‘Do you know why I left you here so long?’ he said distantly, the question he’d asked me forgotten. ‘I’ve been out of the country for almost five weeks. Endless shareholder meetings in places I fucking hate, and then some Foreign Office bullshit I couldn’t get out of. If I didn’t go to those things, I would have let people down, and then they’d have started asking questions, and questions are what I’ve spent my life trying to avoid.’ He sniffed, blood specked up his cheek in an arc. ‘So I got you here and left you. I would have preferred to have just got rid of you straight away – walked you out to the forest like everyone else – but there wasn’t the time to do it, to make sure it got done properly, and I thought to myself, “If nothing else, a little stay will soften him up a bit.” I thought it would be fun to see you emerge from the dark a month and a half after I put you down there. But I guess I underestimated you. Or Mills. Or both of you. I thought nothing could touch me.’ His words fell away. ‘It’s another thing I found out about being rich. You start to think you’re invincible.’

‘So if you weren’t here, who was feeding me?’

‘Mills,’ he said mutedly. ‘He was babysitting you until I could get here. He probably spent the entire time trying to work out his little plan of attack today: using you to get to me was the only way he could be free. He’s tried to walk away before, but I’ve always had too much on him – too many insurance policies ready to kick in if he fucked me.’

‘Tell me where the bodies are, Adrian.’

He didn’t move.

‘What difference does it make to you now?’

No response.

‘Is Beatrix Steards out here too?’

He took a breath, the sound rattling in his chest.

‘What about Joline Kader?’

This time, I got a reaction.

‘Kader,’ he said, almost whispering the name.

I took a step closer.

He glanced at me. ‘You and her, you’d have got on. That bitch had the same’ – he waved his bloodied hand around in front of him, searching for the word he wanted – ‘obsession as you. The same eyes. Always searching for a fucking lie.’

I tried again: ‘Why take all nine of the Black Gale villagers?’

He was growing smaller, sinking in on himself.

‘Why not just take Patrick Perry and Freda Davey?’

His eyes closed.

‘Adrian?’

He opened them again, but his body was shutting down.

‘Is Beatrix Steards here too?’

He shook his head.

‘Where’s Beatrix?’

‘London,’ he said.

‘Where in London?’

He touched his fingers to his wound again, like he’d only just noticed it was there.

‘Adrian, where in London is Beatrix buried?’

He collapsed forward, hitting the grass.