Stone pushed the papers and the photo back across the table. ‘Can’t or won’t?’

‘Both,’ Sadie said firmly, shoving the documents into her bag. She refused to be manipulated into doing something she didn’t feel comfortable with – and spending an evening with Nathan Stone was pretty much at the top of the list.

‘Shame,’ he said slyly, ‘because now I come to think about it, your old man does look kind of familiar. I think he may well live round here. Still, if you’re not interested…’

Sadie stood up, intending to leave, but then hesitated. What if she was throwing away her best chance of finding Eddie? And all for the sake of a few hours down a dog track. What was the worst that could happen? It wasn’t as if she’d even be alone with him; Mr Investor and his wife would be there too.

Stone bent his head over the ledger again, running a finger down one of the columns. After a while, aware that she was still standing there, he glanced up again and said, ‘I’m sorry, was there something else?’

‘Tomorrow night. Strictly business, yes?’ she asked.

‘Absolutely.’

‘And then you’ll tell me where Eddie is?’

Stone gave a nod. ‘I’ll do my best.’

Sadie wondered if she could trust him. Well, of course she couldn’t, but there was probably more chance of tracking down Eddie with his help than without it. ‘Okay,’ she said. ‘You’ve got a deal.’

Nathan Stone’s expression was smug. ‘Where are you staying then?’

‘Oaklands, opposite the station.’

‘Fine. I’ll pick you up at seven.’

As Sadie walked away, she couldn’t work out whether she’d just been very smart or very stupid. On balance, she suspected it was the latter. Still, it was done now. There was no turning back. Whatever the consequences, she would have to live with them.

4

Mona Farrell watched as her father walked across the living room, went to the cabinet, gazed at the bottles for a moment and then proceeded to pour a stiff scotch. There was a chink of ice cubes against glass as he carried the drink back to his armchair and sat down. She studied him while pretending not to, her fingers flicking through the pages of the magazine while her eyes made their careful scrutiny.

She was trying to work out which part of him she hated most: the curved dome of his paunch straining against the cotton of his white shirt, his heavy, jowly face with its piggy eyes or his abnormally small feet sheathed in a pair of brown leather brogues. Then, of course, there was his hair, thin and sandy coloured, brushed back from a wide forehead. Or his fleshy fingers with their neat manicured nails. And that was just the physical stuff. When it came to personality, she hardly knew where to begin.

It was quite remarkable, she thought, that one man could be in possession of so many ugly traits. He was arrogant, controlling, overbearing, greedy and callous. He was conceited and quick-tempered. He was a snob. Already he was eagerly looking forward to the New Year’s Honours list when he would, or so he’d been assured by people in the know, be receiving a knighthood for services to industry. She gave an inner hiss. Services? Since when did manufacturing arms count as a bloody service? It was a disgrace, a crime against humanity. And when he became Sir Paul Farrell he’d be even more pompous than he already was.

It was hot and stuffy in the room, the radiators blasting out a fierce heat. The curtains were pulled across but, even above the noise of the television, she could hear the sound of the rain battering against the windows. Her mother was staring at the screen with a glazed expression on her face. Beside her, on the small mahogany table, was a glass of vodka and tonic. Not the first of the day, and probably not even the third or fourth.

Once, a long time ago, Christine Naylor had been considered a catch. In her twenties she’d been a socialite, a tall willowy blonde, a model who had appeared on the front cover of Vogue. Now, although still slim and attractive, there was something brittle about her, something fragile and damaged. He had done that. He had made her weak and shallow and stupid.

Mona returned to studying her father, aware from his scowl that he still had the hump with her. They’d been late, almost twenty minutes late, for the appointment and he hated wasting money. It was Dr Lund’s policy to charge for the whole hour no matter what time his patients arrived – a nice arrangement for him, but not so agreeable to those who had to struggle with the vagaries of London’s public transport system.

‘It wasn’t my fault,’ she said, for the tenth time that night.

‘You should have got an earlier train.’

‘Why? I’m not psychic. How was I to know there were going to be signal problems?’

‘Nothing’s ever your fault, Mona. One day, perhaps, you’ll start taking responsibility for your actions.’

Oh, here it comes, she thought, another damn lecture. He just couldn’t help himself. She wrinkled her nose and closed her ears, letting the words wash over her. Responsibility… disappointment… duty… It was always the same. He was like a stuck record repeating the same pathetic complaints over and over.

Of course if it hadn’t been for that unfortunate ‘incident’ a year ago, she’d never have been forced to see Lund in the first place. He was an unpleasant skinny man with a protruding Adam’s apple and a reddish beard. A psychoanalyst. At least that’s what he called himself. Money for old rope was what she called it. All he did was sit there in that black leather chair, asking stupid questions about her childhood and making odd little bobbing gestures with his head.

Perhaps Lund thought the beard made him look like Freud. She wasn’t up to speed with Freud’s theories, but had an idea that he’d believed the root of most women’s problems lay in some kind of sexual neurosis. But then he would have believed that, wouldn’t he? He was a man and all they thought about was sex. Well, sex and money. Lund was probably of the opinion that deep down she wanted to sleep with her father whereas all she really wanted to do was to kill him.

Lund had only asked her once about the fire. Had it been an accident or…? And she had told him the truth, or at least as much of the truth as she’d felt like telling him, that the house was a Gothic monstrosity, a blot on the landscape, and that she’d been doing Hampstead a favour by attempting to raze it to the ground. She was not sure if he’d taken her seriously. What she hadn’t mentioned – she didn’t trust doctors or their confidentiality clauses – was that she’d been hoping to dispatch her father at the same time.

‘Are you listening to me?’

Mona gazed at her father and raised her eyebrows. ‘I don’t need to listen. I know it all off by heart.’

‘And I’ll go on repeating it until you finally start to take some notice.’

‘You could have a long wait.’

Her father gave a grunt and leaned forward to retrieve the Financial Times from the coffee table. She saw his eyes flash with anger as his gaze fell on the copy of Socialist Worker she had deliberately left lying underneath. On the front cover was a tirade about Neil Kinnock’s suspension of the Liverpool District Labour Party after a Trotskyite militant group had tried to take control.

‘What’s that rag doing here?’ he snarled. ‘What have I told you about bringing that rubbish into this house?’

‘It’s not a rag,’ she replied calmly. ‘Just because you don’t agree with its views, doesn’t make it worthless. Anyway, if I was you I’d be keeping a close eye on the enemy. It’s always good, don’t you think, to know what they’re up to?’