically. What are they on about?

  ‘Netflix?’ she says, turning to open a cupboard behind her. ‘Japanese decluttering expert?’

  ‘She tells you how to vertically fold your socks,’ ‘Doyle’, the other woman, says. No one can remember who first started calling them Bodie and Doyle. Some of the younger officers must wonder why too. The Professionals was a long time ago. ‘You should try it sometime.’

  Silas has enough trouble finding a matching pair of socks let alone folding them.

  After searching in the cupboard, Bodie hands a small box over to Silas. ‘Here we go,’ she says. ‘Neatly sorted by date. If you’d come last week, it would have taken me all morning to find it. You can’t take it away though, not unless you want me fired.’

  Silas was expecting as much. It’s why he brought down his laptop.

  ‘Thanks,’ he says, nodding at one of the small interview rooms that adjoin the reception area. ‘I’ll be in there.’

  ‘Keep only those things that give you the spark of joy,’ Doyle says as Silas walks away with the box.

  ‘Have gratitude for what you’re discarding,’ Bodie calls out.

  Silas shakes his head in disbelief as he closes the door of the airless interview room behind him. Sitting down at the small desk, he starts to work his way through the USB sticks, each one with a month and year written on it. It takes a few moments to find the February file and insert the stick into his laptop but a lot longer to scroll through to 9.30 a.m. on 13 February, when Jake came in to see him. Jake said that he saw Rob after their one-hour meeting, on his way out. He moves forward to 10.25 a.m. and starts to watch the footage in real time. The screen is split into four camera feeds, the top two from the public car park, the bottom left from the adjoining staff car park and the final one from the main entrance.

  At 10.32, Silas recognises the bulky figure of Jake walking out of the station entrance, his back to the camera. He leans in closer to the two feeds from the public car park. Jake appears in the bottom left frame, approaching a blue Morris Minor Traveller. He remembers Kate’s car, the mangled wreckage that was taken away on a low-loader. As Jake opens the door, he looks across the car park at something. Silas switches to the other feed and watches. And then he sees it. A Tesla in the far corner, barely visible. It must be the only parking space that’s not covered completely by the cameras. Silas swallows as the driver walks away from the car. He’s wearing a baseball cap, but Silas can just see his face. It’s Rob.

  83

  Kate

  It’s almost forty-five minutes into the CCTV footage when Kate spots him. Rob is wearing a baseball cap pulled over his eyes and has his head down, as if he’s trying to avoid being seen. He’s approaching a ticket barrier at what looks like a London Underground station.

  ‘There, that’s him,’ she says.

  Ajay stops the footage and rewinds a few seconds. His hand is shaking.

  Kate watches again as Rob approaches the barrier. ‘Stop,’ she says, pointing at the figure on the screen.

  Ajay bows his own head for a moment and then looks up at her, his normally bright brown eyes dulled by a sudden sadness.

  ‘Am I wrong?’ she asks, disappointed.

  He is close to tears. ‘No, you’re not wrong. You’re ready. Rob will be thrilled.’

  ‘So what’s with the long face?’ she asks, her whole body relaxing after the intensity of the last forty-five minutes. What does Ajay mean by ‘ready’?

  The phone starts to ring in the bedroom.

  ‘Because that’s incredible,’ he says, glancing into the other room. ‘Barely 10 per cent of his face is visible, maybe less. The resolution’s low, the light’s poor, it’s a bad angle. Recognition software would never have identified him.’

  Another dirty spot. She must be better.

  ‘You ought to get that,’ Ajay says, writing something in his notebook. ‘I’ll pack up.’

  She walks over to the bedroom, concerned by Ajay’s downbeat demeanour, and answers the phone.

  ‘How are you feeling? Any better?’

  It’s Rob, but her heart doesn’t soar. Not like it used to when he would ring her in Cornwall and she’d lie back on the bed, listening to his plans for her art, a possible solo exhibition in London, his love for her. She can’t trust him any more, can’t be sure that it’s him.

  ‘OK,’ she says, her voice determinedly neutral. She’d forgotten about the device around her neck, but it starts to feel tight again.

  ‘How did you get on?’ he asks. ‘With the final test?’

  Is it even Rob’s voice? She doesn’t trust herself any more.

  ‘I’ve just finished,’ she says, suspecting that he already knows the result. She runs her fingers over the neckband, hoping to find a clip so that she can release it. The data from it will already have been downloaded onto Ajay’s laptop.

  ‘Did you spot him?’ he asks.

  Him? Wasn’t it Rob in the footage?

  ‘What’s going on, Rob? The blinds are still down here.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’ He pauses. ‘There were problems with the system last night, but it’s all sorted now and you’re right, the blinds should be up.’

  ‘But they’re not,’ she says, trying again to find a way to release the neckband.

  It’s a while before he speaks.

  ‘I think someone’s still trying to harm you,’ he says, his voice heavy with concern.

  She doesn’t believe him. Not after the scribbled note from Ajay. There are too many unanswered questions. Why can’t she make outgoing calls on the landline? And where’s her mobile phone?

  ‘Who’s trying to harm me?’ she asks.

  ‘The same as before. People you identified.’

  She still doesn’t believe him.

  ‘I can look after myself, Rob,’ she says, glancing through the door at Ajay, who has finished packing up and is waiting for her. ‘And he’s dead now, the man in Cornwall who tried to kill me.’

  ‘There are others,’ he says.

  She hesitates. Maybe she’s being naive and there are still people out there who want to harm her. She should be grateful that Rob, if it’s him, is being so protective.

