Page 75 of The Stranger in Room Six

The message is clear.

We need results. Now.

If we can find that list and my boss’s suspicions are correct, Harry will (hopefully) be out of the running. Job done.

Since they’re tightening the screws on me, I need to do the same with Belinda. I decide to pay her a visit.

She looks knackered.

‘I’ve just come off the dementia unit,’ she sighs.

‘Tough, was it?’

‘You can say that again. One of the residents wouldn’t stop banging her head against the window. When I tried to prevent her, she scratched my face.’

I make a sympathetic sound. ‘Nasty. But not as nasty as my boss can get.’

‘I’m done with your threats against me. I’ve tried to find this bloody list but as far as I can see, it’s not there.’

‘Then you need to try harder. Or do you want me to tell your beloved employer that they’ve got a murderer in their midst?’

Her mouth drops. ‘You wouldn’t.’

‘Try me.’

‘That would mean telling them who you are,’ she points out.

‘Not if I say I recognized you from the paper.’

‘That was ages ago,’ she stammers.

‘Your release photos weren’t. Scroll through the internet and you can find anything.

Plus, I wasn’t about to miss my good friend Lady Belinda leaving prison, was I?

’ I can’t resist a snarl here. ‘Not after everything she’d done for me.

So get back to work or I will shop you. And if that doesn’t work, I’ll kill the old lady off.

I’ve got nothing to lose.’ (She’s not to know that my boss has told me not to harm her.) ‘But you, Belinda, could be in big trouble. Because my bosses will kill me if I don’t deliver. And maybe you and your family too.’