Good! That's what I'd missed before. But now . . . good very good!

Now I was back in the present, looking out of the train at the lad on the platform. The same eyes and lashes, the same hostile stare when he saw me watching him. He backed behind the service trolley and I lost him again.

Alex came off the bridge and ran past my carriage, heading for the ticket barrier. I leaned out of the door. 'Who was that?' I yelled.

He didn't stop to answer, just threw a name in my direction 'Micky Cooke!'

'No, not Micky the other one!'

'Chris Micky's brother. He's a wanker.'

The words faded, doors slammed, the station manager blew a whistle and my train pulled out.

Chris Cooke Micky's brother, alias the guy on the stolen Toyota, alias the man in the stable yard in the grey Adidas hoodie. Things rolled and glided into place like the chilled drawers containing corpses in a hospital morgue. They closed with a soft thud on the lives of the two people who had died.

Lately we'd been through what felt like an age of freezing rain and heavy skies, but today was sunny forgive the weather report, but it was a decent distraction while staring out of the window. My train sped smoothly through the countryside, in and out of tunnels.

We were thirty minutes from Paddington and I'd turned off my phone. I hadn't sent the text to Jack.

Chris Cooke Chris Cooke Chris Cooke. The name clicked rhythmically through my head. Sunlight to shade, sunlight to shade.

It turned out that the figure at the centre of all the bad things that had happened since Lily's body was dragged from the lake was Micky's brother. I was stuck on this fact, not getting any further until I changed focus the guy at the centre of all the bad things was the son of the man who worked at the morgue!

All workers at the hospital would need ID; they would know codes to get them into certain high-security areas, including the morgue. Maybe Chris's dad was careless with his badge or pass, maybe he jotted down security-code reminders at home in case his memory let him down in which case it was plain sailing for Chris to pick up confidential information and access his dad's workplace.

I was thinking yes, Chris Cooke could definitely find a way to get inside the hospital morgue and perform that mind-blowingly nasty mutilation on Lily's corpse.

Chris Cooke Chris Cooke Chris Cooke. The tempo slowed as the train approached the suburbs. I looked out of the window at graffiti sprayed on to concrete walls, at the backs of big terraced houses, row after endless row.

From Paddington I took the tube to Euston and came up the escalators on to the wide concourse leading out on to Euston Road. From there it was a twenty-minute, traffic-swamped walk to the Comco offices.

Yeah Comco. This was the secret plan that had grown in my brain and was just about to bear fruit.

I passed office blocks belonging to banks and building societies, walked across paved plazas with Costas and Starbuckses, then a grassed area with contemporary sculptures then more shiny office blocks.

Outside the Comco tower were two cold, coatless women and a man in shirtsleeves smoking and drinking coffee. Inside was a reception area with white leather sofas and acres of travertine on floors and walls. Two receptionists, a man and a woman, sat behind a vast glass-and-steel desk and viewed me with cool disdain.

'I'm here to see Adam Earle,' I told the one nearest to the revolving glass door.

'Do you have an appointment?' he asked.

'No, but he'll see me.'

'I don't think so.'

'Tell him it's Alyssa Stephens.'

The receptionist was unimpressed. 'I could tell him it was the prime minister and you'd still need an appointment to see Mr Earle.'

At this point I felt like banging my head on one of the travertine walls. 'Look, are you even going to try?'

'Not unless you make '

'An appointment!' I snapped. Funnily enough, I hadn't predicted this problem, which shows you I didn't yet belong to the world of work.

A woman in a suit tip-tapped by in stilettos, a courier in a helmet handed a parcel over the desk.

'OK, I'll make an appointment,' I conceded. 'Can you put me through to Adam Earle's PA, please?'

The receptionist was busy looking at a screen and tapping at a keyboard. Behind him a lift door opened and, guess what, Robert and Adam Earle stepped out with their entourage. Within ten seconds they were through reception, out on the pavement and getting into a supersized silver car.

I don't know if the Earles even glanced in my direction and if they did they certainly didn't acknowledge me.

'Maybe write the PA an email?' the receptionist suggested with a big dollop of triumph.

It had been easy to look up the location of Comco, but I guessed Adam Earle didn't advertise his home address. I Googled him over a cup of coffee at the nearest Pret a Manger.

