‘I’m going to pull over while you sort it.’ Bex slows the car down on the hard shoulder. ‘I can’t drive with that bloody racket on.’

‘I’m trying.’

She brings the car to a safe standstill, the music still playing.

‘Shitters, I knew it was too good to last,’ she says as Jake finally manages to turn off the sound system.

‘What?’

Bex sits back, shaking her head. ‘The car’s been disabled.’

‘Really?’

She tries again, but a message confirms that the car isn’t going anywhere. They sit there in silence, staring ahead in the heat and the dark as Bex tries in vain to start the car. And then a video of a burning log-fire flickers into life on the touchscreen.

‘What the hell?’ Jake says.

The death metal music starts up again. Jake reaches for the door. He can’t seem to open it.

‘Shit, it’s locked.’ He’s starting to panic. ‘It’s so hot in here.’

There’s a click and the door is unlocked. Jake’s not sure if it was him, Bex or someone else. The cool night air floods into the car as Bex and Jake look at each other, both of them shaken.

‘I don’t think Rob wants us to drive to London,’ she says.

Tuesday

78

Silas

Strover is already in the Parade Room when Silas arrives. He glances at his watch. Seven a.m. He’s only been away from this place for six hours. They both need to get some balance in their lives.

‘Please don’t tell me you’ve already been for a run,’ he says, sitting down next to her.

Strover’s hair is wet, as if she’s recently showered after an effortless dawn 10k. His own fitness regime couldn’t be going worse. Fifteen sit-ups this morning, feet wedged under the bed, and he began to feel dizzy. He didn’t sleep well last night either, troubled by what Jake had told him. Why was Rob visiting Gablecross – and before he met Kate for the first time at the Great Western Hospital?

Maybe Silas was too relaxed last night about Kate staying at Rob’s London apartment.

‘I wanted to talk to Thailand,’ Strover says. ‘They’re six hours ahead.’

‘Anything interesting?’ He’s asked her to look into the gun used in Cornwall, last fired in Bangkok nine years ago, and the Thai police file on Gilmour Martin, the same name as the registered keeper of a Tesla recently seen in Cornwall. It’s too much of a coincidence to ignore, but his boss will no doubt dismiss it as circumstantial.

‘The police over there are proving helpful about Gilmour,’ Strover says.

They could do with some more information. The Royal Thai Police file was not exactly bulging with detail.