‘How does that fit with Faye Graham?’ said Barker.

Bloom thought about it. ‘We need to speak to the returned player. Can you arrange that?’ she said to Logan.

He nodded. ‘I don’t see why not. I know who he is.’

‘Good,’ said Bloom. ‘We need to find out what this game is really about.’

36

Jameson woke up hungry – ravenous, in fact, which he figured was a good sign. And his headache felt dull enough to ignore. He climbed out of bed, put on socks and a blue jumper that had been brought in by Claire, and went to collect breakfast from a room at the end of the corridor. It was a sad little collection of cereals, yogurts and toast, but he was too hungry to care. He selected a strawberry yogurt, three slices of toast and a pot of blackcurrant jam. Then he requested a mug of tea from the woman behind the counter, who had an impressive tattoo of roses that covered her left arm.

Back in his room, he watched the morning news as he ate. By the time he’d finished, his headache had picked up steam again. He put his headphones in and listened to the audiobook of Professor Kevin Dutton’s The Wisdom of Psychopaths. It was all about how useful psychopathic traits can be. How it can be advantageous for surgeons or bomb-disposal experts, for instance, to suppress their emotions and operate in a calm and calculated fashion. And for spies and serial killers to be able to charm their target and mask their true motives. In his concluding remarks, Dutton described a common psychopathic blueprint: that whether such people are saints, spies or sinners, they are bound by their ceaseless quest for new heightened experiences.

What might that mean for how these people lived their lives? Jameson had experienced his own fair share of risk and he loved adrenaline-fuelled sports – that intoxicating combination of danger and endorphins – but he wasn’t always looking for new highs.

For the first time, he was thinking about psychopaths as simply ‘other’ rather than ‘wrong’.

‘Christ,’ he said to the empty room. This was what Bloom had been banging on about. Psychopaths were unavoidable. If it was advantageous for humans to be fearless, adventurous, calm, unfeeling or selfish, it made sense that some people would be dealt all these cards. That was evolution.

‘All right, sleepyhead. Wake up.’

Something soft but heavy hit him in the face. Jameson opened his eyes and picked up the roll of fresh socks from his chest. ‘Subtle, as always,’ he said to his scowling sister.

‘What’s going on, Marcus?’

Jameson sat up. He checked the clock: 12.15pm. ‘Give me a clue, sis.’

‘Jane has been missing for four days.’

Jameson waited for Claire to expand, but she didn’t. ‘What do you want me to say?’