No right. I was stuck unless I hung out here within sight of Comco's revolving door and waited for Adam to come back from whatever meeting he and his tyrant dad had gone to.

Three coffees later I was buzzing from a caffeine overdose and still waiting.

'Hello, Alyssa,' a voice said over my shoulder.

I jumped out of my skin.

As I steadied myself, Adam sat down on the stool next to mine. He was dressed in a dark blue suit and white shirt, but his pale blue tie was loosened and the top button open. 'I'm sorry about Paige,' he said.

'I'm sorry, you're sorry, everyone's sorry.'

'I saw you in reception. I invented an excuse and got back as quick as I could, hoping that you'd hang around. I knew it must be important.'

'Thanks.' Thanks that he'd made this special effort, and thanks that he'd come through as a genuine, caring human being and not the automaton that he'd first seemed.

'Has anything happened? Did you find out any more about the baby's father?'

'No. I heard you made them do the DNA test.'

'No result yet, but it won't be much use anyway until the police are able to pin down a suspect. They'll need to find a match.'

'There is something else,' I confessed against the clink of crockery and the hum of conversation. 'Just a few hours back, in Ainslee Westgate, I found out the name of the guy who rode his motorbike at me then attacked Paige's horse. He's called Chris Cooke he lives in Chartsey and he would be able to get access to the Queen Elizabeth morgue.'

Adam had taken out his phone and was on the point of making a call to Inspector Cole before I stopped him.

'Yeah I'm not finished yet. Chris Cooke is local, but I think there's something much bigger going on. That's what I want to talk to you about.'

'What do you mean how could it be bigger?' Adam spoke slowly, as if what I'd said didn't come as a complete surprise. I saw him retreat temporarily behind his robot shield.

'Suppose he's a small cog in someone else's very big wheel,' I suggested.

'Which someone?'

'Not an individual, more an organized group.' I knew I had to come out and say what was on my mind, but it was proving tricky. I decided to find another way in. 'So how's Anna?' I asked.

'No change.'

'Is she still seeing her rabbi?'

'No, my father put a stop to that. He was convinced it was adding to her confusion.'

'Plus, I expect he doesn't want to draw attention to her religious beliefs,' I said pointedly.

The point must have been needle-sharp because Adam reacted as if he'd been stung or bitten a silent ouch! and then an attempt to brush the insect off his neck.

'I guess you planned to mention her connection to Lion Films eventually' I went on. 'And the free newspapers, the TV station and especially the planned expose of the international neo-Nazi groups?'

'What has this got to do with finding Lily's killer?' he protested. 'Isn't that what you're meant to be doing?'

'That's what I am doing. So tell me about Comco's ownership of Lion Films for starters. Who set that up Anna or your father?'

'Anna,' Adam said reluctantly. 'She brought family money into the business when she married my dad a lot. It makes her a major shareholder and she can make executive decisions. Besides which, her family has a long history of supporting Israeli-based arts organizations dance groups, orchestras, theatres. It wasn't out of character for Anna to establish Lion Films. She named it after the biblical story of Daniel in the lion's den.'

'How long?' I asked.

'You mean, how long is the family history of funding the arts? It goes way back to the 1920s and 30s.'

'So have they ever been targets of fascist organizations before now?'

Adam nodded almost imperceptibly. 'Yes. Back then they owned a chain of cinemas, which were destroyed by arsonists organized by the IUF the International Union of Fascists. That's partly why Anna was so determined to launch Lion Films and fund the expose in the first place as a tribute to her grandparents, who she thought were heroes.'

'And more recently?' I memorized the name International Union of Fascists then pushed harder. 'Have there been actual protests against Lion Films?'

This time the answer took even longer.

'Yes,' Adam sighed. 'Some big-name actors have refused to work for Lion and some premieres have been disrupted one in LA, one in Chicago.'

'What was Anna's reaction?'

'Hmm.' Adam gave a small shake of his head. 'Anna may look as if a puff of wind would knock her over, but underneath she has a hidden stubborn streak. She said the protests wouldn't put her off making the big documentary.'

'And what about your dad?'

