It’s a long time before Jake speaks. ‘Who’s the car registered to? The one that took her away?’

  Silas suspects Jake knows already. ‘Gilmour Martin. We’ve put an ANPR marker on the vehicle index and we’ll get checks on all ferries leaving Portsmouth, Poole and Plymouth, as well as Eurostar and all major London airports. There’s only one direct flight a day to Brest Bretagne and that left Southend at seven o’clock this morning – but she might be going via Paris.’

  Silas and Strover drive on in silence. He only uses the siren when he has to. If Kate’s being taken through the centre of London, they’ll soon get a hit on the Tesla, he’s sure of it. There’s ANPR everywhere, ever since Transport for London gave the Met access to its cameras for the low emission zone, congestion charge and traffic monitoring. Their priority is to secure Kate’s safety. And then find Rob. He could be in danger too, if Gilmour is serious about destroying him, taking over his life.

  Twenty minutes later, the phone rings. Silas recognises the Nottingham number at once. It’s the detective who runs the local super-recogniser unit, the one he spoke to before.

  ‘You need to tell me who Gilmour Martin is,’ the detective says.

  Silas adjusts his grip on the steering wheel. ANPR must have spotted his car in Nottingham. He was right. It’s all about identifying patterns. And the one that’s emerging now is far worse than he ever imagined.

  ‘When did ANPR pick him up?’ Silas asks.

  ‘A day before our PCSO went AWOL,’ the detective says.

  The PCSO was the Nottingham super-recogniser unit’s best performer, like Kate.

  ‘Is he still missing?’ Silas asks.

  ‘Not a word. Family are keen to go public – we’re putting out a national misper appeal tomorrow.’

  ‘Where was the hit on Gilmour Martin’s vehicle?’ Silas asks.

  ‘New ANPR camera on the corner of Fletcher Gate and Victoria Street in the city centre. You need to tell us what’s going on.’

  The detective is owed an explanation. Silas is just not sure he can provide one.

  ‘We’re investigating a possible connection between Gilmour and our own super recogniser who was badly injured in a car crash,’ he says.

  ‘And you think he’s linked to our PCSO’s disappearance?’

  ‘Possibly,’ Silas says. ‘I’ll be in touch as soon as we know any more.’

  ‘It’s just that we’re struggling to find anything on Gilmour other than the “care of” address he’s given the DVLA,’ the detective says.

  Silas glances at Strover. She did well to establish his arrival in the UK six months ago on a forged passport.

  ‘And up here, “care of” addresses tend to have a funny smell,’ the detective continues. ‘Have you visited this place in London? Nile Street?’

  ‘We’re on our way now.’

  ‘You really can’t tell us anything else?’ the officer says. ‘The PCSO was a good man.’

  ‘Not yet, I’m sorry.’

  Silas hangs up. He can’t tell anyone, not even his boss. Not until he’s got more evidence. A moment later, another call comes in. Dublin number this time. Gilmour Martin’s been a busy man.

  88

  Kate

  Kate’s legs are shaking as the car accelerates away through the London traffic in silence. It’s a Tesla, identical to the one in Cornwall. Putin stares at her in the rearview mirror. How did he get the scar on his head? She turns away, her heart still racing, head in turmoil. She can hardly breathe. What’s happening? Where’s Rob? The woman next to her on the back seat has said nothing since they left his flat. She knows it’s Cara. The same woman who boarded the train with her in the village, watched from across the street when she got into the car at Paddington. This isn’t opportune. It’s a well-thought-out plan. She presses her lips together, tries to be brave. The neckband feels tighter than ever.

  They’re driving south, over Blackfriars Bridge. She should have stayed in Cornwall. Should have stayed with Jake. She wanted to call out when she saw him in the street with Bex, but she didn’t dare. Not after what happened a few minutes before. When she left Ajay in Rob’s apartment, she walked out to the lift, where Putin met her. But he wasn’t all smiles as he had been yesterday at Paddington. He just stood in silence to one side of the open lift doors, waiting for her to enter. And then she glanced back into the flat and made a run for the stairs. Wrong move.

