They moved down the hall. She had sketched the layout for him: master bedroom to the right, living room and kitchen next door on the left. The doors to the living room and bedroom were opposite each other. The kitchen had two, one onto the hall, the other to the living room. Tom followed her in there. She switched on the light, revealing a wood-floored room with leather sofas arranged round a vast glass and granite coffee-table, a roll-top desk and two walls covered with bookshelves. Above a fake fireplace hung a pair of Civil War Harpers Ferry rifle muskets.

Tom couldn’t help admiring them.

‘The Confederates captured the Harpers Ferry Armory and took the whole shebang, weapons, tools, back to Richmond where these were made.’ She pointed at the letters carved in the stocks. ‘See those initials, AS? These were made for one of his ancestors.’

Tom scanned the room. He tried the drawers in the desk and the lid: all locked. He could have forced them but that would alert Stutz to intruders and quite possibly blow his cover, hers too.

‘Tom.’

She picked up a framed photograph and handed it to him.

It had been taken at the Invicta campus. A group shot: fifteen men. He recognized Philips, Vestey and Jackman. Rolt was at the centre with Stutz, looking faintly awkward in a US Marines APECS parka. He flipped over the clear plastic frame. The date showed it had been taken four months ago.

‘Keep looking. I’ll check the bedroom.’

It was a faint hope that the purple folder of résumés would still be there. Stutz was the last man to leave anything significant lying around but perhaps there might be something tangential that shed a light on his connection with Zuabi, some clue as to how their interests could have converged. He was pondering all this when he heard the lift approaching. It came to a stop.

He switched off the light and stepped back into shadow just as the door opened.

It was Stutz.

Chapter 64

64

‘What the fuck you doing here?’ His voice was quiet but full of rage: a disconcerting combination.

Beth sprang back into cheerleader mode. ‘It’s a surprise, honey – I thought that maybe tonight, you know, it’s been a while.’

From the shadow in which he hid, Tom could see it all. Beth stepped towards Stutz and placed a hand gently on his chest. He grabbed her wrist and pulled it away.

‘You know I don’t do surprises.’ He still had his hand round her wrist.

‘I’m so sorry,’ she cooed.

Ignoring the grip she leaned towards him, giving him the full force of her magnetism. He pushed her hand away. ‘Get in the bedroom.’

He didn’t look the sort who would take his time or spend too long on foreplay, more the ‘wham bam, thank you, ma’am’ type, and that probably without the last bit. So time was short.