‘You got me,’ Ben said. ‘I’m your captive audience. So is this the part where you cut the crap and tell me what you want?’

‘To retain your services,’ the stranger replied, as though it were the most obvious thing in the world. ‘What else?’

Ben shook his head. ‘Sorry to disappoint you, but you’re wasting your time there. I’m self-employed. Meaning that I get to choose who I work for. Me.’

‘Of course. Of course. And I hope you can forgive me for intruding on your privacy like this. But I think perhaps you’ll feel more amenable to speaking to me once you’ve seen what I have to show you.’

‘Show me?’

‘Indeed.’ The stranger reached inside his jacket and pulled out a small, slender tablet phone that he offered to Ben.

‘No, thanks. I’m not interested.’

The stranger didn’t take the tablet away. ‘Please. I insist.’

Ben reluctantly took it. The tablet was black and glossy and looked brand new. The screen was displaying what he immediately realised was a paused video file.

The stranger said, ‘Watch.’

Ben tapped the screen, and the video began to play. For the first few moments it could have been a still photo image, as nothing was moving on the screen. It showed the inside of a dark room. Ben had to peer closely to make anything out. He still had no idea what this was about.

But as he began to make sense of what he was looking at, he felt every muscle in his body tighten with alarm.

Chapter 2

Because the scene in the video clip was a bedroom. A bedroom he recognised and had got to know well over the course of the last three months. The same bedroom he’d last slept in himself, before getting up early to catch the plane from Inverness.

In the dim, grainy image on the screen he could see the curve of Grace’s shape beneath the bed covers, turned on her side, gently rising and falling to the rhythm of her breathing, her black hair spread out across the whiteness of the pillow and both hands clasped under her cheek, the way she often slept. Like she was praying in her dreams. Praying for what, Ben had often mused as he lay there watching her.

The video had not been filmed from a static hidden camera. That would have been bad enough – but the slight tremor and sway of the frame told him that it had been captured on a phone or other device by someone inside Grace’s bedroom. Someone who wasn’t supposed to be there.

‘In case you were wondering,’ the stranger said, ‘this was taken this morning, just minutes after you left. Looks peaceful, doesn’t she? Like Sleeping Beauty.’