Casey sighed. The bleak little conference room looked out into a small internal light well. The only view was broken blinds, and 15 feet to a blank brick wall. They had started using that room for investigations after one of the early leaks. After a big information dump especially annoyed the government, and the men in grey suits had turned up.

‘The Chinese can work with a direct line of sight,’ they’d said, peering disapprovingly out of the smeary windows in the main office. ‘They can track everything you type from the other side of the road. And what you say, mind. They shine lasers on the windows, and transcribe that. It’s a total pain, to be honest.’

‘Fine,’ Casey snapped at Dash.

The head of news walked away from her, across the newsroom, swatting the air with his notebook.

Hessa and Miranda looked at Casey, crumpled, still carrying her small suitcase, the sequined black dress crushed inside.

‘Are you all right?’ asked Miranda. ‘You look like hell.’

‘Thank you.’ Casey felt her mouth twist into a grin. ‘I’m fine. But we have to work out who is behind all this.’

‘Poor Erica Whiddon,’ said Hessa quietly.

‘I don’t suppose they’ll get very far on tracking her killers either,’ said Miranda, as Casey collapsed at her desk. ‘It sounds like a professional job.’

Talking quickly, Casey explained her meeting with Delacroix. ‘I thought if we could find out who is running that shipping yard, we might be a step closer to working out who is in charge of the whole thing,’ she finished. ‘But . . .’

‘Portunus Marine?’ Miranda shook her head as she stopped speaking. ‘Don’t know them.’

‘I’ll look for everything available about Portunus Marine.’ Hessa turned to her computer. ‘But there may not be much.’

‘And I’ll try the name on a few shipping people I know,’ said Miranda. ‘We might get lucky.’

‘We’re running out of time.’ For a second, Casey felt the despair clutch at her. ‘What if Portunus is just another dead end? Whoever is behind this will just disappear . . .’

The room fell into silence. Casey scowled at her notes. She had pages of them now, spread out across her desk. She moved them around, matching facts to each other, one at a time.

‘Portunus Marine,’ she murmured. ‘Portunus.’

‘Poppy’s fine,’ Miranda said, when she returned a few minutes later. ‘She’s still in the hotel, with Nina Reynolds.’

‘I can’t get through to the Burton-Smiths,’ said Casey. ‘I don’t understand it.’

Miranda bit her lip. She stood, and walked to the door. ‘Tillie,’ she shouted across the newsroom.

The young reporter was at the door to the investigations room in seconds, like a puppy to the rattle of a lead. ‘Can I help?’