She was up again before dawn with a headache, the nightmare still fresh, an uneasy echo in her head. Norcott, the outcast. Misunderstood and shunned by his bitter mother, held captive in Ryegrove by a powerful, vindictive King. He had not deserved any of that. He’d killed, but she wondered what his life might have been like if he’d been shown some understanding, or love, when he’d most needed it, instead of being treated like some sick animal by his feckless mother.

Those echoes brought other images to mind. Her great-aunt Mary in Talgarth having her synapses fried. Her own mother, trying to scare her into ‘normal behaviour’ by subjecting her to the example of the locked-away family member.

Anna sat in her front room with some tea and looked through her notes, waving to a different patrol car when it slid along the street outside a little after five thirty. By seven she was showered and dressed. She called Lexi to her, clipped on her lead and frowned as her fingers met with something unfamiliar.

Anna stared. There was something attached to Lexi’s collar.

Anna kneeled and grabbed the buckle. Lexi, thrilled by all the close attention, wriggled and shifted her head in an attempt to reciprocate. Eventually, Anna got her to sit and rotated the collar so she could get a good look. What she saw was a small, dark oblong on the brown leather, secured by a tightly wrapped black cable tie.

She hadn’t put it there. Lexi certainly hadn’t put it there. So, who…

A whirl of swirling pinpoints suddenly lit up in her head and made the breath seize in her throat. She got up, told the dog to stay and rushed out through her front door.

Maggie, in a shapeless sweatshirt and a fur-strewn skirt, was full of surprise and disappointment when Anna turned up without Lexi. Bruce bounced around excitedly as she followed them through to Maggie’s lived-in kitchen.

‘Where’s Lexi? Is she all right?’ Maggie asked.

‘She’s fine, but as I was about to bring her over, I noticed something attached to her collar.’

‘Yes, the plastic tag thingy.’

Anna’s eyebrows shot up. ‘Did you put it there?’

Maggie laughed. ‘Me? No, I thought you had.’

‘Why did you think that, Maggie?’

‘It was there when I took her lead off after our walk yesterday afternoon. I assumed I hadn’t noticed it earlier but that you must have put it on that morning. Some kind of new ID tag, I thought. Or an exercise monitor. I’ve seen those advertised.’

‘I hadn’t put anything on her collar.’

Maggie frowned. ‘But if you didn’t put it on, who did?’

It was an excellent question. One that Anna’s brain was doing its best to answer. Unfortunately, none of the ideas she came up with were making the lurching anxiety in her gut calm down.

‘Yesterday, on your walk, did you see anyone? Did anyone touch Lexi?’

Maggie blinked, frowning and looking down at the lino at her feet as she thought. ‘I let her off the lead on the common. You know her, she’s a live wire. Very sociable.’

Makes up for me, thought Anna.

‘She says hello to dozens of dogs, and their owners usually make a fuss. You know what dog people are like.’

Anna smiled. It took a lot of effort.

Maggie said, ‘I remember seeing a Jack Russell, a couple of setters, three labradoodles.’

‘What about their owners?’

‘I don’t really take much notice, not unless they’re close by and wanting to exchange a word.’ Maggie looked away, thinking. ‘Mostly women. One man on his own with a springer spaniel.’

‘Can you describe him?’

‘Not really, he was too far away.’ Maggie’s eyes strayed to Anna’s face. ‘Lexi’s OK, isn’t she?’

‘Yes, she’s fine. No problem. I’m just going to make a call.’ Anna was already turning away, wanting to get back to the dog, speed-dialling Dawes as she walked.

‘That thing on her collar. It isn’t anything nasty, is it?’ Maggie called after her.

Anna swivelled and exhaled. ‘That’s a good question, Maggie. And I really wish I knew the answer.’

---

Dawes took twenty minutes to get to her. Twenty minutes during which Anna sat on her hands to stop herself from taking off Lexi’s collar. When the doorbell finally rang, the first thing Dawes did on the very threshold of Anna’s doorstep was hold out a pair of gloves. ‘By rights, we ought to have CSI over here. But we don’t know what this is yet. That’s our justification. Even so, I reckon we should be professional about it.’

Anna nodded and slid on the gloves. Lexi was still in the lounge, delighted to see Dawes, even though they’d never met. Anna calmed her down while Dawes ran his fingers around the inside of the collar.

‘There doesn’t seem to be anything attached. No wires. Nothing to suggest a trigger on removal.’

Anna nodded, hearing Dawes’ words but finding them far from consoling. She hadn’t even thought to look. She fondled the dog, constantly reassuring her. ‘Good girl, Lexi. Good girl.’

‘Right,’ said Dawes. ‘Let’s get the thing off.’

‘I’ll do it,’ Anna said.

Dawes put out an arm to stop Anna. ‘Let me. You’re in no state.’

Anna stood up and back, wondering why her legs were shaking so badly. Dawes examined the collar carefully, noting the cable ties and peering at the dark shape they’d been looped around.

‘There’s writing on it,’ Dawes said eventually. ‘A diamond logo and “16gb”. I’d say that means sixteen gigabytes. A thumb drive would be my guess.’

Relief flooded through Anna like a cold shower. She pushed all the terrible thoughts of what it could have been into the corner of her mind for later introspection. Anthrax had been on that list; a horrible disease with spores that stayed active for years in powder form. As had a plastic explosive like Semtex that would have severed Lexi’s neck if it had been set off.

Dawes undid the clip and, with an extra set of wags from Lexi as he stood, put the collar on the table.

‘Looks like someone has left you a message,’ Dawes muttered, and then said, ‘Got any scissors?’

Anna passed her kitchen scissors to him; he snipped the ties and placed them, together with the freed USB stick, on the worktop.

‘So, how do you want to play this?’ Dawes asked.

‘I want to know what’s on it.’

‘We could get it to Hi-Tech.’

Anna nodded. ‘And God knows how long it’ll be before we have a report done. Varga might help, but she’s snowed under. No. It was attached to my dog so it’s fair game. I’ll get my laptop.’

‘Any idea who did this?’

She threw him a glance that spoke volumes in its implication.

Come on, Phil, thought Anna. We both know who this is likely to be. Someone who knew I’d be watched but that Lexi would not. Someone smart and devious who knows where I live, my patterns, my habits.

Dawes nodded and glanced at the kettle.

Anna nodded. ‘Yes, a cup of tea is definitely in order. Sugar’s in the bowl next to the caddy.’

Five minutes later they were in Anna’s small lounge, laptop set up on the coffee table in front of them. Anna was on the sofa; Dawes preferred to stand behind. Prowl behind would have been a better description since he seemed incapable of standing still. Anna’d kept her latex gloves on as she slotted the USB stick into its port and saw a little grey avatar appear on the desktop labelled ‘DIAMOND’. She double-clicked and saw one file appear in the index. An MP4 file labelled “BS”.

‘I hope that doesn’t mean bullshit,’ Dawes said.

‘It’s a video,’ said Anna. ‘And I’d put my money on BS for “Black Squid”.’ She double-clicked the file and watched the screen fill with a static image, her eyes narrowing as a wall of rough stone appeared. The image was steady, the camera, she guessed, mounted on a stable surface. Light illuminated from the right. A window, perhaps?

And then the camera panned around. A face appeared. King’s face. Grey and moist with a sheen of sweat. He sat, arms tied behind him, duct tape wrapped around his chest and the chair back. Very much like Beth Farlow had been.

But unlike Beth, his mouth was not taped over, nor were his eyes. And his eyes were what drew Anna’s. Ragged with fear, they looked up above the camera lens at whoever had placed him in that chair as the video ran.