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message you received from the, ah, late Miss Trelawney. I hope this isn’t too painful for you, sir. As I say, I can come back another time.’
    ‘No, that’s all right. If it’s important?’
    ‘The latest count is four hundred and forty-five dead, sir. Everything is important.’
    Jamie grimaced. ‘Yes, sorry. It says. “Caught in traffic, going to be late. I’m OK.” Then a space, then: “febluis”.’ He shook his head. ‘She … Abbie … was obviously trying to reassure me that everything was all right. It must have been sent before the attack.’
    ‘Well, that’s the thing that’s slightly bothering our people, sir. According to the timings on the phone, and the data from the service providers, this message was transmitted in the latter stages of the assault on themotorway traffic. In fact, it was sent only two minutes before our surveillance helicopter was shot down, at a time the cameras we recovered from the chopper show the first terrorists already making their escape.’
    Jamie tried to force his drink-fuzzed mind to analyse the significance of the information. ‘I …’
    ‘That’s right, sir. It appears that Miss Abeba Trelawney survived the first phase of the attack and was killed while the terrorists were making their withdrawal.’
    ‘Shit.’ The breath turned to mud in Jamie’s lungs and he struggled to breathe. ‘She …’
    ‘I’m sorry, Mr Saintclair, but there’s no easy way to say it. Your young lady was among the last, if not the last, to die on that day. Which makes this text enormously significant. The main part of the message seems perfectly normal. What I need to know is if “febluis” means anything special to you. Is it some kind of special shorthand between you? A coded message only Miss Trelawney and you would understand?’
    ‘It doesn’t mean anything. I mean … febluis … what could it mean?’
    ‘That’s what we’re … I’m, asking you, sir. Our best people have turned it upside down and inside out. She’d have been frightened and confused.’ Jamie flinched at the image of Abbie terrified amongst the burning cars and trucks, trying to send her last message, the petrol smoke thick in her nostrils and her murderers prowling all around, and that final moment … ‘They’ve checkedout all the ways she might have missed the keys she was aiming for, but they haven’t been able to come up with anything. We’re looking at whether it could be a name, or a word in a foreign language. I’m told Miss Trelawney is part-Eritrean? To be honest, you’re our last resort.’
    ‘I’m sorry, Sergeant.’ Jamie shook his head. ‘I can’t help you. How … how are the investigations going? Are you any closer to catching these animals?’
    ‘I couldn’t say, sir. You’ll understand that this is far and away this country’s biggest murder inquiry. I’m just a superannuated delivery boy, really, and with bad knees at that. I read in the papers that several suspects are being held and we are “following a number of lines of inquiry”. You know what, sir?’
    ‘Yes?’
    ‘You’ll have seen Casablanca, with Bogey and Claude Raines?’
    ‘Of course.’
    ‘Well, strictly between you and me, from what I hear, this is a case of: Round up the usual suspects.’
    ‘What do we have?’
    The Director General of the Security Service chewed his lip. ‘Well, Minister, we are using all our resources and we’re following a number of lines of inquiry—’
    ‘Don’t give me that bullshit,’ the Home Secretary exploded. ‘Keep it for the bloody newspapers. I want facts. The Prime Minister is breathing down my neck and the papers are talking as if I’m already fucking history.’The refined Home Counties accent made the profanity all the more shocking. An aide whispered something to her and she took a deep breath and visibly calmed. ‘I apologize. Please, strike that from the record.’ She took a sip of water from the glass in front of her. ‘Mosques are burning in