‘Graeme?’ a female voice shouted down the stairs. It had an edge of panic: the woman was scared indeed.

‘Yup. I’ve got Kelly with me.’

They heard footsteps, and a petite woman wearing sweatpants and a sloppy jumper padded down into the main reception room. Her face was fresh and she smiled warmly at Kelly, who offered her hand. Graeme said he’d put the kettle on.

‘So, Tilly, we’ve been looking for you. You obviously thought you’d take matters into your own hands. I think my priority now that I know where you are is contacting Alexandros. We desperately need to talk to him.’

‘He’s shit scared. He’s going to the family home up in the mountains. It was my idea. We said we’d Skype last night, but the connection was so bad we’re going to try again today. I heard enough to know that he didn’t go to the mountains yesterday because of his mother. He’s going today instead.’

‘What time?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Can you call him?’

‘I can try, though he said he’d be driving.’ She took out her phone and punched in a number. ‘It’s ringing out.’

‘What has he told you about George and his colleagues?’

‘Just that they were killed because the trials they were working on were reaching a stage that was viable.’

‘What trials?’

‘George had made himself an addict and was experimenting on a drug that could reverse the process.’

‘Is this some kind of precious secret that is worth a lot of money?’

‘It’s not about the money, it’s about the potential to disturb world economies, and George refused to sell it. They refer to it as Compound P, but I’m not entirely sure what it consists of. Alexandros was going to explain it all to me, but he’s jumpy; he doesn’t know who to trust.’

‘Why did George pay you ten thousand pounds?’

‘It was a deposit. He was going to pay me fifty grand on the publication of my article, which would have exposed something major. That’s as far as he got. He was killed the night I spoke to him.’ Tilly looked at her hands. ‘Do you mind if I smoke?’

‘No, go ahead.’

She fetched cigarettes and lit one, inhaling deeply. Kelly envied her and remembered how the first drag felt. She wouldn’t appreciate it quite so much later when her hair and clothes reeked of the stuff.

‘Graeme gave me a description of the men you saw in Portinscale. What was on your laptop?’

‘Everything. My notes, my contacts, my ideas, names, profiles, bios: the lot. I’m devastated.’

‘And you have no idea who’s behind all this?’

‘No. All George said was that some very powerful people wanted his work.’

‘What about Alexandros? Why didn’t he go to the police in London?’