'Oh, well, he was in two minds. On the one hand, he didn't see any good reason to hang on to an offshoot of Comco that didn't produce much profit and was drawing the wrong kind of publicity. On the other hand, he always hates being put under pressure from extremists of any sort it makes him bite right back. Look, Alyssa, this all seems miles away from what we should be focusing on.'

'Not really.' In fact, I had an increasingly heavy, depressing sense that history could, in fact, repeat itself. Mosley's Blackshirts and the boycotts and protests surrounding Lion Films might be separated by eight decades, but there were too many similarities to ignore. 'Anyway, who won the argument Anna or your father?'

'It's ongoing,' he told me. 'Or it was until he had Anna sectioned and tucked safely away. Now, God knows.'

'And who led the recent protests?' I had to know who we were talking about and how they might have tentacles long enough to stretch into a Cotswold backwater like Chartsey Bottom.

Adam's brain was busy making the same connections as I'd made and his replies came more slowly then ever. 'We investigated and found out it was an obscure group called the CRP Campaign for Racial Purity. They're associated with other right-wing nationalist parties but they're less organized and more secretive.'

'And more violent?' I added. CRP Campaign for Racial Purity here was another name to hand over to historical bloodhound Hooper.

'I can't say that for sure.' Adam did more head shaking and seemed lost in that maze of uncomfortable thoughts. 'What I do know is they kept up the pressure against Comco and my father.'

'And?' I prompted.

'They said if he didn't halt the investigation into the CRP, they would take action against members of his family.'

'Ouch!' I shook my head in disbelief. 'Why didn't this come out earlier?'

'Because Comco is an enormous, multinational organization and the world is full of crazy individuals. We get phone hackers, spies and nutcases contacting us every day of the week.'

'You didn't take the threat seriously?'

'Alyssa, you have to believe me neither I nor my mother knew about it at the time it was happening. It's not something my father told us about until after Lily disappeared.'

This helped explain why Adam hadn't hit the panic button when Lily first disappeared, why he and Anna had waited almost a week to show up at St Jude's. 'She was meant to come home,' I reminded him.

'When she didn't make it, I wasn't surprised,' he explained. 'She was seriously off the rails by this time and I resented the fact that my father had left me to do the dirty work as far as Lily was concerned. He wasn't on hand to deal with family stuff remember, he was still in Chicago.'

'And when he did find out about her disappearance, how did he react?'

'Dad says he still didn't link it up with the CRP. He just blamed Lily for refusing to obey the order to come home.'

'Unbelievable,' I said, shaking my head in total disgust. I'd taken as much as I could stomach for now of the dysfunctional, mega-rich and ruthless Robert Earle so I picked up my bag and walked away from Adam without saying goodbye.

Turn right out of Pret A Manger then left down the Euston Road, striding out at top speed. Take the tube to Paddington and a late-afternoon express train straight back to ye ancient Cotswold town of Ainslee.

chapter fifteen.

All the way home I made a million high-speed neural connections, synapse to synapse, and by the time the express train pulled into my station I had a clear new map of events in my brain.

Tyrant Earle had ignored the CRP threat to harm his family. Dealing with it had been so far down his to-do list that he hadn't even informed Anna, who had pressed ahead with her plans for the CRP expose, oblivious. And, what do you know, the bunch of political activists, or at least one lunatic member of the group, had eventually got mad enough with the head of Comco to carry out the threat. The kidnap had gone ahead.

Stay with me on this.

Lily had been going through her own personal Armageddon. She'd got pregnant by someone other than Jayden she'd already flown to the smiley-face heights of hoping that he was the daddy and plunged like Icarus into a shark-infested sea of despair when she'd learned he wasn't.

Did she want to keep the baby anyway? We'll never know. Maybe her fleeing-from-St-Jude's-disguised-as-suicide plan included an abortion, or maybe she intended to go through with the pregnancy and put the baby up for adoption, or even keep it. In any case, into this gut-wrenching mix comes a bunch of racial purists and one or more of them kidnaps her before she gets the chance to decide.

What happens next? Does the CRP put more pressure on Robert Earle? Does he still refuse to play their game? Do they lose it with him and kill Lily? Or does something else go wrong? I hadn't figured out that part before the guard's announcement came over the intercom: 'This train will shortly be arriving at Ainslee Westgate. Please remember to take all your belongings with you.'