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knew that somewhere in the trees at the top of the driveway was an alarm connected to various buzzers and bells at the house to give advance warning of approaching visitors. I’d never been able to spot its location and Jacob had always refused, laughing, to show me exactly where it was.
     
    As it was, the dogs were already going loopy when I pulled up in front of the house and cut the engine. I could see Beezer, the wire-haired terrier, scrabbling about on the kitchen window sill, her wet nose leaving slither marks across the glass.
     
    Before I went in I unlocked the ramshackle coach house with one of the keys from Clare’s ring and wheeled the bike in alongside Jacob’s classic Laverda Jota and Clare’s Ducati. And still I wondered why hadn’t she ridden her own bike today? Maybe, if she had . . .
     
    The dogs were ecstatic to see me. Poor old Bonneville, the arthritic Labrador, had suffered most from the unexpected confinement. She waddled up to me feathering her tail in anxious apology. I patted her head in forgiveness and fetched some old newspapers from the pile in the scullery to put down over the puddle. Good job the kitchen had a stone flagged floor that was easy to mop.
     
    I left both dogs wolfing down food like they’d been starved for a month and went through the silent house to Jacob’s wood-panelled study. I don’t think I’d ever seen him actually do any work in there – he preferred to run his business from the scrubbed pine kitchen table – but it was at least a repository for his paperwork. Stacks of it.
     
    I sighed and sat in the swivel captain’s chair behind the desk, staring moodily at the mass of scrawled notes and shipping inventories. Somewhere in all this lot might be some clue about where Jacob was staying in Ireland, or who with. Possibly. I knew he tended to keep most things balanced in his head. Good for him. Not so good for me.
     
    The phone was sitting half-buried under auction catalogues. I reached for it twice, pulling my hand back each time, before my courage was up enough to dial. Even so, I wasn’t prepared for the call to be picked up on the second ring.
     
    “Meyer,” said the terse voice at the other end of the line.
     
    It shouldn’t have taken me by surprise. That was the way Sean always answered his mobile but I had to draw another breath before I could launch in.
     
    “Sean? It’s Charlie.”
     
    It was his turn for silence. Then I thought I heard a sigh that my paranoid brain translated as annoyance. “What is it?” he said at last.
     
    “Look, I’m sorry to trouble you on a Sunday evening—” I rushed on.
     
    “Charlie,” he cut across me, gently this time. Definitely gently. “Don’t apologise for calling me. Never apologise for calling me. But you sound stressed out. What’s happened?”
     
    So I told him the whole story, from Sam’s mad dash to find me to Clare’s news about Jacob’s uncertain whereabouts. “I need to find him but I don’t know where to start,” I finished, a little lamely. “I thought maybe Madeleine could help.”
     
    Madeleine Rimmington worked for Sean’s close protection agency, mainly handling electronic security, and there was very little she couldn’t coax out of a computer. If anyone could track down Jacob, she could.
     
    “Hang on,” Sean said. “She’s here. I’ll ask.” And there was the sound of muffled voices in the background.
     
    I recognised the flush that rode over me as jealousy, pure and simple. In my head I knew there was nothing going on between Madeleine and Sean. That there never had been. But in my heart I wanted to scratch her eyes out.
     
    When he came back on the line I couldn’t hold back a snitty comment. “She working overtime?”
     
    “No. Actually, she and Dominic are round for dinner,” Sean said evenly, amusement in his voice now. “He’s in the kitchen – as you would expect. We’re having duck. Would you like to speak to him?”
     
    The closest I’d