He chuckled to himself as he looked around the dingy room. The only thing she had left behind was the indentation on the bed where she had been sitting. He pulled his phone from his pocket and called Victoria.

“John?” she said. “All okay? The doc sort you out?”

“He did. Is he really a doctor?”

“He was. Struck off a few years ago. Got into a relationship with a patient, by all accounts.”

“Unwise.”

“Especially when they’re seventeen. All consensual, or so the patient said. The police weren’t interested, but the General Medical Council took a dim view. As did his wife.”

“I’m not calling about him,” Milton said. “I have a problem.”

“Another one?”

“The woman Edwin was treating…” He went over to the window and looked out onto the scrubby hotel grounds. “I appear to have misplaced her.”

“You…” She paused. “I’m sorry, what?”

“I was in the bathroom. She left when I wasn’t looking.” He shrugged. “Forget it, never mind—it’s her choice. I can’t force her to accept my help. How much do I owe you?”

“What for?”

“For the room and the doctor.” Milton glanced around the dilapidated space. It couldn’t be much, but that wasn’t the point. He always paid what he owed.

“Don’t be daft,” Victoria said. Milton could tell from the tone of her voice that she was smiling. “A dodgy hotel room and the services of an even dodgier doctor? I think I can cover that.”

“We’ll talk about it later.”

“No, we won’t,” she insisted. “Look—are you coming over?”

“I was just—”

Milton was interrupted by the door to the stairwell opening. Sakura came through first, closely followed by Edwin. The doctor had a hand tight around her upper arm and looked distinctly unimpressed.

“Will you help me explain to this young lady just how stupid it would be to leave before she’s treated?” the doctor asked him.

“I’ll call you back,” Milton said and killed the call.

Edwin was angry. His face was even redder than before, and the veins on his nose were darker. He pushed Sakura toward the bed, not particularly gently, and she stumbled a little before sitting down hard on the edge.

“Easy,” Milton said.

Edwin ignored him. “If you leave,” he said to Sakura, “you’ll die. I’m not speculating about that. It’s not a guess. It’s not a prediction. It’s a spoiler. Do you understand?”

“I feel fine,” Sakura complained. “That injection you gave me? It’s worked.”

“Do you have any idea what the half-life of naloxone is? When it stops working, which it will, soon, you’ll be right back where you were before, but this time there won’t be anyone to help you. You need regular doses, and I need to get the meracuni inside you out.”

“The what?”

“The poison, my dear. The heroin.”