  ‘Am I allowed out of here now?’ she asks. ‘I’ve passed the test.’ You’re ready.

  ‘You must be patient.’

  ‘How about the roof terrace?’ She just wants some fresh air. And perhaps the possibility of escape, however high the walls.

  ‘My car’s waiting for you downstairs,’ Rob says. ‘Same driver as yesterday – you’ll recognise him.’ Putin. ‘You’ve found your passport, I hope? The driver will accompany you.’

  ‘Rob, this is crazy, I don’t need accompanying—’

  ‘He’ll bring you to the house in Brittany,’ Rob interrupts. ‘I think you’ll like it. Home from home. I can explain more then.’

  ‘Do I have a choice?’ she asks. ‘If I don’t want to go with him?’

  She’s always wanted to visit Brittany, see if it’s really like Cornwall, but not in these circumstances.

  ‘I’m so pleased you’re better, Kate,’ he says, ignoring her question as if she’s a truculent teenager. ‘Now I need your help.’

  ‘My help?’ What does he mean? It’s a while before he speaks.

  ‘I think he’s here,’ he says, quietly.

  ‘Who?’ But she knows already.

  ‘Gil – the man from Thailand.’

  She should be pleased that he’s talking about his double again, sharing his anxieties. It’s how she always wanted it to be between them – no secrets. But she’s not. She’s scared. She can’t even be sure who she’s talking to.

  ‘How do you know?’ she asks.

  ‘His face was picked up on the Underground earlier this morning. I need to know where he turns up next, where he’s heading.’ He pauses. ‘He’s here to destroy me, Kate. All that I’ve achieved. My work, my new life with you. We both might be in danger.’

  ‘And I’m the one to help?’ she asks, thinking back to the assessment she’s just completed, her ability or otherwise to identify someone. Was it Gil that she just spotted on the Underground? She’s sure it was Rob.

  ‘There’s no one better,’ he says. ‘I can’t wait for you to be with me in Brittany.’

  He hangs up. She stands there holding the receiver for a few seconds before replacing it. She tries to focus on Rob, the man who came to her hospital bedside and talked about art, helped her to get better, helped her to become the person she has always dreamt of being.

  She walks back to join Ajay, who is still by the desk. The room’s spinning and she wonders if she’s going to throw up again.

  ‘Are you OK?’ he asks, looking at her with concern.

  ‘I need a glass of water.’ She goes over to the sink to steady herself. ‘Are you coming to Brittany too?’ she asks, still trying to process what Rob’s just told her.

  ‘I’ve got more appointments this morning,’ he says. ‘And I must lock up here. Your driver’s waiting downstairs.’

  ‘Can you take this off?’ she asks, touching the neckband.

  Ajay casts his eyes downwards, as if in shame. ‘Rob will remove it when you reach the house,’ he says.

  ‘Why not now?’ she asks, increasingly alarmed.

  ‘He wants to download the data himself,’ he says. ‘It’s early days, still in beta testing.’

  He looks up at her, knowing that she doesn’t believe him.

  She shakes her head slowly. The device suddenly feels even tighter. Is it a tag of some sort? Like offenders wear under curfew? A tracking device?

  ‘How was Rob?’ Ajay asks, determinedly changing the subject.

  ‘OK,’ she says, one hand still on the neckband.

  ‘He sounded himself, though?’ Ajay looks up at her, waiting for her answer.

  ‘I think so.’

  In truth, she no longer knows.

  ‘I’ve got some exercises for you to do in France,’ he adds, passing her a piece of paper. His back is towards the door and the camera. She looks at him for a second and then she glances at what he’s written. One word, underlined.

  Run.

  84

  Jake

  Jake stands at the train doors, waiting for them to open. Bex is behind him, surrounded by commuters. It’s a long time since he’s been on an early train to London. And he remembers now why he gave up commuting. The train was delayed and overcrowded. They were lucky to get a seat.

  ‘I need a coffee,’ Bex says as they step onto the platform at Paddington.

  ‘Me too,’ Jake says.

  They eventually got back to Bex’s house at 3 a.m., sitting in the cab of an RAC recovery vehicle. After snatching a couple of hours’ sleep, they dropped Stretch off with a neighbour and caught the first train of the day. Jake wanted to leave the Tesla on the motorway hard shoulder and walk home – it would have only taken a couple of hours – but Bex felt more responsibility for the vehicle, despite it refusing to move another inch. There was also Stretch to think about.

  Jake is sure Rob remotely disabled the car, which worries him, makes it even more important that they get to London as soon as possible, check that Kate’s OK.

  They grab a coffee on the station concourse and take the Underground to Old Street. Jake hasn’t been in London for a while – he hasn’t been able to afford it – and the sheer volume of commuters on the Tube makes him yearn for the wide-open spaces of Wiltshire. The only wildlife on offer is a rat that he sees scuttling beneath the blackened Tube tracks at King’s Cross.

  It’s a five-minute walk from Old Street to Nile Street, which seems to be one big building site. Almost every property is being restored, shrouded in scaffolding and plastic sheeting. Workmen in hard hats and high-vis jackets are everywhere, stopping pedestrians as diggers reverse and lorries arrive. The postcode Jake took down from the Tesla’s satnav is for the whole of the street, but Bex thinks she knows where Rob lives.

  ‘Kate mentioned once it was in a renovated factory of some sort,’ she says as they walk down the narrow road, looking up at the tall anonymous buildings on either side. Jake can hear the anxiety in her voice. They are both nervous, worried for Kate.