  She didn’t get further than a few paces before she dropped to the floor as if she’d been shot, clutching at her throat. She’d never felt pain like it in her life. Strangled and electrocuted at the same time. She’s not sure if she cried out – she doesn’t think she could, her throat was so constricted. The pain stopped after a few seconds. She lay stunned on the shiny tiles, aware of Putin walking over to her, Ajay rushing out of the flat door, protesting.

  ‘Too high,’ Ajay cried. She’d never heard him like that before. Hysterical with anger. ‘Way too high.’

  ‘Do exactly as I say and it won’t happen again,’ Putin said, ignoring Ajay as he squatted down beside her. She stared ahead in shock, curled up in a ball, frozen with fear. ‘Try to run away, talk to anyone, make any kind of fuss and the pain will be worse, much worse.’

  The palm of his hand came into focus. He was holding out a small remote control with a dial on it for her to see. It was set at three – on a scale of one to ten.

  Putin wasn’t smiling then and he’s not smiling now as they head down towards Southwark. Kate read about them once: electric-shock collars used to train dogs. And now she’s wearing one for humans, disguised as wearable technology. She can’t believe Ajay put it on her, knowing what it was, the pain it could inflict. She’s being treated like an animal. Ajay must have been acting under duress. Why else would he also tell her to run? Protest so loudly?

  ‘Where are we going?’ she asks Putin, not expecting an answer. He doesn’t give one. She tries to loosen the neckband. He flicks a glance at her and then at the empty passenger seat, where the remote is lying.

  She closes her eyes, tries to calm her frayed nerves. If only Jake was here. His presence in the street means he must have heard something when she tried to ring him from the bathroom last night, enough to come looking for her. Bex will be worried sick too. She will have written down the number plate when Kate was driven away. She’s good like that. But what can they do for her if the Tesla doesn’t get stopped? The large touchscreen to the left of the steering wheel is showing a map with London’s static ANPR cameras clearly marked, and Putin is navigating a long, circuitous route to avoid them. Her only chance is if they’re spotted by a police patrol car equipped with ANPR.

  Jake and Bex won’t know that she’s being taken to Brittany. Or who she’ll meet there. She’s not sure either. She touches the neckband, thinks of the beach-glass necklace Rob had made for her. The one that Ajay removed. And then she hears a siren behind them. The sound has never felt so sweet. She turns around to see an unmarked police car indicating for them to pull over.

  ‘Listen very carefully,’ Putin says, picking up the remote and handing it back to Cara beside her. ‘You’re on your way to see your partner in France. No names. I am his driver, and she is here for your security.’ He nods at Cara, who is now in charge of the remote. ‘And she’s not as nice as me.’

  He pulls the car over and stops. Kate knows this is her moment and she must be brave. Run. But the pain was unbearable last time; it felt as if she was about to die. And the dial was only set at three. She glances at the door, her hand muscles flexing.

  Cara turns, fixing her dispassionate eyes on Kate. It’s as if she’s read her thoughts. Without blinking, she begins to turn the dial.

  Kate grabs her throat, doubling up with the sudden shock of pain.

  ‘OK, OK,’ she begs, sliding into the footwell, barely conscious. ‘Please.’

  Cara smiles down at her and looks away.

  89

  Silas

  Silas glances at the satnav. They’re still eighty minutes from Nile Street. Jake is on the phone again, asking if they’ve had any luck tracking the car that Kate was taken away in.

  ‘I’m sorry, nothing,’ he says. Silas is equally disappointed, having expected an ANPR hit by now. ‘And no word from Border Force.’

  It’s almost an hour since Kate was taken away. Jake is now at St Pancras, about to board a Eurostar train to Paris, from where he’s hoping to catch a flight later today to Brest Bretagne. Silas admires his doggedness, wonders if Kate will ever love him again, whether Mel will take him back. She rang earlier, but Silas let the call go to voicemail. He didn’t want to talk about counselling in front of Strover. Or Conor. Their son drove them apart, the stress of his mental illness proving too much in the end. It would be fitting if Conor were responsible for getting them back together again.

  ‘You think we can trust him?’ Strover asks, after Silas has ended his conversation.

  ‘Jake? I’ve known him a long time.’ And Jake’s never lied to Silas before, apart from about how well his books have sold.

