Jake rummaged in his briefcase. He’d managed to inveigle the name and telephone number of the hotel in Milan out of Alec’s assistant—Neve, probably in a fit of pique, hadn’t bothered to leave it for him. He checked his watch. Would it be too late to phone her now? Jake had no idea of her schedule in Milan—if she’d got any early-morning power breakfasts, he was clearly the last person she’d planned to tell about it. He picked up the phone. This was no good—he had to be in a more conciliatory mood if he was going to ring her at all. Long-distance fighting was never a good idea. Jake took a couple of deep breaths to calm himself. Followed by a couple of deep draughts of beer. He punched in the number of the hotel and asked for Neve Chandler’s room.

The phone in the room was answered after a couple of rings. ‘Hello.’ It was a man’s voice.

‘Oh,’ Jake said. ‘Is Neve Chandler there?’

‘Er…’ the man said. ‘Who’s calling?’

‘What?’ Jake scratched his head. It wasn’t a great telephone line. Sometimes you can dial halfway round the world and talk to someone as clearly as if they were in the next room. This wasn’t one of those times. This was a crackly, static-filled, Italian-type line. Nevertheless, it was a very familiar man’s voice, Jake was sure. Almost sure. ‘Who’s that?’ he asked.

‘Sorry,’ the man said hastily, ‘you’ve got the wrong room.’

Before Jake could think of anything else to say, the line went dead.

He was stunned. That was definitely Alec. It was Alec in Neve’s room. It was gone midnight in the UK—what time did that make it in Italy? Even later, Jake thought blackly. And Alec was in Neve’s room. What should he do? Should he ring back? What if Neve answered this time? What would he want to say to her? Would he want to say anything at all with the possibility of Alec lurking in the background? Then again, what if the hotel operator had put him through to the wrong room?