Finally, she slowed, approaching the turn-off into the same car park into which she had driven the BMW last Thursday night. It was after Niall had fallen deep asleep – with a little help from the sleeping pills she’d popped into the whisky she gave him after the barbecue. She was hopeful the police would find this turn-off from interrogating the BMW’s computer and his phone, which she had also taken with her, leaving hers behind.

As she pulled in, onto the sandy surface, she was relieved that no other cars were here, no one to witness her. Pulling on rubber gloves and locking the car, checking around warily for any cyclists or dog walkers, she carried the plastic bag off into the woods. Who was it who said, If you want to make God laugh, tell him your plans?

Well, God wasn’t laughing today, but she was pretty sure he was smiling.

Just as she smiled as she removed the spade – the one she’d bought at a garden centre a while back – from the thick gorse bush where she’d concealed it. Then she began to scrape out the soil of the shallow grave she had dug in the early hours of Friday morning. Next, she unwrapped the cling film from around the bloodstained kitchen knife, put the wrapping carefully into the bag and dropped the knife into the soil.

Forty minutes later, when she had finished interring the clothes she had brought and covering them sparsely with earth, ensuring some were showing on the surface, scratching the ground to make it look like it had been disturbed by an animal, she returned to her car, placed the spade and the bag – the sole contents of which was now the cellophane in which the knife had been wrapped – in the boot and climbed into the driver’s seat.

Before driving off, she keyed a text and sent it.

ETA 25 mins XXXXXX

Moments after starting the engine, a reply pinged back.

Make it 24 mins, I can’t wait that long XXXXXXXX

79

The present: Friday 6 September

Moments after Gummy announced that the subject was on the move, Mark Taylor and the team members in the room with him were watching on the live feed. The Fiesta hire car, followed by the old red van that had let it out, and a further stream of cars, headed north up Nevill Road and vanished from view. One car, three back, was a dull grey Nissan Micra – call sign Alpha One. A moment later the voice of the driver, Kim Howe, came over the radio.

‘Alpha Seven, I have eyeball on subject.’

With all the team listening, Taylor replied, ‘Alpha One, stay with him for as long as you can.’

‘Stay with him, Alpha Seven, yes, yes,’ she replied.

The image on the monitor switched to a road map, with Alpha One, now an avatar, a grey car-shaped symbol, moving steadily along the road around a long curve. She was heading towards the junction with King George VI Avenue. Two further vehicle avatars, one green, one blue, were spaced out behind her.