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full day and his professionalism told him that he shouldn’t leave until Griff Merricks gave him formal permission. The daily rate he was being paid was quite impressive, and Charles didn’t want to screw up the chances of further work in this lucrative area by being absent when needed.
    He contemplated finding a local pub to pass the next hour. But he hadn’t seen any when he arrived at the station, and no doubt if there was one around, it would be just another outpost of the Delmoleen resentment of strangers.
    Disconsolately, but vigorously, as if his movement had some purpose, Charles strode back towards the warehouse. He’d left his raincoat there, apart from anything else. And in his raincoat pocket was a potential lifesaver. Not, he reflected virtuously – if a little wistfully – a half-bottle of Bell’s, but something much more wholesome – a copy of
Persuasion
. He did find rereading Jane Austen every few years wonderfully therapeutic.
    As he entered the warehouse, the huge space was very still.
    But it was not completely silent. From somewhere in the distant stacks Charles could hear the hum of an electric motor.
    He moved towards the source of the sound.
    It was in the aisle they had used for the filming. Where he had left his forklift truck, a pile of loose cartons, fallen from a shelf above, lay scattered on the ground. The truck itself had moved forward and was embedded into the pile of empty pallets which stood against the wall at the end of the aisle. Its engine still protested as it pressed against the slowly splintering wood.
    Charles tried to work out what could have happened. If the ignition had been left switched on and the motor running, it was just possible, given the looseness of the gear lever, that one of the falling cartons could have knocked it and engaged the engine. Then the truck would have moved forward.
    But that did assume that the motor had been left running.
    And Charles knew he had switched the ignition off.
    It was as he had this thought that he heard the other sound.
    Lower than the mechanical hum of the forklift engine, and more human.
    He moved forward, suddenly panicked.
    Yes, through the slats of the pallets, slumped against the foot of the wall, he could see a human shape.
    The moaning was ominously low and feeble.
    Charles Paris leapt into the seat of the forklift and pulled the gear lever into reverse. The truck jerked back, dragging some of the pallets with it. Others toppled noisily to the ground.
    Charles disengaged the gear and switched off the ignition.
    Then he tugged at the heavy pile of pallets to clear them from the wall. His hands snagged on the rough wood. He was aware of splinters digging in, but felt no pain.
    As he pulled back the last obstruction, the moaning was interrupted by a little gasp, almost a sigh of pain.
    Charles looked down into the space he had cleared.
    The limbs lay at odd angles, unnaturally compacted against the wall.
    The shallow rasp of breathing could still just be heard from the crushed body, but blood trickled from the nose and mouth, indicating severe internal injury.
    It was the girl, Dayna.

Chapter Five
    HE LOOKED around for help, but there was no one else in the warehouse. The girl was unconscious and looked ghastly, but vague recollections of the basic principles of first aid told Charles he shouldn’t move an injured person. He’d just have to leave her and go for help.
    He hurried up the aisle to the office at the back. There was no one in the outer room. He knocked on the interconnecting door and moved through into the inner office.
    Brian Tressider and Heather looked up with surprise at his entrance, but without embarrassment. Nothing untoward had been going on, and indeed looking at the two of them – he wirily elegant, she frankly frumpy – it was an unlikely thought that anything might have been. She sat at her desk, an opened but untouched packet of sandwiches in front of her. He