Putin is becoming more animated on the phone, defensive. Is he being reprimanded for beating her up? She turns away and her heart misses a beat. On the far hillside, across the bay, a familiar figure, a distinctive lumbering gait. She stays very still, aware that she mustn’t alert Putin. Despite the distance, she knows at once that she’s made a spot. It’s Jake. His ursine profile.

Putin hasn’t seen him. He’s still talking on his phone.

‘Can I wave goodbye to Cornwall?’ she manages to say, loudly, to Putin. ‘To England.’ The urge to scream, call out to Jake, is almost unbearable, but she knows that the pain from the neckband will be far worse. ‘It’s somewhere out there.’

He puts a hand over his phone, glances at her and then at the sea, before returning to his conversation. She’s not sure if he’s understood her question. The wind ruffles her hair as she starts to wave out to sea. She checks on Putin and looks towards Jake in the far distance again. She can hear the waves thumping against the rocks, somewhere out of sight far below her. The drop must be vertical. She scans the bay again. High tide, the sea right up against the cliffs where Jake is still visible. She became obsessed with tides in Cornwall, living in tune with their ebb and flow.

And then Putin is off the phone and grabbing her by her wrist again.

‘Come,’ he says, dragging her to the door.

‘You’re hurting me,’ she protests as he pulls out a card with his other hand and holds it against the lock of the warehouse door. She turns to look back one last time. Is that a wave from Jake? Has he seen her? She feels stronger just knowing that he’s nearby. Braver too as she is dragged inside, the door locking behind her.

103

Silas

Silas is still on the phone to his boss, Detective Inspector Ward, stunned by the news that Centaur is about to go live. News that was apparently confirmed by Rob in person.

‘Sir, what exactly has Rob got to do with Centaur?’ he asks, standing outside Rob’s apartment in Shoreditch with Strover.

For a while now Strover has been trying without success to find out who is behind the force’s imminent new facial-recognition software. The details surrounding the Centaur contract are opaque, to put it mildly.

‘It’s one of his start-ups,’ Ward says. ‘He invested in it a while back.’

‘Why didn’t you tell me this?’ Silas asks incredulously.

‘Believe me, I would have done if I could, Silas, but these things are very commercially sensitive. There were also some teething problems. Delays.’