The call was coming from Alex’s phone.

  SIXTY-FOUR

  Miller had not been surprised when the caller had hung up as soon as the call had been answered and he wasn’t surprised when he opened his front door and saw what had been done to the place.

  Chairs turned over, stuff tossed around. A mess.

  Miller hurried straight to the cage to check that Fred and Ginger had not been harmed. He reached inside, moved straw out of the way and was relieved to see them huddled together, looking back at him. They’d been frightened by the noise, but were otherwise all right.

  ‘It’s OK,’ he said. ‘It’s all fine . . .’

  He’d known where Alex’s phone was of course, so it had been obvious immediately where the call had been coming from. Miller had left Finn and rushed home, all too aware that he’d had . . . visitors.

  Now, he moved around the room, taking it all in.

  He saw immediately that any straightening up would have to wait.

  As far as he could tell, nothing significant had been taken. The envelope containing the photographs was still there and so was his laptop, though it wasn’t where he’d left it. To Miller’s trained eye, whoever had broken in had not been looking for anything. Stuff had been chucked about to make a point, that was all, to let him know they meant business, though the message wasn’t quite as obvious as the one that had been left on the wall.

  The number 37 had been spray-painted in huge characters. Miller guessed that they’d chosen the colour deliberately, so that the drips and spatters of red would look like blood. It was heavy-handed but effective, and the wonky red arrow that had been added underneath made it very clear what it was they wanted Miller to see next.

  He sat down at the table.

  His laptop had been opened, waiting for him. Miller nudged the trackpad to reveal the opening frame of a video, a play symbol pulsing in the middle of the screen.

  On the other side of the room, the rats had ventured from their hiding place. They were probably just hungry. Ginger was on her hind legs, nosing at the bars of the cage.

  Miller looked across. ‘What do you reckon?’ He was trying to sound casual, but there was a catch in his voice. ‘Shall we . . . ?’

  He clicked play and sat back to watch.

  It lasted no more than fifteen seconds; a clip from something longer, Miller guessed, but it was enough. Alex and the man from the photographs. Whoever the man was, he’d done just as good a job at keeping his face out of shot and staying in the shadows as far as possible, but Miller was certain it was him. The film was a little shaky, but the action wasn’t hard to follow.

  The man handing Alex an envelope.

  Alex looking inside.

  Counting . . .

  The moment it was finished, Miller watched the clip again. There was no way to identify the man in the footage, who once again appeared to know he was being filmed, but something about him rang the most distant of bells and not just because of the photographs. Miller leaned close to the screen, paused then played, paused then played. Perhaps it was just the . . . shape of the figure or the way he moved, but he suddenly seemed familiar.

  Something . . .

  Miller turned and noticed Alex. She was sitting on the floor, squeezed into a small gap between the wall and the edge of the sofa. She looked like she was hiding, same as the rats had done.

  He said her name, nice and quietly, but she would not look up at him.

  Miller turned back to watch the film again.

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  Changing direction can be a tricky business (check out Dolly Parton’s thrash metal album) and when that means embarking on your first new series in more than twenty years and writing something very different in tone (see Marilyn Manson’s folk musical about squirrels) the support of those you work with is going to be even more important than usual. I am enormously lucky. Not only have these individuals shown unfailing support for this foolhardy venture, but they’ve actually encouraged me.

  I know, right?

  So, I am even more grateful than usual to all sorts of people.

  Thank you to George Faber, whose crazy idea got this ball rolling in the first place, and to George Ormond and Anna Price at The Forge for their help in bringing Miller to life.

  Team Tom at Little, Brown has morphed brilliantly into the Miller Mob and thanks, as always, are due to: David Shelley, Charlie King, Catherine Burke, Robert Manser, Callum Kenny, Tamsin Kitson, Jon Appleton, Tom Webster, Sean Garrehy, Hannah Methuen, Gemma Shelley and Sarah Shrubb.

  Thank you to my brilliant and brave editor Ed Wood, to my tireless agent Sarah Lutyens and to my endlessly patient publicist Laura Sherlock, who not only tells me what I’m supposed to be doing and where, but makes sure I get there in time.

  I’m once again grateful to Graham Bartlett (seriously, you just ring 999?), to Wendy Lee for plugging the holes and to Nancy Webber for another bacon-saving copy-edit.

  The biggest thank you of all, goes – of course – to the readers who have supported me for twenty-odd years and who I hope will join the dance and embrace Declan Miller as warmly as they have Tom Thorne. Oh, and those who are wondering when they’ll encounter Tom again need not worry. He’s not gone far. In fact, he’s just outside the door whistling country tunes already, and Declan Miller can’t dance to them.

 

 

  Mark Billingham, The Last Dance

 

 

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