‘Did you check the tool shed?’ she asked suddenly.

‘Tool shed?’

‘It’s around the back of the cabin, just where the trees start. There’s a safe embedded in the floor.’

Saul glanced back towards the cabin and saw Gibbs peering out of the window towards him. Saul smiled and raised a hand. Gibbs nodded grudgingly, then moved back out of sight.

Saul ran a quick search of the report Gibbs had given him earlier, for any mention of a tool shed, but found nothing. ‘Hang on while I take a look myself,’ he muttered, then headed around behind the cabin, where the trees resumed four or five metres to the rear.

He looked around. ‘I’m here,’ he told her quietly, wary of Gibbs overhearing him. ‘I don’t see anything.’

‘It’s quite well hidden,’ she explained. ‘Look to your left, away from the cabin . . . there’s a boulder and some bushes. See them?’

Saul glanced to his left. ‘I see them.’

Then he spotted the shed, almost out of sight beyond the boulder. It was painted green, so nearly invisible among the tangled undergrowth.

The structure was in a semi-derelict state, leaning slightly to one side, and he pulled the door open only with some difficulty. Various tools hung from hooks, and the disassembled parts of a chainsaw lay scattered on a tarpaulin spread across the floor, so that he had barely enough room to squeeze inside and close the door behind him.

‘What am I looking for?’ he asked next.

‘All I know is that he kept some stuff in a floor-safe there. Maybe there’ll be something there to tell you where he’s gone.’

Saul bent down and quickly moved some of the chainsaw parts aside, then hauled away the tarpaulin to reveal a flat steel panel embedded in the concrete floor. ‘I’ve got it,’ he told her, ‘but there’s no external lock.’ Doubtless it needed a UP-coded password before it would open up. ‘Short of digging it out of the concrete, I can’t see any way to get inside.’

‘Maybe you won’t need to,’ she replied.

‘How so?’

‘Because if he was going to store anything in there, it would probably be a set of contacts, or the like.’

‘Yes, but if I can’t open the safe, I can’t get to them.’

‘Remember how there are back doors built into a lot of the commercial contacts. Maybe I can get you in through one of those. Are you physically close to the safe?’

‘I’m kneeling right over it, Olivia.’

‘Okay, I’ve got a data key that should do the trick, and I’m sending it to you now.’

An icon suddenly materialized, looking bright and cheery against the drab browns and greys inside the shed.

‘Got it. What next?’ he asked.