Bloom placed a hand on her partner’s arm. ‘Wait,’ she said quietly. A few seconds later the next message arrived.

Blocked

Or would you like Grayson’s father to have his son back, Libby’s child to have his father back and Mr Jameson to have his family friend and her daughter Jane back?

1:33pm

‘Oh, Christ.’

Very clever, thought Bloom. She was in Marcus’s bad books whichever option she chose. It was a lose-lose scenario, one that would wreck life as she knew it.

‘What do we do?’ asked Jameson. ‘I mean I couldn’t give a crap about the psychopaths and their families. I expect everyone would be better off without them. But Sarah and Jane aren’t part of this.’

‘It’s a moral dilemma.’

‘You think?’

‘No, I mean, it’s a famous thought experiment in ethics. One life for four lives. It’s the Trolley Problem.’

Jameson stared at her.

‘There’s a trolley speeding down a railway track and ahead are four people tied up and unable to move. The trolley is heading straight for them, but you are standing by a lever which, if you pull it, will divert the trolley to a separate set of tracks. However, there is one person standing on that second track. Do you sacrifice the one to save the four?’

‘Well … probably.’

‘And what if the one was your partner, or your child?’

‘Then I wouldn’t flick it.’

‘Why?’

‘Survival of the fittest. Protecting my genes and all that.’

‘OK, so try it this way … You’re a doctor. You have four patients who will die in the next few hours without organ transplants. There is no chance of any organs arriving. Then a lone traveller comes into the hospital for a check-up and you find he is a match for all four sick patients. Do you sacrifice the healthy man to save the four?’

‘Of course not.’

‘Which is exactly what most people say. It is a core human moral.’

‘Don’t tell me. The average psychopath kills the one.’

‘Of course they do. It’s the most logical solution. To them, it’s the same as the trolley problem. Four lives have to be more valuable than one.’

‘I’m getting pretty sick of train shit,’ said Jameson.

Tell me about it, thought Bloom.

‘But don’t you see?’ she said. ‘This whole thing has been orchestrated from the start, right down to the people Jane found. The people they’re offering to send back are the people we’ve been looking for.’

‘So they’re observing us, listening in on our calls.’

‘Or …’ What if the whole thing had been a game? A game to get at her? The cards, Jane’s request for help, South Milford. Bloom typed out a response and showed it to Jameson before hitting Send. He nodded. His complexion was grey.

Bloom

What happens to the person, or persons, I do not pick?

1:35pm