Tom pulled up Safari for him and showed him where to type in his email account. Willie entered his Yahoo! ID. They waited for another moment until a new email suddenly appeared in his inbox, file attached.

‘So, Richie spotted an anomaly,’ Willie explained, as they waited for the document to download. ‘The licence application was for a part-time plate. This Cormac Ryan fella had another job. But that wasn’t all. It turns out he had a different name too. His public service number was in one name and his ID in another.’

‘Then how on earth did he get the licence?’ Tom asked.

‘It was legit. He had a double-barrelled surname and two first names. For ease, he must have started using just his first and last name and that was on his ID. I’d say he was from some posh family, with that many names.’

Willie found the document in the download file and opened it.

Tom ran his eyes over the details, stopping at the most important part.

Cormac Ryan’s full name.

The blood drained from his face.

‘Are you okay?’ Linda asked, alarmed.

Tom shook his head.

He’d never been less okay.

It had all been an act, and they’d been taken in.

They’d let him walk away and go back to Fiona.

And now he probably had Laura too.

CHAPTER 32

For the second time, Laura found herself waking in the cellar. This time it came to her far quicker where she was and why she was there. She lay still for a few seconds and had a stern conversation with herself. She’d got herself into such a state that she’d caused herself to faint. It couldn’t happen again. She needed her wits about her.

She sat up. If there was somebody in the cellar with her, they were being very quiet. She was sure she’d heard somebody breathing, but Laura was so scared it was utterly conceivable that she’d imagined it.

Just in case, though, she felt around the ground until she felt the steps again. She crawled up them. If somebody came at her and they weren’t friendly, she would have height as an advantage.

She felt something unfamiliar in her trousers as she sat down and reached inside her pocket. It was the bag of sugared jellies that Michael had left on her desk. She must have picked them up when she was leaving the office. Laura placed one in her mouth, nearly crying with relief at its sweet familiarity. She wasn’t going to starve. Not for a while, at any rate.