‘Not naive.’ Priest shook his head. ‘Just optimistic. And it doesn’t make Alexia Elias a nice person, either. She was into all sorts of mischief, just not the actual mischief of which she was accused. I guess Simeon was trying to take her down because he knew that she was corrupt but he couldn’t prove it. Then someone came along and convinced him that he didn’t have to. He just had to make something up, convincingly, and produce some papers to back it up. Someone would print it and her reputation would be in ruins, irrespective of the truth.’

As he finished speaking, he could see that Mims had finally let go – tears streaked down her face, like the last of her blue-haired facade had melted away, leaving a vulnerable woman underneath. She was nodding too, wiping away the tears with the back of her sleeve. Priest got up and fetched her some toilet roll and she took a few moments to compose herself.

‘That’s right,’ she said, drying her eyes. ‘He thought it was easy at first. Just contact The Real Byte and give them the story. He knew it was wrong, but she had to be stopped. The corruption ran deep. Charity money was being laundered through the Foundation to benefit Alexia and the people close to her. Simeon couldn’t prove that, so when The Real Byte opportunity came up, he saw another way of getting to her. That was Simeon – the one to touch the untouchable. But it went wrong . . .’

‘The story wasn’t enough. The Elias Foundation’s PR agents did a good job covering it up, Alexia’s friends rallied round her, some more people got paid off and she sued the magazine. So Simeon had to come out of hiding.’

‘And now he’s dead,’ sobbed Mims. ‘Why? For what?’

‘Mims, did Simeon ever talk about telling the truth at any point while the trial was going on?’

She stopped dabbing her face and looked up, her cheeks were flushed and tear-stained, but Priest looked beyond that, to the look of realisation that was forming in her eyes.

‘You think that whoever put Simeon up to this killed him because he had decided to tell the truth about Alexia?’ she asked. The quiver in her hand and in her voice was unmistakable.

‘I think that’s a very distinct possibility,’ said Priest gravely. ‘A very distinct possibility.’

Chapter 44

Chapter 44

It was closing in on midnight and small groups of men were tumbling out of the Bag of Nails across the road from Mims’s flat, their raucous laughter cutting through the night air: an intimidating, wretched sound that was as nauseating as it was primitive. Mims had fixed Priest and herself a mug of murky-looking coffee – about the last thing that Priest wanted but he took the cup gratefully despite the fatigue that had washed over him and the thumping ache developing at the base of his skull.