‘Well, I’ll call,’ he said. Star beeped the horn and then turned the stereo up. Dance music thumped through the chilly morning air.

‘Time waits for no man, eh?’ I said.

‘Maybe, but with tits like that, I’d wait for her any time.’ Liam’s face split into a broad grin. ‘By God, she’s good in bed. Legs like a rubber—’

‘Liam!’ I pushed him in the direction of the car. ‘Too much information, thanks very much.’

After they’d gone I felt desolate. I stared at my mobile, willing it to ring, but it didn’t. I turned on the radio whilst I began to pack.

‘Lord Higham arrived at the Tory Conference in Blackpool today,’ Martha Kearney announced.

‘Brilliant,’ I muttered. I couldn’t find my usual overnight bag. Perhaps James had moved it. I opened the cupboard and poked around.

‘He is Cameron’s guest speaker,’ she was saying. ‘And whilst Higham’s aides are denying any rumours that he will try to make a leadership bid, some believe Cameron is keeping him firmly where he can see him.’

‘Huh,’ I muttered. ‘Blackpool. Slumming it, poor thing.’

I spotted the black leather corner of my bag on the shelf above my winter coat; I tugged hard to free it. A big brown envelope of photos fell to the floor, the images scattering at my feet. I bent to pick them up. A town-house at night, a smart town-house, Georgian probably, with shiny white pillars and clipped topiary. People coming and going out of the front door; no one I recognised. I realised they were all men. Then an earlier photograph, dated the same November night last year as the others, but this one taken before midnight; a group of young women, high-heeled, long-haired, trench-coats belted tightly, a couple in fur coats, probably fake, pulled up around hard little faces, the lights from the streetlamps bleeding into the night.

And then finally, someone I did know. Lord Higham, walking down the front stairs of the house, talking on a mobile phone, shirt unbuttoned, his jacket slung over one shoulder. Three o’clock in the morning.

Chapter Twelve
GLOUCESTERSHIRE, MARCH 2008

Before I left for my parents’, I locked the house up carefully, checking every window, every door. I’d just reached the junction for the motorway when my phone rang.

‘Rose,’ a desperate voice whispered, ‘Rose, I don’t have much time. I need to talk to you – now.’

I knew it was madness going back, but everything that had forced me to seek out the truth in my work felt heightened; I was compelled to follow the story until the facts became completely clear. I squared it with myself: the children were safely out of the way; I was still a free agent for the next twenty-four hours and I was determined to do something right.

My phone bleeped again. A text from Xav.