In his haste, he knocked a bowl off the bedside cabinet and it smashed on the polished tiled floor. He stepped on a shard of glass as he fastened his bag, and swore. Blood soaked through his sock. He stripped it off and hopped to the bathroom. The cut wasn’t deep, but the bleeding wouldn’t stop. He found a bandage in a cabinet and wrapped it tightly around his foot. But now he had blood on his shirt, so he went back to the bedroom to change. His phone buzzed and he ignored it. There’d be no pleasant exchanges now.

He wondered idly if the detective in Cumbria was at this moment reading the information stashed away over years of careful calculation and risk, her hand over her pretty mouth, wondering who to arrest first. Maybe she didn’t work weekends; perhaps Miranda had her own passwords and the files hadn’t been accessed.

He stopped. Miranda had had no idea she was going to die. She could easily have stored the information on a USB stick, taking it with her to bribe him with later: that was more her style. He’d made her angry, but he’d seen in her eyes that she still lusted for him. He’d grown bored with her before and she’d changed his mind, parading in front of him in various revealing outfits, but until yesterday, he’d never gone so far as to sack her.

He caught his reflection in the mirror and smiled. His teeth were perfectly straight and white, thanks to expensive dental work; his skin was tanned from golfing holidays and business trips to exotic resorts; his laughter lines pointed upwards, and his jaw was strong. He smiled again. He took his time checking his bag, then called a limousine company to take him to the airport.

Chapter 49

Back at Eden House, Kelly read through documents downloaded and sent to her from Miranda Cooper’s computer. The folder with the Montague-Roland crest as its icon contained fifty-three separate files, dating back six years. She shook her head: she’d need an army of staff to read the stuff. At Hendon, five officers were able to work on the same documents, taking ten each. Still, she had to start somewhere.

She opened a file titled ‘The value of alcohol’. It was dated 2012 and detailed the revenue from alcohol sales in the UK and the cost of treating alcohol-related illnesses on the NHS. The figures were staggering. The government made £10 billion a year from alcohol tax revenue, but only paid an estimated £3 billion in medical care. Kelly had no idea how the figures were calculated, but there was a breakdown of costs relating to kidney failure, heart disease, various cancers and liver disease.