A taxi pulled up. Out of it stepped someone he had never seen in the flesh before, only on CCTV images – Mary Arthur. She looked very young and very scared. Costain showed her his warrant card and told her his name and rank. Quill and Lofthouse did the same.

‘Is Russell Vincent really dead?’ she asked.

‘Yeah,’ said Quill. ‘Which makes it a lot easier for us to protect you. If, that is, you’re willing to give evidence in the matter of your dealings with Michael Spatley MP, and what happened on the night of the death of Rupert Rudlin.’

That, thought Costain, might begin to sell a new narrative to the public, one which might indeed send London stumbling off on a different course.

Mary seemed to consider for a moment.

‘There won’t be any reward involved,’ said Lofthouse, gently. ‘There can’t be.’

She looked suddenly angry. ‘I’ll tell you all about it,’ she said. ‘Money isn’t everything.’

Epilogue

EPILOGUE

Sarah Quill was startled to see the name appear on her phone. She felt dizzy, felt the blood come to her face, felt anger rising. She was standing in the hallway, having just stood up from buttoning Jessica into her coat. She answered the call. ‘Who is this?’

‘It’s me, love. No, please, don’t hang up!’

She stopped herself swearing. ‘Who is this…?!’

‘If someone else had called you, I knew you wouldn’t believe it—’

‘Who is this?’

‘It’s me! It’s me! It’s because of … the stuff about me only a few of us know. Okay? Nobody else would believe this. But you can. You can, love, you can!’

She found a terrible hurt inside her. She was dreaming, wasn’t she? She’d had dreams like this in the last few days. This was hurting her with hope. ‘But—’

‘I didn’t want you just to open the front door and see—’

‘Where are you? Are you outside my house?’

‘It’s me, love. I’ve been waiting outside, wondering how to do this. I didn’t want you to open the front door and see me and be shocked by—’ But she’d dropped the phone and was grabbing at the chain and bolt on the door and she flung it open—

There he stood. In someone else’s clothes, but it was him. She reached out, threw a hand at him, expecting somehow to find nothing there. He grabbed it. He pulled her to him. He let her look into his face. He made her look into his face.

All the ability dropped from her lower body and she fell into him. She was … so furious at him. So enormously angry. This was too big … this was too big an impossibility.

‘Daddy!’ said Jessica, coming out to see them, pleased that he was home and nothing more.

Sarah looked to her, and then back at Quill’s face. He was still there.

Quill held out a hand from holding Sarah up. Jessica took it.

‘I went on a long journey,’ he said to her. ‘I came back.’