He drove quickly, hoping they wouldn’t follow him soon. Maybe give up entirely and let other officers deal with him. He wondered what their thinking had been anyway. To just allow him out of custody, given what had been discovered. Then he thought of DI Bennett, and the way she had treated him. Kid gloves. She had put in a call, Mark thought. Talked them out of doing what they should have. Sent DS Cavanagh to pick him up, probably. They would try to find him, he decided. Would be out there now, on the unfamiliar roads he was travelling, trying to track him down. That couldn’t happen. He needed some time. Some space.

He needed to think. To find Natasha.

Mark drove without direction, his phone sitting safely in the false box underneath his seat. That meant he didn’t know where he was going, but that was okay right then. Any direction would do. He’d accomplished a lot in those minutes before they’d arrived at that garage.

He drove for fifteen minutes, taking turns at random, waiting to see the perfect place he could stop and take a breath. Formulate his next move. His mind was working overtime, trying to come up with a plan. Something, anything, that could work.

In the distance, he saw a small clearing at the side of a country road. He turned into it, parking up and turning the engine off. Outside, it was pitch black. The surroundings plunged into darkness, once his headlights and dashboard ceased illuminating the way.

Mark put his hand underneath the seat and removed his phone. Switched it on and keyed his passcode into it. It seemed to take an age to come on, then boot up. He couldn’t stay in one spot for very long if they were out looking for him, but he should have enough time, he thought. They could track his phone easily enough, but he doubted that would be their first port of call. That would come later.

There were no notifications. No missed calls or voicemails. No robotic voice to tell him what the next steps would be. Just the same stream of messages he’d had earlier, from DS Cavanagh.

Nothing.

When he’d pulled out the phone, his hand had brushed against something. At that point, he’d only been thinking about retrieving the phone, but now his mind reminded him of it.

The laptop. John’s laptop.

He didn’t think twice, reaching underneath and taking it out. He prayed it would still have a little battery left, enough for him to see the forum John had on screen earlier. There had to be a clue there, something that could lead him to wherever he might be. A little kernel of information he could use.