The digital techie had already done Vestey’s computer, a laptop he found under some socks in the bedside drawer. He plugged in his gear and sucked up the contents of the hard drive in less than a minute. Tom didn’t have a lot of faith that it would reveal anything, apart from porn. His gut feeling was that if Vestey was their man he would have covered his tracks very carefully.

While Woolf worked through the bookshelves, drawers and cupboards, moving items and carefully replacing them, Tom stood in the middle of the room for a few moments and tried to imagine Vestey at home, here, the sort of life he lived, his routine. Did he have any girlfriends, or any friends for that matter? A lot of men didn’t and, once out of the beehive that was the services, became loners, adrift from the normal social networks. He looked in the bathroom cabinet for any evidence of female visitors: nothing. The only other room was a spare bedroom that looked as if it was never used. Nonetheless he went in and studied the single bed, the small bedside table and lamp, and the narrow wardrobe, empty except for five hangers and two spare blankets.

The only other item in the room was a mat beside the bed, the default souvenir brought home from Iraq or Afghanistan by countless service personnel. Tom had given his mother at least three over the years. In the pattern of this one were images of a comb and a jug, reminders to the faithful to perform wudu: to wash their hands and comb their hair before coming to pray.

Woolf appeared in the room beside him. ‘Nada, I’m afraid. He doesn’t even have any dirty socks.’ He bent down to lift the mat.

For a moment Tom was lost in thought, staring at it. ‘Wait!’

Woolf looked up. ‘What?’

‘It’s not straight.’

‘So?’

‘Everything in this place is lined up exactly or at a right-angle to everything else.’

‘Ye-es . . . And?’

‘This is out by at least a hundred mill.’

Woolf’s face showed his confusion.

Tom took out his phone, touched the compass icon, and held it out for Woolf to see. ‘This mat’s facing Mecca. Someone’s prayed here.’

Chapter 76

76

‘What’s going on with you?’

That was Sam’s mother’s way of starting a conversation. Not a hello or a how-are-you. Since she’d discovered Skype it was even worse.

‘Hello, Mother. How are you?’

‘How do you imagine I am? All these days I’ve texted and you don’t reply back.’

She was dressed in a beach robe and her hair was wet, as if she had just come in from a swim. So she was managing to enjoy herself a bit, then.

‘I’m sorry, it’s been frantic.’