Ben glanced around him and saw all the things Wolf had described. Bookcases covered two walls of the fine room, lined with titles on politics, history, law and economics. The music was playing from an expensive CD unit among the shelves, next to a compact filter coffee machine that gave off a nice aroma of Colombian dark roast. Ben knew his coffees. The glass carafe on the hotplate was half full and still warm to the touch. Ben turned off the music so he could concentrate on his thoughts. The leather-topped antique desk was positioned in front of the open window, with a view of the open countryside. Sitting in the middle of the desk was a shiny black Dell laptop with the lid closed and a blinking light showing that it was on mains power and in sleep mode. There was no other computer.

The desktop was tidy and organised, with a banker’s lamp on the left and an old-fashioned dial telephone on the right. The only other item on the desk was a chintzy coffee cup on a saucer, quarter full. Abbott had taken his black, no sugar, the way Ben liked it too. Ben dipped a finger in the cup. The coffee was still warm, like the contents of the carafe. It looked as though Abbott had been up here, in the middle of working on the laptop, when something had impelled him to go downstairs. Maybe he’d heard a noise, Ben wondered. If it had been him or Wolf, Abbott wouldn’t have heard a thing.

Ben flipped open the laptop lid, and after a couple of moments the machine flashed into life. The screen was bright but blank except for a small box that gave the name of the text document Abbott had been working on, with a prompt asking for a password to reopen the encrypted file. If Ben’s old forger and all-around computer whizz pal Thierry Chevrolet had been here, he’d have been able to crack the document open in the blink of an eye. But all Ben could do was stare at the name of the file. It was called THE PANDEMONIUM CLUB.

Wolf peered over Ben’s shoulder at the screen. ‘The pandemonium club,’ he read out loud. ‘What the hell’s that?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Strange name.’

Ben had to agree. But he didn’t have time to stand around ruminating over the whats and whys. The computer was useless to them, so he started ripping open the desk drawers one by one and rummaging through their contents. If he’d been hoping to find a hidden stash of photos of Anthony Abbott in his sacrificial ceremonial garb or an address book filled with the personal contact details of all his fellow nutcases, he’d have been disappointed. The first eight out of nine drawers contained nothing more interesting than household bills, receipts, insurance and vehicle documents and other irrelevant clutter.