‘Leave it with me,’ Hart says. ‘I’ll call you tomorrow, first thing.’

‘What about Kate?’ Jake says, worried that Hart will hang up. ‘We just want to check that she’s OK. If you’ve got his address, we could—’

‘We don’t have Rob’s exact London details at the moment,’ Hart says, sounding embarrassed. So it’s not just Jake who can’t find his address. ‘I’m sure she’s fine.’

74

Kate

It’s like a switch has been flicked – in Rob and in Kate. The old Rob is back, the handsome Irish boy who has cared for her unquestioningly these last five months. The Rob she loves. Her fears of a few minutes ago are already fading, like the receding tide. She can’t see him, thanks to the power cut, but the voice is definitely Rob’s. She can cope like this. She must be suffering from Capgras syndrome. Why else would he appear different but sound so familiar? She just hopes it’s temporary, as Ajay suggested. She can’t spend the rest of her life with Rob in the dark.

‘We’re trying to establish what’s caused the outage,’ he continues, his arms still wrapped around her as they stand together in the inky blackness of his apartment, their bodies pressed together. ‘The whole system went into lockdown and then there was a local power failure.’

‘How did you manage to get in here?’ she asks.

‘The front door runs off a different power source – part of the main building.’

He’s always happiest talking technology, never likes it when she tries to discuss the two of them, their feelings for each other.

‘Was everyone else shut in then?’ she asks.

‘I assume so.’

He doesn’t sound very convinced and she wonders again if the lockdown was orchestrated by Rob for her safety. ‘You can be honest with me, you know,’ she says. ‘About tonight. I understand.’

‘How do you mean?’

Should she continue? She’s no longer angry with him.

‘If the “outage” wasn’t an accident,’ she adds.

Do his arms momentarily slacken around her?

‘Next time, you can just tell me if you think I’m in danger,’ she continues. ‘I’m a big girl, worked for the police for a year, remember? Someone tried to kill me in Cornwall – scary for me, but for you too. I get that now. But they’re dead, so there’s no need to worry any more.’

‘I’d do anything to keep you safe, you know that,’ he says, his tone more relaxed. ‘But what happened tonight wasn’t deliberate. The only thing I’m not being honest with you about is that this system is still in beta testing mode and—’