Beth didn’t bother struggling against the handcuffs that had been put on her. She knew from her training that doing so was a waste of time and effort.

She’d been terrified when she’d woken up and found herself staring down the twin barrels of a shotgun. Behind the shotgun was a masked man. Despite being groggy from a lack of sleep and the bottle of wine she’d torpedoed before bed, her brain flicked from idle to full power in an instant.

There was no doubt in her mind that she’d been captured by the Dragon Master. If his capture of Caitlin was anything to go by, she would die in the next few hours. Twenty-four at the most. That was a certainty unless she could do something about it. Nobody else would come to save her. She was in this alone and if she was to survive, she had to rely on her own wits and cunning.

As soon as the Dragon Master had picked a small hole in the tape covering her mouth she’d known what was coming. As she expected, he’d produced a bottle of water and put its sports cap into the hole in the tape.

He’d squeezed it until the water filled her mouth.

She’d done everything she could not to swallow the liquid as she was convinced it would contain a date-rape drug or a tranquiliser. In spite of her best efforts, some of the water had trickled down her throat.

As soon as she’d been pushed into the boot of the car, she’d wriggled until her nose was pressed against the rough material of the boot lining and let the water dribble back out of the hole in the tape.

Now she was doing all she could to fight the effects of whatever he’d laced the water with. The only hope she had of saving herself was to resist the drug and seize the right moment to escape her captor. She’d have to act as though she was drugged. She’d have to be compliant, keep her face neutral until the right opportunity came her way. Then it would be a case of fighting back or fleeing. There was no way of knowing which until the moment arose.

Now she was in the boot, she was able to feel the edge of the tape starting to curl. As tempting as it was to rub her face back and forth on the boot lining to remove the tape, she decided to suffer the discomfort rather than give the Dragon Master any reason to doubt that she’d fallen under the influence of the drug.

She tried to count time in her head, but it was a forlorn hope as she had no idea how long she’d been in here and it was too late to start counting minutes.

As much as she could, she tried to remain calm. It would be so easy to go to pieces and fall apart with the terror of what she knew was coming. Even the tape over her mouth would delay him pouring his accelerant down her throat for the moment it took him to tear it off.

To combat the despair and fear, Beth turned her mind to the man’s voice. She’d heard it before, she just couldn’t remember where.

The Dragon Master’s voice was cultured. He didn’t use slang and he spoke with the quiet tones of someone whose social circle included lords rather than laymen. He’d also called her Elisabeth rather than Beth. Elisabeth might be the name on her birth certificate, but she’d always been Beth. The only other place she was Elisabeth was on her warrant card.

FRANCE

She cast her mind back over the people she’d flashed her warrant card to over the last week. One by one she went through them until she happened on a voice that matched her captor’s. Now Beth knew for certain that Lawrence Eversham was the Dragon Master. She cast her mind back to the previous evening and remembered how she’d made the connection. She cursed herself for being indecisive, but most of all, she berated herself for falling asleep before she’d screwed up the courage to call O’Dowd. She knew it was a mistake that may cost her her life.

The only part she couldn’t work out was where Sarah Hardy fit in to the picture. The best she could think of was that Sarah wasn’t actually a potential victim, although that Kevin Ingersoll was Lawrence made a lot of sense. Unless, of course, Sarah was to be his next victim:

FRANCES

Something about the car changed. The quiet hum of the engine disappeared, but they were still moving. The car tilted as if they were going uphill, but the increased noise of a straining engine was missing.

Beth struggled with the problem for a minute and then made the connection. The car was a hybrid with both petrol and electric power systems. Lawrence would be able to switch between petrol and electric at will. When using only electrical power, the car would be silent apart from the noise created by its tyres.

This explained how Lawrence had managed to drive down to Highstead Castle without any of the people who lived alongside the track hearing his car. In a low gear and with the lights off, his car would have been a silent ghost travelling onwards to deliver its grisly burden.

As the car jolted over a pothole, Beth had a terrifying epiphany. If the car was on electric now, it meant Lawrence wanted stealth. Which indicated the journey was about to end.

Behind the tape, Beth gritted her teeth and tried to contain the adrenaline that was flooding her body with a fight or flight instinct.

She would only get one chance to escape. One chance to save herself.

Whatever happened, she must recognise the moment when it came and take it.