So she sat up. The figure turned. He was armed, definitely armed, although since her knowledge of crime didn’t extend too much to guns—Murder Most Actual tended to be about crimes of a less shooty, more locked-roomy variety—she couldn’t remember whose pistol it actually was.

“I suppose,” she said while Hanna lay beside her projecting intense what-the-fuck-are-you-doing vibes, “that you’re here for the numbers.”

In the darkness, the figure nodded.

“And you’re the mysterious Mr B?”

Another nod. Slow, almost courteous.

So, this was it. This was where Liza found out if all her Nancy Drew bullshit had meant a damned thing. Because while she hadn’t been totally sold on Belloc’s mysterious mastermind theory, it had been at the back of her mind this whole time. And she’d been paying attention. More attention, perhaps, than she’d realised. Her one chance of survival, she suspected, was to keep him talking. And it was a him, definitely. Pieces were beginning to fall into place. Carefully, she reached for her dressing gown. “If you’re going to shoot me, you won’t mind me covering up a little first?”

He shook his head, and she robed herself. It wasn’t much, but it was better than getting into a battle of wits with a criminal mastermind with her boobs hanging out.

“Come forward so I can see you.” It was a bold gambit, and one that earned another pleading look from Hanna, but Liza was beginning to see a very, very narrow road to survival.

The figure shook his head again.

“We’re going to need to talk if I’m going to tell you where the data is. And …” She swallowed. This was a risk, but it was one that might pay off. “And I don’t think there’s much point hiding your identity anymore, Professor.”

A laugh came from the shadows. It wasn’t the nervous laugh she was used to hearing from him, but nor was it the cruel laughter she might have expected from a master criminal. It was gentle, indulgent, like a schoolteacher who had just seen a student perform a moderately clever trick. “I suppose,” he said, “convention demands that I let you explain how you worked it out.”

Reaching back slowly—despite the professor’s cordial tone, Liza didn’t think making sudden moves in front of a gunman was a good idea—she switched on the reading light above the bed. It illuminated her more than it did him, but it showed the professor clearly enough, standing tall and confident, his hands no longer shaking, his eyes set and cold.