‘What if someone is asking questions to make you think?’

Karene thought for a moment. ‘“Can you prove it?” is not without judgement. It’s quite pointed. It means, Is he a good man?’

‘Again, it’s your judgement, not necessarily theirs. That’s the problem with written communication. What if it’s an innocent query? Would you say that Harry is a good man?’

‘Yes. Absolutely.’

‘And does he do good things?’

‘He’s done some amazing things; he’s dedicated his life to helping others.’

‘So you’d say he helps rather than harms?’

‘Totally. It’s what I love most about him. The choices he’s made within an organization trained for warfare.’

‘But Harry can no longer remember some of those things.’

Karene acknowledged the point without speaking and her eyes became a little teary.

Bloom leaned forward in her chair. ‘So it may well be incumbent on you to speak for him.’

Karene’s eyes widened. ‘To prove it.’

‘Exactly. I wonder if our mystery emailer is a friend rather than a foe.’

Jameson coughed. ‘We should check out the alternative too, though. It might also be the bad guys showing off or some sicko playing games.’

‘Of course,’ said Bloom. ‘Glad you’ve been listening all these years, Marcus.’

Jameson gave a small shake of his head. ‘Why are you being so magnanimous anyway? If they’re a friend and they want to help, they should do just that. We don’t need the cryptic messages. I think you’re reaching with this.’

Bloom wasn’t sure if she should air her theory yet. There were too many angles she still needed to consider, but Jameson and Karene were looking at her expectantly. They both knew her well enough to know that she had a hypothesis brewing.

‘Marcus and I think that whoever took Harry needs him alive. If that wasn’t the case, he’d have died during the explosion or shortly afterwards. It would have been easy to make it look like he was another unfortunate victim.’

‘But they haven’t yet got everything they want from him,’ said Karene.

‘Possibly. But something struck me earlier when you said that Harry wouldn’t be able to defend himself due to his memory loss, Karene. If they needed information but wanted him alive they could have opted to harm him in a safer way. Why not break his bones?’

‘Presumably they needed him unconscious when they left him in A&E,’ said Jameson.

‘So drug him. A head injury is really risky. The brain is so unpredictable. If we’re right and they need him alive – to do something or help them in some way – wouldn’t they need him to be competent too?’

‘Well, they failed there then, didn’t they? The guy’s lost four years of his life,’ said Jameson.

‘Exactly.’ Bloom looked from Jameson to Karene. ‘What if they needed him to forget?’