Wally Stapleton was still talking on the other side of the door, but more quietly. Wada pushed herself upright and felt a lancing pain in her head. When she touched the spot, it was tender and there was blood on her fingers. Her head swam as she staggered to her feet and started moving.

She stumbled several times and had to steady herself against the wall as she headed along the hall. But Wally was still talking when she reached the front door and pulled it open.

At the sight of her, however, he suddenly fell silent.

‘I came as fast as I could,’ she said hoarsely.

‘Hold on,’ said Wally into his phone. He was a burly, balding, grey-haired man with a pugnacious set to him. He frowned at Wada. ‘What the hell’s going on? How’d you get that cut on your head?’

‘I was attacked.’

Wally peered past her. ‘Is someone else in there?’

‘No. He left. Fire escape.’

‘Bloody hell.’ Wally put the phone back to his ear. ‘There’s been a break-in and an assault. I think. It’s all a bit— Can you just get over here?’

Wada’s wooziness suddenly worsened. She felt herself falling.

Then Wally’s arm was round her. She was leaning heavily against him, aware that he was the only reason she was still on her feet. ‘I think we might need an ambulance as well,’ she heard him say into his phone.

EIGHT

CONCUSSION DIDN’T MAKE it easy for wada to double-think her way out of trouble with the Devon and Cornwall Police. But the young officer who took a note of her account looked as if he believed her, and whatever technical offence she’d committed by taking the key from the Stapletons’ flat and letting herself into Caldwell’s seemed to take a back seat to questions about the intruder who’d injured her. Fortunately for Wada, Joan had seen the man making off with a large black bag under his arm, so clearly she hadn’t dreamt him up, and signs of a forced entry from the fire escape into Caldwell’s kitchen along with the mayhem in the rest of the flat told their own story.

Wada claimed, truthfully enough, that she had no idea who he was, but she didn’t add she had little doubt who he was working for. She stuck with the name she’d given the Stapletons and luckily the policeman never asked to see her passport. Luckily also, she remembered the name of the hotel in South Kensington where she and Hiko had stayed during their honeymoon holiday back in 1994 and claimed that was where she was staying now. She calculated the police were unlikely to check. They were much more interested in circulating her description of the intruder and leaving Wada to rest in hospital.