‘Okay,’ she finally said in a small voice. ‘Thanks for the gift. It was very kind of you.’

‘Happy birthday, Cora,’ he replied, but she’d already hung up.

He opened the door of his Bentley and slid into the front passenger seat. Mick Shallicker, who was behind the wheel, regarded him curiously, perhaps wondering why he’d turned a little pale.

‘Everything go all right up there?’ the big guy finally asked.

‘Up there? Yeah.’ McCracken stared dead ahead. ‘Perfect.’

Shallicker nodded and put the car in gear, detecting that no further questions would be welcome.

‘Shit,’ McCracken said to himself, as they pulled a U-turn in Long Acre. ‘Like my life isn’t complicated enough.’

Chapter 12

Lorna Cunningham was not the kind of woman who’d ever thought that she’d panic in a crisis. But then, she wasn’t the kind of woman who’d ever thought that she could simply be snatched off the streets.

When she’d first woken up in this small, windowless room, her initial plan had been to jump to her feet and dash to the door, which, even though she expected it to be locked, she would attack with all her might, throwing her shoulder against it again and again, kicking it as hard as she could with those long, hard-muscled legs of hers until it collapsed. But in reality, the first thing that happened was that the drug she’d been given, which hadn’t yet worn off, knocked her sideways as she scrambled up from the narrow, dingy bed, sending her reeling into one of the whitewashed brick walls. She slid down until she was sitting on the floor, legs splayed in front of her.

She was still in that inelegant position several minutes later.

In retrospect, though her thought processes were as sluggish as her coordination, she decided that failure to attack the door had probably been a good thing. Though she’d been wrong to assume that she wouldn’t panic in a tight corner, it remained the case that she shouldn’t panic. Even through eyes dimmed by stupor, and in the poor light of the dull, brownish bulb overhead, she could see that the door was made from heavy sheet-steel, and that it had no handle. How ridiculous if she was simply to pound at it, using up what few energy reserves she could muster, maybe injuring herself and rendering herself an even easier victim when whoever had abducted her finally came in here.

No, she had to keep a cool head and try to think this through, while staying still and relaxing, allowing herself as much recovery time as possible, so that she’d be in the best condition she could muster for the next fight. And all the while learning as much as she could about the opposition.

Though that wasn’t easy in this blank page of a prison cell.