Ben put the phone away. He looked down at the scotch bottle that had fallen into the footwell. It was leaking whisky all over the carpet and the car was going to smell like a distillery. He picked it up and opened the passenger door. The picnic area in which Wolf had parked had some council litter bins. The nearest was about seven yards away. Ben lobbed the bottle into it. Then he drew the second, unopened bottle from his pocket and lobbed that one in too. It hit with a clatter and broke. So much for drinking himself half to death.

Ben turned to Wolf. Said, ‘I’m sorry that I lost faith, Jaden. I was weak. It was wrong.’

‘It was human,’ Wolf said. ‘That’s what we are. That’s what makes us better than these shits.’

‘Whatever they are, they’d better start running,’ Ben said. ‘Because everything just changed. No more hiding in the shadows. The game of stealth is over. This is open war now. Saunders has lost his tactical advantage, and if he doesn’t already know it he soon will.’

‘Except we still don’t know what the fucker’s real name is,’ Wolf pointed out. ‘Or who any of them are. Or where we’re going to find them, unless you plan on staking out Karswell Hall indefinitely, in the hope that they’re all going to turn up en masse and we can nab the lot. For all we know, they only get together once a year.’

‘True,’ Ben said. ‘But Anthony Abbott knew exactly who they were. He was one of them. The information is right there in his book.’

Wolf frowned. ‘Yeah, if only we could hack the password to get into his laptop. I’m not much of a computer guy. Are you?’

‘We don’t need a password. We’ve got something better.’ Ben popped open the Alpina’s glove box, reached inside and took out Abbott’s burner.

He said, ‘We’ve got the Seaward & Laverack Literary Agency in London. And they’ve got the book.’

Chapter 38

Tristan Dudley was fifty-one years old, with an Eton and Downing College, Cambridge background. He had earned his first-class degree from the Faculty of Law, top of his class. After just ten years’ practice as a lawyer, having already become the youngest ever senior partner in the prestigious London-based firm of Butler, Caspar and McQueen, Dudley had ‘taken silk’ and arisen to the lofty position of Queen’s Counsel at the ripe old age of thirty-seven, at that time a record. From there he could have aspired to becoming a High Court Judge, ultimately even Justice of the Supreme Court should he have wanted; but instead he sidestepped from the law and entered politics, and was duly elected as Conservative MP for his home constituency of Worcester two days before his fortieth birthday.