Bailey stared at Amber with a growing hatred in her guts. ‘You deliberately served her up to him.’

Amber shrugged and smiled. ‘I’ve never liked the police. Besides, she had nice hair. Strawberry blonde. I knew Leonard would like it.’

‘She trusted you.’

‘She was stupid.’

‘She was my friend.’

‘Get over it,’ sneered Amber.

‘You’re history,’ growled Bailey.

Amber pouted in an exaggerated expression of concern. ‘Okay, officer. I suppose you’d better arrest me.’ She held out both hands, fists clenched, for Bailey to cuff.

Bailey flexed and reasserted her fighting stance. It didn’t matter that she had no handcuffs. With her police training and her martial arts background, she was confident that she would be able to subdue and restrain Amber.

Sizing up her opponent, she took a careful step forward.

She hesitated. There was something wrong. Amber was too relaxed.

Amber’s gaze flickered momentarily over Bailey’s left shoulder. It was a microscopic tell, but it was enough.

There was someone behind her.

Bailey spun around.

There was no one there.

She spun back to face Amber and found herself looking directly into the nozzle of a small black aerosol canister which Amber had been concealing in her clenched fist. It seemed to have appeared out of nowhere, like a coin produced from thin air by a conjurer.

Bailey realised that Amber’s glance over her shoulder had been a feint just as Amber depressed the aerosol nozzle. A thin cold jet of white liquid squirted into her eyes. A fraction of a second later, she felt an intense burning sensation and her eyes began to water furiously. It was some kind of debilitating gas spray.

She coughed and spluttered, temporarily blinded. She lashed out wildly but Amber had the advantage. Amber stepped to one side and then stamped hard on the side of Bailey’s right knee. Bailey felt her leg give way with a tearing sound accompanied by an excruciating pain. She shrieked in agony and collapsed forward. Amber then karate-chopped her hard on the back of the head and blackness descended upon her.

Chapter 108

Consciousness heralded its return with a nausea-inducing headache and blurred vision.

Things gradually swam back into focus and, as soon as they had, Bailey was greeted by the sight of Poppy’s dead eyes staring back into her own. The gaping throat wound had now congealed and the pool of blood on the floor had settled into a dark viscous puddle, reflecting the halogen strip lighting above.

Bailey struggled to move but found that she couldn’t because she had been tied, hands behind her back, to one of the cast-iron legs of the antique Victorian mangle. She wrenched hard, but the heavy mangle refused to budge. By the feel of the material biting into the flesh of her wrists, an empty plastic mesh bag had been used as the bond.

She pushed herself into a sitting position, prompting an involuntary gasp of pain due to her badly damaged knee.

Turning her aching head slowly, she looked around.