It was utterly dark in the shed once the lights had gone out, apart from one tiny red gleam high in a distant corner, which Nick did his best not to look at. The effect, as he lay sleeplessly on his mattress, was similar, he imagined, to being in a flotation tank. Reality beyond the black void he was suspended in became ever harder to grasp. He thought Michaela was probably asleep. He was fairly certain he could hear her breathing. He tried to persuade himself not to think about what might happen when the lights came back on and a second day of captivity began. He tried not to run over and over in his mind all the times in recent weeks when he could have stepped away from the mystery of his paternity and allowed his world to continue moving in the safe and orderly way it always had – until now. He tried hard. On both counts.

It didn’t work.

Wada lay awake deep into the night. Eventually, when she’d given up on the idea of sleep, oblivion finally came. And then, with seemingly no lapse of time, she was roused, with the morning already well advanced, by the ringing of the bedside telephone.

‘Yes?’

‘Reception here, Miss Wada. There’s a man downstairs who’d like to speak to you.’

‘Who is he?’

‘His name’s Driscoll. He says you know him. Shall I put him on the line?’

Driscoll. He was here. In Ely. He’d found her. How she couldn’t imagine. But if he could, what was to stop Nishizaki? ‘Put him on,’ she said numbly.

‘O-hayo gozaimasu, Wada-san,’ came the smooth, by now familiar, voice. ‘Shall I come up? Or will you come down?’

TWENTY-SIX

‘WHY DON’T WE walk round to the cathedral green and talk there?’ Driscoll suggested as he greeted Wada at the foot of the hotel stairs with a smile. He was wearing a light suit, pale shirt and no tie. He looked businesslike but relaxed.

‘Maybe I would prefer to talk here,’ said Wada defensively.

‘This isn’t a trap,’ he responded in an undertone. ‘I’ve come alone. And we need to talk, you and I. Somewhere where we can’t be overheard. The cathedral isn’t far.’

Wada couldn’t be sure what kind of risk she might be taking by going with him. But alternatives weren’t thick on the ground. He’d found her. So hiding was no longer an option. ‘Very well,’ she murmured.

‘Why did you come to Ely?’ he asked as they walked out of the hotel.

‘I needed to leave Cambridge urgently. There was an opportunity to come here. I took it. I did not think anyone would look for me in Ely.’