"Alex Reece," she said slowly.

"What?" I said, astounded. "The weasel accountant?"

"Alex is not a weasel," she said defensively. "He's lovely."

I thought back to the hours I had spent chained to a wall, and I couldn't agree with her. "So was it you and Alex Reece who chained me to a wall to die?" I was suddenly very angry, and it showed.

"No," she said. "Of course not. What are you talking about?"

"I'm talking about you leaving me to die of dehydration."

She was shocked. "I have absolutely no idea what you're talking about."

"Told you that he'd come back and let me go, did he?" I asked, my anger still very close to the surface.

"He didn't tell me anything of the sort," she said.

"But you did help him to kidnap me?" I shouted at her.

"Tom, stop it," she pleaded. "You're frightening me. And I really don't know what you are talking about. I have never kidnapped anyone in my life, and I've certainly never chained anyone to anything. I promise."

"Why should I believe you?" I asked. But I had seen the fear in her eyes, and I did believe her. But if she hadn't helped kidnap and chain me to a wall, who had?

Or could Alex Reece, my mother's blackmailer, really not be the same person as my would-be murderer?

There was very little else that Julie had to tell me. She collected the package from the mailbox shop in Newbury only when Alex Reece was unable to do so, and she didn't even know how much money was in it. When we finally went downstairs to her kitchen and she took the package from her handbag, she could hardly believe her eyes when I removed the two thousand pounds.

"It's no game," I told her. "Two thousand every week is no game."

"But she can afford it," Julie said, defiantly.

"No, she can't. And why would that make any difference, even if she could?"

"Alex says it's just redistributing the wealth," she said.

"And that makes it all right, does it?" She said nothing. "Suppose I just steal your brand-new BMW to 'redistribute the wealth.' Is that then OK with you? Or do you call the cops?"

"Alex says-" she started.

"I don't care what Alex says," I shouted, cutting her off. "Alex is nothing more than a common thief, and he clearly saw you coming. And the sooner you realize it, the better it will be for you. Or else you'll be in the dock with him, and then in prison."

And now, I thought, it was time for me to meet again with Mr. Alex Reece, and I had absolutely no intention of letting him see me coming.

"When and where are you meant to give this package to Reece?" I asked.

"He gets back tomorrow."

"From where?" I asked.

"Gibraltar," she said. "He went there with the Garraways on Tuesday."

So it couldn't have been him who unlocked the gates of Greystone Stables on Thursday evening.

"So when are you meant to give him the package?" I demanded.

She clearly didn't want to tell me, but I stood next to her, drumming my fingers noisily on the kitchen worktop. "He said to bring it to Newbury on Monday," she said eventually.

"Where in Newbury?"

"There's a coffee shop in Cheap Street," she said. "That's where we always meet on Friday mornings. Except this week, of course, when he was away."

Thank goodness for that, I thought.

"So are you meeting him at the coffee shop on Monday?" I asked.

"Yes," she replied. "At ten-thirty."

It was far too public a place for what I wanted to do to him.

"Change it," I said. "Get him to collect it from here."

"Oh no. He won't ever come here. He refuses to."

"So where else do you two get together?" I didn't think a cup of coffee or two in Newbury would be quite sufficient to satisfy her other cravings.

"At his place," she said, blushing slightly.

"Which is where?" I asked impatiently.

"Greenham," she said.

Greenham was a village that had almost been consumed by the ever-expanding sprawl of Newbury town. It was most famous for its common, and the U.S. cruise missiles that had been based there at the height of the Cold War. Everyone in these parts knew of Greenham Common, and remembered the peace camps erected by antinuclear protesters.

"Where in Greenham?" I demanded.

"What are you going to do to him?"

"Nothing," I said. "As long as he cooperates."

"Cooperates how?" she asked.

"If he gives me my mother's money back, then I'll let him go."

I'd also take her tax papers.

"And if he doesn't?" she asked.

"Then I'll persuade him," I said, smiling.

"How?" she said. "Will you take photos of him naked too?"

"I doubt that," I said. "But I'll think of something."

Blitzkrieg is a German word that means "lightning war." It was used to describe the attacks on Poland, France and the Low Countries by the Nazis. Unlike the war of attrition that had existed for mile after hundred-mile of trenches in Flanders during World War I, blitzkrieg was the surprise and overwhelming attack on just a few points in the enemy's line. An attack that drove straight through to the heart of political power almost before any of the defenders had had a chance to react.

The blitzkrieg unleashed by the German forces on Poland had started on the first day of September 1939, and within a week, Wehrmacht tanks and troops were in the suburbs of Warsaw, nearly two hundred miles from their starting point. The whole of Poland had capitulated within five weeks at a cost of only ten thousand Germans killed. Compare that to the advance of only six miles gained in four and a half months by British and French troops at the Battle of the Somme, and at a cost of more than six hundred thousand dead and wounded on each side.

So if the past had taught the modern soldier anything, then it was that blitzkrieg-like "shock and awe" was the key to victory in battle, and I had every intention of creating some shock and awe in the life of one Alex Reece.

Bush Close in Greenham was full of those ubiquitous modern little box houses, and number sixteen, Alex Reece's home, was one at the far end of the cul-de-sac.

It was late Saturday afternoon, and I had left Julie Yorke in a state of near collapse. I had merely suggested to her that to have any contact whatsoever with Alex Reece in the next thirty-six hours, in person, by e-mail or by phone, would be reason enough for me to send the explicit photographs to her husband, in addition to posting them on my new Facebook page on the Internet.

She had begged me to delete the pictures from my camera, but as I had pointed out, it was she and Alex who had started this blackmail business, and they really couldn't now complain if they were receiving a bit of their own medicine.

I had parked Ian Norland's car out on Water Lane in Greenham and had walked around the corner into Bush Close. I was carrying a pile of free newspapers that I had picked up at a petrol station, and I walked down the road, pushing one of them through every letter box. The houses were not identical, but they were similar, and number sixteen had the same style of plastic-framed front door as all the others.

"What time does Alex get back?" I had asked Julie.

"His plane lands at Heathrow at six-twenty tomorrow evening."

"And how does he get home to Greenham?"

"I've no idea."

I lingered for a moment outside the front door of number sixteen and adjusted the pile of remaining newspapers. I glanced around, looking for suitable hiding places, but the short driveway was bordered by nothing but grass. I looked to see which of the other houses had a direct line of sight to the front door of number sixteen, set back as it was beside the single garage.

Only number fifteen, opposite, had an unobstructed view.