The two uniforms escorting Anna back to her flat were a young woman called Sue Watson and her partner, a stocky, grizzly haired sergeant called Ewan Back. They made her open her front door and wait outside while they checked the premises. Inside, the first thing Anna did was give them tea and biscuits before she went to fetch Lexi, who, on their return, instantly made friends with the two officers and got half a biscuit for her trouble.

‘Will you be taking the dog out later, ma’am?’ Back asked.

‘No, she’s been walked. Might let her out into the garden, that’s all.’

‘OK. We’ll be circling back every hour or so. After eleven, there’ll be someone here on and off.’

‘Talk about overkill,’ Anna said.

Back nodded. ‘Thanks for the tea.’ He gave Lexi one last fondle as he left.

As soon as they’d gone, she switched on the TV and scanned the news channels for information on Shaw’s escape. Sky had a reporter, hair blowing in the breeze, outside the entrance to Worcester Royal. As if geographic authenticity lent credence to their ‘on-the-spot’ reporting. But despite spending ten minutes listening to another speculative run-down of what had happened, spun in terms of patient security and threat to the public, she was no wiser than after hearing Rainsford’s blunt report.

She picked up her phone and toyed with it. There was someone she could ring. It meant jumping way over Rainsford’s head, but Anna didn’t think he’d mind too much. In fact, she suspected he might be disappointed if she didn’t.

The number she had was George Calhoun’s, governor of Whitmarsh prison. He’d provided it through Rainsford as an emergency fallback should anything happen during one of Shaw’s awaydays to the various burial sites he’d insisted on taking Anna to. She’d never used it. She did now.

Calhoun answered after four rings, his Scottish burr gravelly and raw from fielding calls from various government agencies and the press, Anna surmised.

‘George Calhoun.’

‘Sir, this is DI Anna Gwynne.’

Calhoun exhaled loudly. With the air went much of the aggression she’d heard in his barked greeting. ‘Inspector Gwynne. Are you well?’

‘I am, sir. I hope you’ll excuse this call. I probably shouldn’t, but—’

‘Of course you bloody well should. I hope they’ve got someone watching over you?’

Anna went to the curtains and peeked through. Back and Watson were still there. ‘Yes, they do.’

‘Good. I suppose you want to know what happened?’

‘Superintendent Rainsford has filled me in and I’ve seen the press interviews but I daresay there’s another story.’

‘Hmm,’ Calhoun said. It sounded like one of his trademarks. ‘The porter knew his way around. Knew where the MRI scanner was. When they’d finished and before Shaw could be manacled, the porter pulled a gun on the guard in an anteroom and threatened him. There was no one else there. Two to one. I don’t blame the guard. I’d have done the same, no questions asked. Shaw was dressed in scrubs. He nabbed a white coat, wore a surgeon’s cap, and they walked out through the main entrance. We suspect his accomplice was parked off-site.’

‘And the guard?’

‘Unharmed. Trussed up like a turkey and left in a storage room. They found him two hours later.’

‘Two hours is a long time.’

‘It is.’

‘But Shaw was ill. I saw him.’

‘Shaw had lost weight and was anaemic. Not eating did the former, and as for the latter, we think he bled himself. Kept bleeding himself like a bloody leech. There were track marks hidden in a tattoo on his forearm. The doctors assumed he’d done drugs in hospital and he fed them some rubbish about being a user. But Shaw was not an addict. His blood work was clean. Must have used the needles like a medieval apothecary to stick himself.’

Anna knew how easy it was to get drugs in prison. It was common currency. Needles too.

‘Do you have any idea who the accomplice was?’

‘Hmm. CCTV isn’t helping. He was male, wore a hat and dark glasses. That’s about it. He was taller than Shaw, that’s all we know.’

‘Still have no idea where he went?’

‘None. What about you?’

‘Me? I have no idea either.’

‘He may try and contact you,’ Calhoun said. ‘You know how he thinks.’

She did. What Shaw thought about most of the time was the death of his daughter and who was responsible for it.

‘I don’t think he would want to harm me. But he may want some information.’

‘Yeah. And we both know how he goes about getting that. I’d be on my guard, Inspector.’

After Calhoun rang off, she phoned Ben, knowing he was at work. They’d texted during the day, but now she wanted to hear his voice.

‘Hey, are you OK?’

‘I am being guarded by two uniforms in a patrol car who are providing a presence. And by a fierce dog.’

‘Lexi not there, then?’

Anna smiled. The Hawley sense of humour finding its mark again.

‘Are you worried?’ Ben asked.

‘No, funnily enough.’

‘You and he had a thing, didn’t you?’

She thought about it. Ben of course knew about Shaw. Knew why he was in prison and how dangerous he was. ‘“Thing” is just about the right word.’

‘I mean you passed his tests. Didn’t you say you even thought he trusted you?’

The tests Ben was talking about had been Shaw’s probing of her ability as a detective. A little game he’d played that almost got her killed in the process of hunting down a killer the press named the Woodsman. But there was no doubt that after she’d survived and proved herself, Shaw had been much more cooperative in his own way when it came to revealing the whereabouts of Black Squid victims.

‘He fooled me, Ben. He fooled everyone. He’d been bleeding himself to induce anaemia. That’s how he got himself to hospital.’

The other end of the phone went quiet for a moment.

‘We’d better put tonight’s tapas on hold then.’

‘That’s why I rang,’ Anna sighed. ‘Much as I’d love to, there’s no point. They’ll probably want me where they can keep an eye on me. I’m exhausted and I have to go in tomorrow so I’ll be up early needing a clear head. There’s too much happening to sit on this all weekend. Sorry to mess you about.’

She listened for something in his voice, something that told her he was getting tired of her work commitments. But he was a doctor, he knew all about commitment.

‘You’re right. No point going Spanish and drinking lemonade. I’ll ring and cancel. Let me know tomorrow how you’re fixed, and I’ll be here if you need me. Stay safe, Anna,’ Ben said.

‘I will.’

The day was rapidly catching up with her, but before giving in to tiredness, she poured herself half a glass of wine and sat. She needed to distract herself, try and trick her head into relaxing. Let all the dancing dots of information line up, ready to be joined. She knew there was a great deal of knowledge available to her and the team in this case, but they had not made the right connections. Not yet.

And it didn’t happen that evening. There was too much background noise. Too many images from the day and the night before. She tried to filter. To find the thread which, when she pulled it, might unravel the knot. But which one to pull?

When the glass she was holding slipped in her hand and she jerked awake from a half-slumber too late to prevent wine from slopping on to the carpet, she gave up and went to bed, falling into an exhausted sleep almost immediately. She dreamed of Norcott walking the streets, stalking her as she waded through a dark cavern, then rising from the water ahead of her to accuse her with a pointing finger.