‘See no evil, hear no evil and speak no evil. Her eyes, her ears and her mouth were all removed.’

Georgie’s voice echoed around Priest’s head. He closed his eyes and saw the ugly parody that was Alexia Elias’s face staring at him. The sound of blood thundering past his ears was deafening and in the background he could see an image of a woman in a red dress walking away from him, auburn hair tied up, her delicate neck partially revealed underneath. Jessica . . .

‘Hello?’

He opened his eyes. The image drained away. The cashier behind the till was looking at him oddly.

*

Georgie fiddled with her keys and, after what seemed like an age, managed to get her front door open. The hallway was dark but light filtered through under the crack in the door to the right. The muffled sound of classical music drifted past her, a haunting, unhappy melody. Elgar . . . ? No, more baroque. She hit the light switch. There was a blue ribbon tied around the handle to the door of Li’s room, meaning she had a client with her. One that evidently liked classical music. Oh, of course, Albinoni – Adagio in G Minor. Strange choice, considering.

She felt a wave of disappointment – she rarely sought company, preferring to deal with trauma in her own quiet way, but tonight she wanted to talk to Li. About a lot of things. She wanted to tell her about what had happened today, that someone had had their face burnt off with a blowtorch, how she had been there when they had found the body. How the policeman had questioned her account, tested it, probed it for inconsistency. Looked at her sceptically. She wanted to talk about Charlie, about his condition. About how infuriatingly capricious it made him.

Most of all, she wanted to talk to Li about what she had meant when she had said the other night that, ‘we can put this right’. Georgie was not vengeful. Is that what Li had meant? That they should get revenge on Martin?

Georgie tiptoed past Li’s room and turned on the light in the kitchen. She would stay in here until the client had gone – it was the furthest away from Li’s room and Georgie hated hearing the things Li did with her customers.

‘We need a cat,’ she said out loud.

Yes, a feline companion to make our duo a trio.

She retrieved a bottle of water from the fridge and collapsed into a kitchen chair. Without any real interest in watching, she found the remote control and flicked on the television bracketed to the wall. She channel hopped for a few moments, then stopped. Sat up.

No!

The sound was off but the headline scrolling underneath the BBC News reporter was screaming in Georgie’s head: ELIAS FOUNDATION LIBEL WITNESS FOUND DEAD IN CAR BOOT.

*