He shakes his head, grinning again. ‘But I seem to enjoy the pain of others more than I did before. An added bonus.’

She shudders and looks away. Rob once told her he’d invested in a medtech company that implanted electrodes in the brains of epileptics.

‘Please, drink some water,’ he says, gesturing at a jug and a glass on the sideboard. He must assume he has quicker reactions than Kate. For a moment, she thinks about hurling the jug at his face, reaching for a kitchen knife. She knows where everything is, after all. He seems to read her thoughts and unnecessarily checks the remote in his hand.

‘Where am I going?’ she asks as they walk past the sitting room. She peers in, sees a big TV screen on one wall.

‘Not in there.’ He smiles. ‘That’s his porn room.’

She thinks back to the couple she saw on the TV late at night in Cornwall. A porn habit still doesn’t fit with the Rob she knows.

Putin accompanies her through the back door of the kitchen and out onto the gravel path that leads up to the warehouse. This time he waits for her to walk in front.

‘Where are we going?’ she repeats.

‘To work,’ he says as they near the warehouse.

Is this her last chance to escape? It’s up to her now. Jake, Bex, Rob, DI Hart – no one else can save her. She glances around at the grounds of the house. A high security fence dotted with cameras encloses rolling lawns, an overgrown vegetable patch, a small apple orchard. Her heart sinks. Nowhere to run to.

On the seaward side, there are only sheer cliffs. She hadn’t realised how remote the house is. No other properties are in sight in either direction. She looks out across the English Channel, wondering if Cornwall is visible through the sea haze, and inhales a large lungful of air. And then, as she turns around, she notices a delivery van drawing up at the gates. The driver gets out to talk into an intercom. Her heart starts to race. A path runs down from the warehouse, around the main property and out to the drive. This is her moment. It’s more important that the driver hears her than that she reaches him. She won’t get five yards before she’s electrocuted.

She takes a deep breath and runs.

‘Hey!’ she shouts at the top of the voice, sprinting down the path, away from Putin, dreading the imminent agony. ‘Hey! Help!’

She gets further than she expected – almost five yards – before she’s cut down by the shock and thrown to the ground. The pain is so much worse than before. Far worse. She’s in too much agony to scream or shout. This time she might actually die.