He didn’t know what she was planning, but he instinctively knew she was ready to attack. Bello continued to rage at Seraphine, waving his knife, and she was amazingly still, like a scientist studying a rat in a maze. Her head tilted a little one way and then the other. She was watching the man’s neck. But why?

Seraphine watched Bello and Harry watched Seraphine. He wasn’t sure what he was looking for until he saw it. She tensed and Harry dived forward to clamp his hands around the wrist that held the knife. At that very moment Seraphine plunged the pencil into Bello’s neck.

91

Jameson waited for the manager of the Metro Bank in Southampton’s West Quay Shopping Centre. He needed to know what the key on Harry’s keyring opened. He’d wangled a favour from his MI6 contacts, and they’d eventually confirmed that it was a key for a Metro Bank security box. So he decided to pay their local branch a visit. If he couldn’t do anything to help Bloom and Harry, he might at least do something useful. Perhaps he’d discover Harry’s secret and be able to pinpoint the perpetrators.

The manager was a young woman with cropped hair and a downturned mouth. She looked like someone you wouldn’t mess with.

Jameson offered her his warmest smile. ‘Thank you for seeing me at such short notice.’

‘You didn’t give me much choice, Mr Jameson.’ She shook his hand and her grip was disappointingly slack. ‘You said that lives depended on it.’

‘They do indeed.’ He handed her the key. ‘Can you confirm if this is one of yours?’

She took the key and examined it. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘This is one of ours.’

‘Any way of knowing which of your branches issued it?’

She frowned. ‘You said you work with the police, but you’re not police?’

‘No, I’m not. There’s a number here on the key. Is that an identifier?’

‘I can’t share any client information with you, Mr Jameson.’

‘I’m not asking you to, Miss Rawdon.’ He held her gaze.

‘Come with me.’ She led him through to her office. It was small and the desk was cluttered with papers. ‘Is the person who owns the key alive as far as you know?’

Jameson understood the motivation behind her question. If the owner is deceased, the box’s contents become part of the individual’s estate. ‘Very much so.’

‘But it’s not you.’

‘No. It’s a client with severe memory loss.’

She raised her eyebrows. ‘You need the box number and its branch.’

‘Are you telling me you can’t reverse engineer that?’

‘You need the box number and its branch. And then we need to confirm the identity of the owner.’

‘And how do you do that?’

‘Using their bank account details. No one can have a security box without a bank account.’