‘I mean, I suppose he’s off getting things ready for me now,’ he said, his voice maintaining exactly the same speed, rhythm and pitch, as if he were reading off an autocue. ‘He’s doing what I asked. But he’s not my man. He’s Jacob Pierce’s. Jacob vouched for him, Jacob was the one who said they’d worked together once on a case up north, and Jacob was the one who said Isaac was susceptible, that he could be turned. But that’s the thing, isn’t it? In my experience, most people can have their head turned with money. That’s why rich people generally do whatever the fuck they want. You wave enough pound notes in front of someone’s face and it’s amazing what they’ll forget. Their memories, their morals, it all goes out of the window. But then, after a while, you start to earn so much, so often, that, in a weird way, the money helps you see more clearly. Instead of making you lose your morals, it brings them back into focus.’

I looked again in his direction, but he’d deliberately placed his chair directly behind me so that, whichever way I turned, I could only see the very edges of him.

‘Discussing money, its power to corrupt, always reminds me of another story. It’s about Adrian Vale. What I said downstairs about him, most of it was true. He was a loner, he was weird, people didn’t really get him. But the idea that I gave him the name of a solicitor when Beatrix went missing, well, that isn’t quite true. That was an embellishment. Because, actually, I was the one who called Jacob Pierce.’

I frowned. ‘What?’

It was the first time I’d spoken.

I sounded groggy, hoarse.

‘Did you have a good look through my things, David?’

I turned, trying to see him behind me.

‘Is that what took you so long to get to the bathroom? Were you nosing around in my office, looking at my things?’ He made a soft tut, tut, tut sound. ‘Joline Kader,’ he said, forcing a breath out with her name. I thought of the driving licence with her picture on it. ‘Is that who you were looking at?’

She’d been asking questions about Patrick.

‘That bitch was like a dog with a bone.’

Again, he paused.

But this time it was because he was moving.

By the point I’d actually realized he was on my other side, it was already too late: a hand clamped on to the back of my skull, holding it in place, forcing me to face forward. The power in his hands was immense.