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returns,” he insisted, but he didn’t sound convinced.
    “But where is she? It’s not like her to just disappear and not let anyone know where she’s going, is it?”
    “We are all human, Mr. Maguire.” Vora pulled at his hair in agitation. “She maybe has problems at home, or a personal crisis of some sort …”
    “Have you tried her home number?”
    “Her husband says she went out late last night and did not return. That is all he knows.”
    “Did they argue?”
    “Look, Nicky has always been one hundred per cent reliable. I am sure when she returns she will have a perfectly reasonable explanation.”
    He sounded like he was trying to persuade himself as much as me. In fact, Vora’s appearance was rattling me more than the mysterious missed appointment. It was far too early to be panicking like this, unless …
    “Jesus, Mr. Vora … Look—never mind the documents for now. I need to get hold of fifteen grand. By Wednesday. What about you—can you authorize it?”
    Vora blinked some more. His lips worked as if they were trying to form words but had forgotten how.
    “I am not strictly speaking a partner in the firm,” he stammered finally. “I retired recently. I am merely acting as a consultant while Nicky looks for a new partner.”
    “Yeah, whatever, but you have access to my money, the client account, don’t you?”
    “I do, yes, but—there appears to be a problem—”
    Damn, I thought. “What sort of a problem? You mean you can’t get access to the money?”
    “I can get access to the account, yes, but …” Vora’s voice trailed off.
    “But what? Mr. Vora—tell me the money’s there.”
    “I’ve asked the bank to double-check,” stammered Vora. “But—”
    Shit.
SHIT!
“Do you know if she took her passport?”
    Vora blinked. “Her husband says her passport is missing. It seems likely she did take it, yes.”
    “You’re telling me Nicky Hale has taken her passport, cleaned out the client account, and disappeared?” Whatever that trick was for sounding calm and reasonable, I couldn’t remember it now.
    Vora stroked his sweaty bald head, trying to pat down the wild white hair that rimmed it. “I’m truly very sorry … this has never … I am so sorry, Finn …”
    The female constable on the front desk of the Holborn cop-shop looked like she was more used to dealing with mugged tourists and lost iPhones than lawyers absconding with their clients’ money. It took some explaining but finally I was shown to an interview room and offered the traditional grey plastic chair and grey plastic tea while I waited for a detective to arrive, my thoughts tumbling and tangling in my head like shirts in an overheated tumble dryer. I’d needed that money to complete the purchase of the building—what would happen to that? And what about Delroy and Winnie, and their loan? What the hell was I going to tell Sherwood? I’d never bothered with the police before—even when I’d tried to help them they’d always treated me as a suspect rather than a witness—but now I didn’t have a choice. I couldn’t fight or blag my way out of this hole.
    A few months back I had fallen for ZoePrendergast, and she’d distracted me with her assets while her boss arranged for me to be turned into Spam. Now Nicky had taken me for half a million quid, and I’d never even got to sleep with her.
    As I sat there, sipping the insipid milky lukewarm liquid from a dribbly plastic cup, I thought about all the trouble Nicky must have gone to—winning my trust, egging me into buying that gym so I’d authorize transfer of my inheritance from Spain straight into her client account … Had buying the freehold of the building been my idea or hers? It was hard to believe it had all been a scam.
    In fact, the more I thought about it the less I believed it. I’d liked Nicky, and I thought she’d liked me, and—apart from Zoe—my instincts usually weren’t that far wrong. Delroy had said Nicky would