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in Tunis and see if he can help. Mrs Hakimi was keen to give that a try.’
    ‘Great. With a bit of luck she won’t make any more fuss to Marcus then and I should be in the clear.’ Sarah gave a short nervous laugh, realizing what she’d said sounded uncaring and Laura didn’t look too happy.
    ‘I feel so sorry for Mrs Hakimi,’ she added quickly, ‘I’ll do all I can to help get the boy back. You know I really didn’t want to write that letter, but Marcus insisted, he said if I didn’t produce it that minute and give it to you before you saw Mrs Hakimi, I was out of the door there and then. He was really scary, you know how he is,’ she tailed off, looking at Laura for approval.
    Laura knew exactly how he was. She could imagine him in another life, as the head of the secret police presiding over a reign of total terror without ever raising his voice.

    She nodded and felt a stab from the headache. She pressed her palm to her forehead and held it there, trying to push the pain further back inside. Sarah thought she was safe now she had done what Morrison wanted. He, on the other hand, would be expecting her to sack Sarah at the first opportunity. Well she wasn’t going to do it. Not yet anyway, not until she had tried to get the boy back.
    ‘Do you think we can get away with it?’ Sarah asked in a conspiratorial voice. It had occurred to her that Laura was up to her neck in it too, now that she’d handed over the forged letter to Mrs Hakimi.
    Laura swallowed the urge to snap back that she wasn’t trying to get away with anything. She was losing patience with Sarah who was so clearly concerned with saving her own skin. Her eyes smarted from lack of sleep and a wave of tiredness hit her.
    ‘I need to make some calls,’ she said, standing up to leave.

CHAPTER SIX
    When he woke it was with the memory of fear though he couldn’t immediately recall what had caused it. He was in the Royal Sussex County Hospital in a room on his own, off the main ward. He saw Ronnie sitting in a chair beside his bed, reading a newspaper, and then he remembered. So, it was not a bad dream after all.
    ‘That was one way to stop the interview,’ Ronnie said when he saw Harry was awake but neither of them laughed.
    ‘What happened?’
    ‘You collapsed. At the police station. You were being questioned.’
    ‘I remember.’
    ‘How are you feeling?’ Ronnie said drily.
    ‘How do you think?’ Harry said, glancing at him. In the second before Ronnie looked away, he saw something in the man’s eyes, something very like revulsion, and it sent a chill through him.
    ‘I did not download that muck, Ronnie. You’ve got to believe me.’
    ‘We will have to wait and see what they find on the computer.’
    ‘They won’t find anything because there’s nothing to find. This is all complete rubbish.’
    ‘Let’s hope so.’
    ‘For God’s sake, man, how long have you known me? Twenty, twenty five years. Do you really think I would do this?’ Harry demanded.

    There was no immediate reply.
    He doesn’t believe me. He thinks it’s true. Harry wondered what else Barnes had said to Ronnie.
    ‘The police will want to finish questioning you when they think you’re fit enough,’ Ronnie said eventually, his eyes shifting away again,
    ‘Then they’ll release me, right? I mean they’re not going to keep me in, are they?’
    ‘I shouldn’t think so. No reason why you shouldn’t get bail. There may be conditions though.’
    ‘What sort of conditions?’
    ‘They could restrict your contact with Martha,’ Ronnie said coldly, ‘And there’s likely to be a condition that you don’t contact your wife in any way. I should tell you the police believe you’ve been sending her death threats and want to question you about those as well.’
    ‘That’s bollocks. Of course I haven’t.’
    ‘They say Anna has recently received emails threatening her life.’
    ‘If she has, it’s nothing to do with me.’
    ‘Anna’s solicitor is