Ben had no idea how the book business worked, but he guessed that a successful publication could make a lot of money for anyone with a finger in the pie, including the agents whose job it was to broker deals with publishers. For an agency to turn down what could turn out to be a fat commission, they must have got seriously cold feet. Which meant that what Abbott had been proposing to them must be pretty damned explosive.

Now Ben could guess why Abbott might have disconnected his home internet hub, making it all but impossible for anyone to hack into his computer. The same reasoning presumably accounted for the burner phone. The politician had been doing all he could to cover his tracks.

His precautions hadn’t done him much good, in the end.

‘Well, well,’ Wolf said, pulling a disgusted face. ‘So that’s what our boy’s been up to. Must’ve got bored with slaughtering innocent women, and decided to do a kiss-and-tell.’

‘Allegations made,’ Ben said. ‘But against whom?’

‘If we could get into that document,’ Wolf said, pointing at the Dell, ‘then maybe we’d find out.’

‘And my guess is that maybe that’s what someone else wants to find out, too.’

Ben turned off Abbott’s phone and pocketed it. He closed the laptop lid, disconnected the mains wire from the socket under the desk, scooped up the slimline machine and wrapped the cable around it. He tucked the computer under his arm and was just about to say to Wolf, ‘Okay, let’s beat it out of here’ when through the open study window they heard the sound of a vehicle outside. The grumble of a powerful engine. The crunch of fat tyres on gravel. Ben peered cautiously through the leaded glass.

It wasn’t a UPS delivery. A shiny black Audi was pulling to a halt in Abbott’s driveway. The sun was glaring on the windscreen and the side windows were tinted dark, making it hard to see inside. Three doors swung open. Three men stepped out, and started striding towards the house. They were all tough, fit-looking individuals in their thirties. Short hair, jeans, serious faces, a brisk and aggressive attitude in their step. One of them was taller and bulkier than the others, carrying a large, bulging zipper bag. Another clutched a heavy sledgehammer. All three wore gloves.

The clean-up team were here, brazenly walking right up to Abbott’s front door. Ben and Wolf had been too slow getting out of the house, and now they were trapped inside.

Chapter 32

Wolf said, ‘Told ya. Now what?’

Ben replied, ‘They mustn’t find us here.’

‘Then I suggest we get out of sight, pronto.’