In the early years of her enslavement, Zelda had been too distraught to think very clearly about anything, but later she had begun to wonder just how the Tadićs had known to wait for her near the orphanage on the day she left. Then, once or twice, in the brothels, she was certain she saw girls who had been with her in the orphanage. On one occasion, she had the opportunity to ask if this was true, and it turned out to be so. It wasn’t a great leap of logic from there to realize that someone inside the orphanage was providing the information—either selling it or being blackmailed into giving it—and the most logical choice was the orphanage director: Vasile Lupescu. The problem was, she didn’t know where he was. Her sources told her that he had retired and no longer lived in Chişinău, but nobody so far knew where he had moved to. So he was still out there. He would be quite old by now, she realized, perhaps dead, but she would like to find out for certain.

Zelda would have to lie low for a while. She would have no opportunity to discover whether Hawkins had been killed, or the fire had been an accident. Even when the department started operating again, she would have to keep her head down. She would have liked to finish what she had started and help Alan find the man who had tried to kill him, but it was getting too dangerous.

Even Vasile Lupescu would have to wait for a while.

BANKS AND Blackstone settled into their comfortable seats at an exotically decorated Thai restaurant in the city center. There were painted Buddhas and deep maroon paneled walls, each panel marked out in ornate gold trim. The smells of herbs and spices—coriander, star anise, cumin and lime—were mouthwatering, and the food, when it came, was just as good, from the spring rolls to the pad thai, fried rice and green chicken curry they shared. The only drawback was that the restaurant sold only bottled beer, so they settled for cold Singha.

“Do you think you can track down someone from the county lines at this end and get them to talk?” Banks asked.

“I don’t know,” said Blackstone. “We’ve got a couple of drugs squad officers working undercover. They might be able to come up with something useful, but they won’t want to risk blowing their cover. What do you want to know?”

“Most of all, we’d like to know when Samir started working in Eastvale. We have no sightings of him there before the day he was killed, and then two witnesses saw him arriving from a Leeds bus carrying a backpack.”

“That would be the drugs,” said Blackstone. “Any sign of it later?”