  ‘It’s just that he was living with Kate on a crappy canal boat and now she’s with this new man in his million-pound apartment in Shoreditch, second homes in Cornwall and Brittany. Maybe it was sour grapes on Jake’s part – that she looked unhappy when she was leaving the flat.’

  ‘Maybe.’

  Strover hasn’t stopped since they took calls from the missing persons units in Nottingham and Dublin, looking at the facts from every angle. They’re both fired up. Gilmour Martin’s Tesla was spotted in each location a day before what they’re now treating as abductions. The European super-recogniser units that have lost someone will contact him too with similar news, he’s sure of it.

  His phone rings again. It’s an officer with the Met’s SCO15, the Traffic Operational Command Unit, calling him about the marker he put on the ANPR vehicle index. Silas’s specific instructions were to contact him first.

  ‘We’ve got an intercept for you,’ the traffic officer says. ‘I’m about to talk to the driver now. Tax, insurance and MOT all check out. What exactly am I looking for here?’

  Silas doesn’t like his tone. In his experience, traffic officers are only ever interested in traffic offences, ignoring the bespoke crime markers that detectives put on vehicles. There’s no hard evidence to suggest that Kate doesn’t want to go Brittany, just Jake’s word that she didn’t look too keen. And as Strover says, he’s also Kate’s aggrieved ex, which has to be taken into account. The doppelgängers and disappearing super recognisers, the matching Teslas and the gun in Thailand – they count for nothing at this stage. At least in terms of Kate’s immediate movements.

  ‘There’s a suspicion the car might have been stolen,’ Silas says, thinking on his feet. He has no evidence yet, but it wouldn’t surprise him. And he doesn’t want to lose the traffic officer’s interest. ‘We just need to know who’s on board and where they’re heading.’

  90

  Kate

  Putin steps out of the car with a folder of documents and starts to talk to the police officer on the pavement in Southwark, beside Kate’s window. The noise of the passing traffic makes it hard for her to hear what they’re saying, but Putin looks relaxed as they skim through the paperwork together. Cara is beside her, remote in hand. Kate’s neck still aches from the shock she gave her a few seconds ago. Is this her moment? If she smacks the glass and shouts as loud as she can, makes a scene before Cara has time to trigger another shock, tells the officer she’s being abducted…

  ‘Don’t even think about it,’ Cara says, nodding at the traffic officer. ‘He’s one of ours.’

  Kate sits back, too embarrassed to look at Cara. For the second time the woman has read her thoughts. Is she also lying about the officer? ‘Where’s Rob?’ Kate asks.

  A moment later, a knuckle rap on the window and the officer gestures for Kate to get out. She glances at Cara, who seems momentarily thrown. And then she nods.

  ‘We’re just making a few checks,’ the officer says as Kate steps out of the car. ‘A Tesla like this one was recently reported as stolen.’

  It feels good to be out in the fresh air, the bright sunshine. Has someone slipped up? Without thinking, she raises one hand to the neckband and touches it; she’s barely able to breathe. All she needs to do is speak, tell the officer what’s happened. Is he really one of theirs? She glances back at Cara, who’s staring at her through the window, and remembers the pain.

  ‘May I ask your destination today?’ the officer continues.

  She glances at Putin and then back at the officer. ‘To France, to see my boyfriend,’ she manages, recalling Putin’s instructions. No names.

  ‘Would you like to speak to him?’ Putin interrupts, holding out his phone to the traffic officer. Putin’s suddenly full of charm, like he was yesterday when he greeted her at Paddington. ‘My boss – he is calling me now.’

  The traffic officer hesitates for a moment, as if weighing up his options, and then takes the phone out of what looks like a bored sense of duty. Is this a charade for Kate’s benefit?

  ‘Am I speaking to Gilmour Martin, registered keeper of a Tesla Model S?’ he says formally, leaning over to look at the number plate, which he proceeds to read out.

  Who’s Gilmour Martin? Gil from Thailand? Kate closes her eyes, hoping in vain that she may have misheard. Rob’s right. Gil is here – to destroy Rob, her, their life together. She thought it sounded like Rob on the phone this morning, but perhaps it wasn’t. It was definitely somebody else on the bed when the lights came on last night, Capgras or no Capgras. Was it Gil? Did she sleep with a total stranger? She should have been brave and confronted him, asked him outright. She feels sick, their intimacy sullied all over again.

