The page finally loaded: a head-and-shoulders picture of the escort that Mel had booked previously with VIP. The repeat booking.

I stared at the picture.

Stopped walking.

The guy behind me walked straight into me, muttering an apology as he carried on past. I stood staring, blinking fast, my mouth slightly open, the platform alive with movement around me. I scrolled down to the name and description, scrolled back up to stare at the picture again. I could feel a vein pulsing hard in my temple, the noise and bustle of King’s Cross station retreating until it felt like I was standing alone in a bubble of silence.

A single horrible thought crawled out from somewhere dark.

It was so twisted I didn’t want to look at it head-on, didn’t want to shine a light on it for too long in case it became real. In case it refused to crawl back to the dark place in my head that it had come from. What do you know? What do you actually know for sure? What does everything add up to? The thought wouldn’t go away.

But it couldn’t be.

Could it?

I had been wrong about so much these last nine days, it was time to find out if I had finally got something right.

It was time for answers.

Time for the truth.

Time to lay it all out for Larssen and Naylor, piece by piece, and let them decide.

The phone chimed as another text message dropped in. A picture of a black Range Rover with tinted windows on the driveway of Beth’s house. The shot had been taken from an upstairs window, by the look of it. Beneath it were just two words:

Please help us

My phone didn’t recognise the sender’s number. Not Beth – I had her number stored. So who could it be from?

Alice.

It had to be. Kolnik had gone back to their house, making threats, looking for revenge, and she was frightened. She was the innocent caught in the middle of all this.

Larssen and Naylor would have to wait.

I fired back a quick reply.

On my way. Call the police

2.13 p.m. Me

I switched out of the browser and texted Larssen:

Can we push our meeting back to 4 p.m?

2.14 p.m. Me

His reply was almost instant:

OK. Why?

2.15 p.m. Peter L

Somewhere I need to go first

2.15 p.m. Me

I shoved the phone in my pocket and ran for the taxi rank.

Chapter 77

77