So this is how it’s going to end, Chloe thought, shrinking back against the shell wall. She’d survived leukaemia, chemotherapy, jumping out of an aeroplane – but she’d fallen for this psycho’s lies, had believed he was Shawn. She wondered briefly how he had known about her conversation with Shawn when she was in hospital, but there was no time to mull it over now. Not when she was about to be sliced up and killed.

Sorry, Mum and Dad and Brandon, she whispered. I’m really sorry.

But Pete – or whatever his name really was – did not kill them. Instead he cut the ropes that bound their feet, leaving their hands tied. ‘I’m not going to gag you,’ he said. ‘As you’ve already discovered, nobody can hear you out here. But if either of you makes a noise, I will cut you. I will cut your pretty little faces. I might even cut out your tongues . . .’

Chloe realised she was hyperventilating. She staggered to her knees, and then to her feet. Perhaps if he was taking them somewhere, somebody would see. Somebody would come. Please God, let someone come, she prayed.

This just couldn’t be happening.

‘Stop that fucking noise,’ he said harshly to Jade when she too had managed to stand up. He backhanded her hard across her face, making her fall against the grotto wall. Then he took out a third pair of handcuffs from the backpack, linking the two girls together so they were tied back to back. Chloe felt for Jade’s fingers and gave them a squeeze, but the burn and then the slap seemed to have put Jade into a trance. She had fallen completely silent, and only the heaving of her back and ribs against Chloe’s own back indicated that she was even breathing.

The man calling himself Pete put away the knife and picked up the backpack and the oil lamp.

‘Let’s go,’ he said, cautiously opening the grotto door. It was now almost as dark in the wooded grounds as it had been inside the shell place. He pushed them through and they had to do an awkward kind of sidestep in order to both be able to move in a forward direction, rather than one of them having to walk backwards. They moved in silence along the path under the trees, and Chloe wondered if they were getting back into the car – but when they reached the dark façade of the big house she’d seen earlier, she realised that this was their destination. The building was enormous – a once-grand ivy-covered edifice with towers and turrets and fancy woodwork on the front of it.

Pete prodded them round the back to a large conservatory. One of the panels on the glass double doors was broken, and he put his hand through the hole, deftly twisting the handle from the inside. He must have been here earlier, Chloe thought – there was evidence that it had been boarded up, but now the boards across the door were lying on the ground next to it.

The inside of the house felt even colder than the grotto had done, if that were possible. Glass crunched under their feet as he led them through the conservatory, down a long tiled corridor and through a door that led into some kind of massive room – A ballroom? Chloe wondered, until she saw the stage. No – it was a little theatre, the seats long gone. There was no furniture anywhere – the place looked as though it had been abandoned for years.

Nobody will find us here, Chloe thought in despair. She squeezed Jade’s fingers again, more for her own benefit than Jade’s, although she had started to feel weirdly calm. The man came over and undid the handcuffs connecting them; then he held up the lamp and studied their faces.

‘One at a time?’ he mused, as though talking to himself. ‘Or both together?’

He tipped his head to one side and Chloe thought again how weird that he looked so normal.

‘One at a time,’ he decided out loud. He pointed at Jade. ‘More fun that way. You first.’

Jade began to shake and whimper again. Pete dragged them both to the side of the stage and expertly clipped Chloe’s cuffs to a pipe running up the wall in the wings, behind the thick, dusty old stage curtain.

‘I’ll be back for you in a bit,’ he hissed in Chloe’s face, then turned to Jade. ‘It’s your moment in the limelight,’ he said, smiling a terrible smile at her before marching her back into the centre of the stage.

Chloe couldn’t look. She bent her head and averted her eyes, but could not prevent herself hearing the heavy thud as Jade’s body was pushed to the floor.

And then the screaming started.

Chapter 56

Day 14 – Patrick

Patrick emerged from interview room three, rubbing his stubble and thinking about the story he’d just heard, at the same moment that Carmella opened the door of room one to let Mervyn Hammond and his lawyer out.

‘Mr Hammond has given us a full list of his party guests and the details of the company who provided the catering service,’ Carmella said.

‘I hope you catch him,’ said Mervyn. ‘This business is terrible for OnTarget’s PR.’ He strode off down the corridor, already talking on his phone, Cassandra Oliver hurrying to keep up with him.

‘He can’t help himself, can he?’ said Patrick, amazed that Mervyn couldn’t drop the bad-guy act even now.

‘I kind of like him now, though,’ said Carmella, shrugging. ‘And at least we’ve got the list.’ She held up several sheets of A4 paper. ‘He could actually remember everyone who was there. I guess that’s one of the reasons he’s so good at what he does.’

‘Any names jump out at you?’

‘It looks like the guest list for the BRIT Awards,’ she replied.

They went into interview room one. Patrick needed space and quiet to talk to Carmella, and to pass on what he’d heard from Kai Topper, who was still in the other interview room, just in case they needed to ask him anything else.

Patrick scrutinised the list, each of the names printed by Hammond in cramped block capitals. As Carmella had said, it looked like a who’s who of the British music industry, many names that he recognised – mostly veteran rock stars – but more that meant nothing to him. Shawn Barrett’s name was there, along with Lana Vincent, the woman he’d been secretly sleeping with. Several of the people they’d met at Global Sounds Music were on there too, plus a section headed ‘STAFF’ under which Mervyn had written Kerry Mangan’s name along with his housekeeper and the name of the catering company that had temporarily employed Jade and Kai.

‘Pop stars; magazine editors; record company people; actors; a couple of football players . . .’ Carmella laughed. ‘Hammond asked me if I’d ever thought about a career in the media. Said he could make me famous.’

‘He used that one on me too.’

‘Suddenly I don’t feel special anymore. I told him I’m happy doing this. He called me a mug.’

‘But you still like him?’

She shrugged again. ‘I like people with hidden depths. Not sure why I get along so well with you . . .’

‘Ha ha.’ He frowned suddenly, aware of the ticking clock. ‘I need to tell you what Kai said. Actually, we should get Suzanne in here – she needs to hear this too.’

Patrick decided to tell the story standing up, pacing. It helped him think. As he spoke he looked down at the faces of the two women staring up at him. Carmella, who he would take a bullet for. And Suzanne . . . How did he feel about Suzanne now? When he was in the same room as her he felt more alive; more aware of his body; the blood pumping in his veins; the hairs standing on end on his arms. She cast other people into shadow. But it wasn’t a feeling he enjoyed – or wouldn’t allow himself to enjoy. When he left her company he felt simultaneously saddened and relieved.