  She tries to keep it together as the officer asks for a date of birth and address, checking it on his own phone, and then listens for a while. A part of her wants to grab the phone, hear Gil’s voice, ask him what he’s done with Rob. Does he sound the same as him too?

  ‘Three people.’ The officer sighs and looks briefly at Kate. ‘Your partner, your driver, named on the insurance, and another female passenger, also a named driver.’ A longer pause this time. ‘Thank you.’

  She watches, transfixed, as the officer passes the phone back. She is about to say something, protest that her partner’s called Rob not Gilmour, when Putin catches her eye. She glances at the car, where Cara is still glaring at her through the window, the remote visible in her hand. No names.

  ‘We’re going through the Tunnel today,’ Putin says to the officer cheerily. ‘The boss needs his car in France.’

  ‘Have a safe journey,’ the officer replies, walking back to his own vehicle.

  Kate watches him get in and sit there for a moment, talking to someone on the car radio. All around her busy Londoners are going about their day, chatting on phones, carrying coffees back to the office. She wants to stop one of them, explain about the neckband, but she knows she can’t. Run. Not yet. She must bide her time.

  91

  Jake

  ‘What do you mean you can’t stop them?’ Jake says, glancing around him. He’s about to board the Eurostar at St Pancras International and is talking on speakerphone to DI Hart. Bex is standing next to him on the platform.

  ‘According to the traffic officer, Kate showed no visible signs of distress,’ Hart says. ‘They’re driving to Dover, taking the Eurotunnel and then heading out to Brest. You’ve about ten hours to get there.’

  ‘Aren’t you coming?’ Jake asks, despairing. Why didn’t Kate say something, make a scene when the police officer stopped the car?

  ‘We’ll liaise closely with our colleagues in France,’ Hart says, ‘but there’s not much we can do until we get more evidence.’

  Jake looks at Bex, who shakes her head with resignation. Behind her, at the far end of the station, an LED installation by Tracey Emin lights up one wall with its message to Europe: ‘I want my time with you.’ Kate’s a big fan of Emin. Of Europe too. He closes his eyes, fighting back the tears. They both know the police should be doing more for Kate. Jake is doing all he can, helped by Bex. She’s paid for his train ticket, put some data on his phone and withdrawn some cash for him, but she isn’t coming herself. Her passport is back in her house in Wiltshire. Jake has been carrying his around for the past three days, ever since he rescued it from the boat.

  ‘Talk to Dr Varma if you want evidence,’ Jake says. ‘He was terrified when we spoke to him. I had to… persuade him to tell us where Kate was going.’ He is not proud of having lost it with him in the street.

  ‘And you need to tell us everything you know about Gilmour Martin,’ Hart continues. ‘How you knew Rob’s doppelgänger in Thailand was called Gil.’

  ‘Have you found him then?’ Jake asks. According to Hart, Gilmour arrived in the UK on a false passport six months ago.

  ‘Not yet, but the traffic officer who stopped Kate appears to have spoken to him on the phone. That’s where Kate’s heading – to see Gilmour in Brittany.’

  ‘Jesus, you need to stop her.’ Jake is panicking now. ‘Gilmour told Rob in Thailand that he was going to destroy him, his life. That’s what Rob’s been so worried about, why he confided in Kate about his fear of doppelgängers. Seems like he’s coming for her too.’

  ‘We’ll do everything we can,’ Hart says. ‘An all-ports marker is already in place with UK Border Force. We’ll try to delay her departure until we’ve questioned her. And we’ll ask the French authorities in Brest to visit Rob’s house. But if Kate’s happy to be there, our hands are tied. Until we can prove what’s going on.’

  ‘She’s not happy, believe me,’ Jake says. ‘You need to talk to Dr Varma.’

  92

  Kate

  It doesn’t take long for Kate to realise they’re not going to France via the Tunnel. Continuing to use the map to avoid static ANPR cameras, Putin heads west along the south bank of the Thames. After a circuitous route through Vauxhall, they drive on past the new American Embassy and cut down to the river in Battersea, where they pull up at the London Heliport.