A few minutes of silence passed before Tomas erupted again. ‘I can’t stand this! Why doesn’t he ring? Simeon was murdered, our friend was murdered. We should be publishing this, not living in fear of it.’

‘Is that all you can think about?’ said Gail. ‘Publishing what happened to Simeon?’

Tomas looked at her with distaste. ‘You know what I mean.’

She was about to rebuke him when Karl interrupted.

‘Do you think the Free People’s Army did it?’

Tomas shot him a scathing look. ‘Are you a fucking moron?’

Karl turned back to the game, dejected.

Gail shook her head. ‘If they did, Karl,’ she muttered. ‘I guess we’ll be next, won’t we?’

Chapter 23

Chapter 23

Priest pulled the Volvo off the main road down a single-track lane. The car scraped past the overgrown conifers lining the driver’s side – the open fields on the other side were enclosed by a low, stone wall and speckled with forlorn-looking sheep. Half a mile back they had meandered through the small village dismally named Tome – it had been nothing more than a few thatched houses, a pub and an unloved church.

‘Rural England at its most sickeningly quaint,’ Priest remarked under his breath.

He caught an occasional glimpse of the grass escarpment on the other side of the hedgerow which disappeared into the horizon. The Google Earth picture he had checked before they had set off had shown the house to be off this track, but he hadn’t been able to identify the access way. He took his foot off the pedal; the car seemed to sigh with relief.

‘I thought I saw something,’ said Georgie. She was straining across the back of the driver’s seat. Priest touched the brake and tried to follow her gaze but all he saw was greenery. ‘Pull over.’

He did as instructed and they got out to investigate the seemingly impenetrable wall of green. The contrast between the cold air and the sauna-like atmosphere inside the Volvo was staggering. Priest hastily retrieved his jacket from the back seat. Georgie was pulling on her brown body warmer. It looked functional but hideous.

‘It was up there,’ Georgie called over her shoulder. Then all of a sudden the hedge seemed to swallow her.

‘Georgie?’

Priest went to the space where Georgie had been, but she had vanished. What on earth? Priest was about to call out when a hand appeared, took hold of his collar and he suddenly found himself on the other side of the hedge looking at Georgie’s grinning face.

‘Have you ever seen Jim Henson’s Labyrinth?’ she asked.

‘A thousand times. I lent it to Tilly – she loves it. We often watch it together.’

Priest looked up at the house nestled at the crest of the slope. He produced the photograph from his jacket pocket and examined this against the view. It was the same house, all right.