“What else is in this room?”
“Nothing. It’s just a...bedroom.”
“Any computer there?”
“No. She’s hugging her knees. She has dark circles under her eyes, like her makeup’s smudged.”
“Interesting.”
“It’s really not. I’m not psychic, Jamie. I’m just a worrier, a pessimist. I’ve watched too much TV. This is stupid.”
“If you were a pessimist, you’d be convinced she was dead. I’m not saying you’re a psychic. I don’t believe in that stuff but I believe we all could pay more attention to our brains.” He slowed for a roundabout. They’d reached the industrial outskirts of a town. The rain had started up again, flat splatters on the windscreen. “Let’s unpack all that. Why do you believe—not think,believe—that she hasn’t committed suicide?”
“The information she had—like you said, she had something to live for. When she gets passionate about something, she doesn’t let up. It doesn’t fit. She wouldn’t just give up like that.”
“And why do you believe she’snotworking for Hyland?”
“Because I know her. But that’s just naive, yes?”
“Not at all. It’s rare that somebody we know and trust that deeply will...betray us. When people do betray us, we usually find that the warning signs have been there all along and we’ve simply ignored them because we haven’t wanted to believe it.” Again his tone seemed weighted with something. Sorrow? Regret? “You get that niggling feeling. Just like the patient getting the ‘shock’ diagnosis.”
She stared at the wipers. Left, right, left, right, left, right... “And it’s also because all her electronic equipment had gone—everything. If she was working for them, if they trusted her, why would they need to take her Xbox, her security cameras, her modem...?”
“Good—that’s dead right.”
Left, right, left, right. “Which also means she must have some evidence they’re trying to pinpoint. The postcard couldn’t have been just Hyland’s trick to lure me out.”
“And her handwriting?”
“I must have seen it somewhere, sometime—in a birthday card maybe. It just seems right. And, of course, the avatars she mentioned in her postcard—only the three of us would know those.” She grimaced. “The two of us.”
“The room you saw her in, where did that come from?”
“I have no idea.”
“Let’s break it down. The lack of computers...?”
“Hyland’s men had been in her flat. She hasn’t been on social media. If she’d given up on me coming to get the evidence, she would have found another way to release it. She wouldn’t rest.”
“And yet, in your mind picture, she was doing nothing.”
“Oh my God, so shehasbeen captured?” Samira stared at Jamie, then recoiled. “I can’t believe I’m starting to believe this.”
“So far it’s totally believable, whether you’re thinking logically or instinctively. Your instinct just got there a lot quicker and had to wait for logic to catch up.”
She opened her mouth to argue but the words wouldn’t come.
“Next question. Is there a niggle in your brain—is your brain trying to tell you something more? Do you have a feeling you’re missing something?”
He turned onto a shopping street. What did they call it here—the high street? “Plenty of things. But I don’t know what I don’t know, do I?”
“Don’t force it. Let it come when it’s ready. Be open to it but don’t go searching for it.”
“You’re sounding like a TV medium.”
He laughed, deep and sexy. Which did things to her. Dear God, if she let instinct have its way...
He pulled into an angle park near a Boots. She’d swear she could smell the blood from his wound, sharp and iron-like.
