However, it looked like good news. Leona Sutherland may have decided to go out tonight, but her study books and papers were all here. She’d be back, if not tonight, then first thing tomorrow morning, to collect them before going in to study.

He spotted a packet of photos on the table and leafed through them. A collection of fresh-faced kids squished together into a tent, pulling faces at the camera. He spotted Leona in only one of them; she would have been taking the pictures.

Her hair was darker in this picture, darker than in the picture he’d been given, and a little longer. She also looked somewhat older. The picture they had secured of her was not as recent as they had assured him it was. No matter, he would recognise her easily. Ash was particularly good with faces.

He smiled - as good as young Leona here.

She had been so silly with that email of hers. But then that was perhaps a harsh judgement; she had no reason to think that was a foolish thing to do. And hers wasn’t a life lived in shadows and under pseudonyms. Her mind wasn’t, by default, switched to checking every room she entered for bugs, checking windows for line-of-sight trajectories with some building across the street.

She wasn’t to blame for attracting her death sentence.

There was nothing else here that was going to help him track down where she was right now; no phone books, no hastily scribbled notes or ‘don’t forget’ memos to herself. He decided it was time to go talk to her flat-mate.

He stepped out of her room into the communal kitchen and squatted down beside the girl, taped up to one of the kitchen stools, and gagged with a strip of tape across her mouth.

‘I’m going to remove the tape,’ he said gently. ‘Don’t tense your lips when I do it, or it’ll rip some of the skin off. Ready?’

She nodded.

Ash grabbed one corner and pulled it quickly. The girl flinched.

‘Right then, to work,’ he said with a tired shrug. ‘Let’s start with an easy one. What’s your name?’

‘A-Alison . . . Alison Derby.’

He nodded. ‘Alison’s good enough for now. Thank you. You can call me Ash. So then, here’s another easy one for you. Do you know where Leona has gone this evening?’

Alison shook her head. ‘No . . . n-no, I d-don’t. She-she never told m-me,’ she replied, her voice trembling uncontrollably.

Ash placed a hand lightly on her shoulder. ‘Okay,’ he laughed gently, ‘okay, I believe you. I know what you kids are like. Spur of the moment and so on.’

Alison nodded again.

He looked around the kitchen, it adjoined the lounge - clearly the one main communal space for them. ‘How many of you share this place?’

‘S-six of us.’

‘And where’s everyone else?’

‘Th-they’ve gone, f-for a reading week.’

‘Skiving?’ smiled Ash.

She nodded.

‘So you’re telling me, it’s just you and Leona here this week.’

She nodded.

‘Well that’s good. No one’s going to come barging in on us then. Very good.’

Alison looked up at him - direct eye contact for the first time. ‘P-please d-don’t rape me . . . I—’

‘Rape you?’ his eyebrows knotted with a look of incredulity. ‘I’m not going to rape you, Alison. What kind of animal do you think I am?’

‘I . . . I’m sorry, I . . . but . . . I just—’

‘Don’t worry,’ he said in little more than a soothing paternal whisper, ‘no raping, Alison. Just some questions is all.’

‘O-okay.’

‘So then, let me see, who is she with?’

‘Dan. Th-that’s her boyfriend.’

‘Dan huh? You know where he lives?’ he asked.

She shook her head.

‘Hummm . . . do you think they’ll come back here tonight?’

She shook her head again. ‘I don’t th-think so.’

‘Why’s that?’

‘She said she was s-staying at h-his tonight.’

Ash stroked his chin. ‘Hmmm. I’d dearly like her to come back here tonight. Call her.’

She shook her head. ‘I c-can’t.’

‘And why’s that?’

‘I d-don’t know her number.’

‘You live together, but you don’t know her number? That’s not a very good lie, Alison.’

‘I’m not lying!’ she whimpered. ‘She replaced her phone a couple of weeks ago.’

‘But you would know her number by now.’

‘I d-don’t! Honest! I just . . . I hardly ever call her, I don’t need to, we see each other all the time.’

He looked down at her, placed a finger under her chin and lifted her face up so that she met his eyes again. That seemed to be the truth. There were no deceitful micro-tics in her expression; no involuntary looking upwards as her mind hastily constructed a piece of fiction.

‘Tell me, what do you think would make her come back here tonight?’

Alison shook her head, ‘I-I don’t . . . kn-know.’

He smiled cheerfully, ‘You know what? I think I’ve got an idea. And you can help.’