‘Julian, I work with your mother at the post office. My name is Karl. I’m afraid that your mother has been taken ill and she’s asked me to pick you up and take you to the hospital. Have you got all your things?’

Karl collapsed in the driver’s seat and slung the MacBook next to him, then pocketed the phone; fumbled with the keys to start the engine. There was a muffled noise from the boot where Julian was: his hands, legs and mouth bound with duct tape. When Karl had thrown him in, his face had been red from crying and his nose had been streaming.

‘It’s nothing personal,’ Karl had snapped, before closing the boot. ‘Your father didn’t love my Elinor – he said he did, but it was a lie. He was a rapist. A filthy rapist. That is why I was denied her. But he also loved you, too, and that binds you to the cause.’

He fired up the car engine and swung out into the road, U-turned and hit the accelerator hard. Muttered, ‘But you have to learn first what it is like to die before you can learn what it is like to be reborn.’

*

Priest jumped in the passenger seat of Rowlinson’s BMW 5 Series. The DCI drove, tailed by a marked car with three uniformed officers in, sirens blaring as they tore across London.

Someone at Rowlinson’s end had established that Karl Jones lived in a semi-detached house within the suburbs. The kind of place where kids hung around on the corner smoking spliffs on school days and it seemed like most people had dumped an old sofa or, occasionally, a washing machine in the front garden.

Rowlinson’s men made short work of the door, battering it down and filing into the house efficiently. The call came back through within a few minutes: the house was empty and Jones wasn’t to be found.

He followed Rowlinson in through the front door; the first thing to hit him was the heat. He studied a thermostat on the wall, which was set at thirty, the highest setting. Priest turned it off.

‘He liked it hot,’ Rowlinson called over his shoulder, as he examined the flyers and leaflets cluttering up a Welsh dresser in the hallway.

‘Unnaturally hot,’ Priest remarked, remembered how he had found Simeon’s flat with the heating turned right up. Had Jones been there before or was Simeon trying to tell us something?