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Reid didn’t want to admit to anyone, including himself, how much his head and jaw were hurting, or how hard he was finding it to concentrate. He kept finding himself drifting off midway through conversations and then jumping back to himself in confusion.

He’d managed to read a little more of Anna’s email in the cab, but increasing nausea had eventually stopped him. He’d fallen asleep for a while despite the way the bumps in the road were sending lancing pain through his head, and had woken groggily when he’d arrived at Finsbury Park.

He’d now forwarded the email to the DCI, anyway.

It had been shared with Dom Davies and his team.

It was brutally embarrassing to have his colleagues read it, but it was also something that needed to happen, especially while his faculties weren’t working properly.

They all needed to read it, and to take it seriously.

He’d thought about trying to edit out some of Anna’s more humiliating observations, and more urgently about deleting everything that might cause her professional issues later– the segments about Kit in particular.

But in the end his unfocused vision and the huge difficulty of editing anything on a phone had made him realise he just had to send it as was and deal with the consequences later.

Dom was now in charge of finding Anna. He hadn’t hesitated over taking it all on and had called them in for a briefing with his usual cheerful energy.

Reid had watched his almost triangular form– stacked with muscle from years of MMA training– move around the briefing room and had felt both guilt and gratitude.

He owed Dom a conversation, and probably an apology for the way he’d shut him out for the past two years.

He needed to explain how hard he’d found it, accepting that he’d overlooked those WhatsApp messages from his colleagues.

And maybe, just maybe, that he’d been too black-and-white about it.

But right now they had to work together because, as Anna’s ex-boyfriend, Reid was too closely involved to be senior investigating officer.

If Reid was honest, it was a relief to have someone else taking control. He knew he wasn’t with it enough to drive this thing forwards, but he had to be here. The alternative was to walk away from Anna all over again, and he wasn’t willing to do that.

Kav Rohin let himself into the briefing room at a point when Reid had drifted off again, and Reid blinked in an effort to focus as the DC said, ‘Got location info on Roland Frankland. He’s in Madrid.’

Reid took a moment to remember that finding Kit’s father had been his request, back when he’d been the only one doing this. Because of the room at Trinity. And the attack.

‘Madrid?’ he asked.

‘Yeah, ANPR caught his reg going towards Stansted,’ Kav said, ‘so I checked with passport control. He got on the three forty this afternoon.’

‘Thanks,’ Dom said. ‘Nothing on the son?’

‘I’ve left him a message asking him to come in urgently,’ Kav said. ‘But his friends haven’t seen him and the college porters say he’s not in his room.’

‘OK, I want someone to head round to his dad’s house,’ Dom said. ‘That’s, what, Kew?’

‘Yeah, I can get the address,’ Kav agreed.

‘Someone needs to be chasing the urgent authorisation on Anna’s phone records.

It shouldn’t be taking this long. And let’s pursue one on Kit Frankland.

I want eyes on James Sedgewick as soon as possible.

And I want CCTV from South Mimms, too. It’s possible that ping was before or after Anna pulled in there. ’

Between one blink and the next, they were scattering, presumably to do what Dom had asked. Reid got to his feet and was alarmed to find the room tilting and his vision closing in on him for a good few seconds while a ferocious pain shot through his head.

The moment it had cleared he staggered out to his desk and sat heavily, leaning down to rifle in the drawer.

‘Are you all right, mate?’

It was Dom’s voice, and when he looked up Reid realised that they were the only two still in that section of the building. Kav and the other DCs had left and there was nobody else still working.

It must have been late, he thought, trying to focus on the clock on the far wall. Did it say eleven thirty? Or was it half twelve?

He closed his eyes, suddenly unable to stand the brightness of the room.

‘Reid?’ Dom asked.

‘I’m just… looking for painkillers,’ Reid said, making an effort to open his eyes again.

‘Stay there,’ Dom said, reaching into his own desk. ‘I’ve got tramadol and ibuprofen. You OK with opiates?’

Reid felt wretched with guilt, even through everything else he was feeling. Here was Dom, helping him when he least deserved it.

‘I would… actually love some opiates.’

He saw Dom give a slightly strange smile and then nod, but he was too weary and in too much pain to do any more than sit back in his comfortable desk chair and shut his eyes once more.

He had the unsettling sensation from that point on of only being kept awake by Dom bustling around. But when he felt a hand on his shoulder he managed to force his eyes open and take the offered three tablets and glass of water.

‘The packets are there for another dose in four hours, then another in the morning. Just make sure you take some laxatives tomorrow,’ Dom added, ‘or you won’t shit for a week.’

‘I… thank you,’ Reid said. And he did suddenly feel a rush of gratitude, both that Dom’s MMA career meant he was now a walking pharmacy and that he was willing to ignore all of Reid’s behaviour towards him over the last two years and help when he needed it.

He swallowed the pills and tried to focus on Dom’s concerned face.

‘Are you sure you should be here, mate?’

‘I’m… I really need to be.’

He felt a sense of relief as Dom nodded.

‘OK. But you know I’m not going to let anything happen to her if I can avoid it, right?’

‘Thanks, Dom.’

Once Dom had returned to his desk, and presumably to reading or checking what he’d been sent about Anna, Reid opened his own phone and loaded up Anna’s email.

But he couldn’t seem to focus on the screen.

Even unlocking the keypad was difficult, and then the tiny email font was next to impossible to decipher.

Plus, the screen started to do weird things. Like locking itself.

Every time it did, the time seemed to have jumped forward by five minutes without warning, and Reid felt like the phone was messing with him. He wanted to hurl it to the floor, but part of him remembered that this was important.

He was feeling too hot. Suffocated by the shirt and tie. Why had he put them on?

He pulled at his collar and then realised in a rush that he was going to be sick. So he lunged for the waste bin and vomited a stomach full of bile into it.

‘Jesus,’ he heard Dom say. Reid could hear him moving over but felt unable to lift his head. ‘Reid, mate, are you…?’

There was a sudden painful, sharp sensation on his cheek, the only signal to Reid that he’d fallen sideways onto the wiry carpet. There was noise behind him and then the sound of Dom muttering, ‘Fuck,’ before, closer by, he heard, ‘OK, mate. We’re going to the hospital.’

‘You can’t,’ Reid said, though it was a loose-lipped blur of sound. ‘Need to find her.’

‘It’ll take an hour to get you through A & E, tops, the state you’re in,’ Dom said, ‘and I’ve got the team on this. I can be on the phone.’

Reid pushed himself up to his knees and shoved the phone into his pocket. At least if he had that, he could do something, too.

And then he was sick again. It was a thin dribble of liquid this time, but his body still wanted to keep retching for a while. He tried to straighten up once he was done, before feeling a strong grip under his arms.

He was more glad than he’d ever been that Dom was six feet of muscle-bound, trained-up MMA fighter. His legs felt like snakes somewhere beneath him.

‘Come on, mate,’ Dom said, and in strange little bursts of awareness Reid found himself moved into the lift and then down to the underground car park.

He did his best to help Dom bundle him into the car and felt overwhelmingly relieved when he was finally sitting down with the door closed and his seat belt on. The headrest felt like soft bliss behind him.

It was only as he was drifting off into a strange sleep that he thought of the tablets Dom had given him. The sickness. The fact that nobody else had seen him leave.

Dom, who he couldn’t really trust. Who was corrupt.

Forcing his eyes open, he picked up his phone to try to send a message, but the screen was a shattered mess in front of his eyes. Moments later, his eyes had slid shut and there was nothing he could do to save himself from the blackness.