‘Jesus!’ The DCI slouched back to the Portakabin, feeling like an idiot. He was being made a fool of by this bastard Cloncurry. The posh young psychopath had escaped them again: he was too smart to fall for a dumb trick like this. So what would happen next? Who would he kill? And how would he do it?

A piercing and terrible idea gripped the DCI. Of course.

Forrester ran to the police car, grabbed his jacket and found his mobile. With shaking hands he keyed in the number. He lifted the phone to his ear, urging the signal to kick in. Come on come on come on. Forrester was ardently praying he wasn’t too late.

But the phone just kept ringing.

37

By the time Hugo De Savary woke up his boyfriend was already halfway out of the door. Mumbling about an anthropology lecture at St John’s.

When De Savary got downstairs, he saw that his handsome young lover had left behind the usual mess in the kitchen: breadcrumbs everywhere, an eviscerated Guardian, marmalade smeared on an uncleared plate and coffee grounds dark and soggy in the sink. Yet De Savary didn’t mind. He was happy. His boyfriend had kissed him passionately this morning: kissed him awake. They were really getting on well. And, even better, De Savary had one of his favourite days ahead of him: a day of pure research. No stressful writing; no boring meetings in Cambridge, let alone London; no important phone calls to make. All he had to do was sit in the garden of his country cottage, go through some papers and read an unpublished thesis or two. A very nice day of leisured reading and thinking. Later he might drive over to Grantchester and do some chores and some book shopping: at about 3 p.m. he had his only social engagement, with his old pupil, Christine Meyer. She was coming for the afternoon, and she was bringing the daughter of her boyfriend, the journalist who had written the richly intriguing piece in The Times about the Yezidi and the Black Book and this strange place called Gobekli Tepe. When she had contacted him Christine had said she wanted to talk about the links between her boyfriend’s story and the murders across England.

De Savary was keen to talk about this. But he was also simply keen to see Christine again. She had been one of his brightest students-his favourite student-and she was doing good work at Gobekli Tepe, it seemed. Good but rather hair-raising work, judging by the more excitable elements of The Times article.

He spent a quick ten minutes clearing up the breakfast things. Then he texted his lover: Is it utterly impossible to slice bread without destroying the kitchen? Hugo xx

As he sluiced the dark coffee grounds down the sink, he got a text back. Dont napalm my village ok Ive got finals xxx

De Savary laughed out loud. He wondered if he was falling in love with Andrew Halloran. He knew it was foolish if so: the lad was only twenty-one. De Savary was forty-five. But Andrew was so very handsome, in a seductively uncaring way. He just threw clothes on and seemed to look perfect every morning. Especially with a little stubble to offset the deep blue eyes. And De Savary quite liked the fact that Andrew was probably seeing other men, too. A little mustard on the sandwich: it helped. The sweet torment of jealousy…

Collecting his papers and books, he walked out into his garden. It was a beautiful day. Almost distractingly so: the birdsong was too sweet. The scent of late May blossom too heady. De Savary could hear children laughing in a garden across the Cambridgeshire meadows, though his cottage was very isolated.

He tried to concentrate on his work. He was researching a long and rather learned TLS article on violence as a part of English culture. But as he sat in the morning sunshine his mind kept wandering back to the themes that had dominated his thoughts lately. The gang murdering their way across Britain. And the links to the curious story coming out of Turkey.

Picking up his sun-warmed phone from the lawn, De Savary contemplated calling Detective Chief Inspector Forrester to see if the police were having any luck at West Wycombe caves. But then he thought better of it, and put the phone back down. He was confident that the gang would, at some point, search out the caves. If they were so frenziedly seeking the Black Book, then the Hellfire Caves were an obvious place to look. Whether the police trap would work was an entirely different matter. It was a gamble. But gambles sometime paid off.

The sun was very warm now. De Savary dropped his papers onto the grass, stretched out on his deckchair and closed his eyes. The children were still laughing, somewhere across the water meadows. He thought about the Yezidi. Clearly this journalist, Rob Luttrell, had discovered something. The Black Book of the Yezidi must once have revealed some crucial information about this extraordinary temple, Gobekli Tepe, which appeared to be so central to their faith and their ancestry. A tiny hint of disquiet trilled through him as he thought about The Times piece. The gang had surely seen it-seen it and absorbed it. They weren’t stupid. The article implied that Rob Luttrell had garnered vital information about the Black Book. The article also mentioned Christine by name. The gang might therefore come looking for the couple at some point down the line. De Savary reminded himself to tell Christine when she came over that she could conceivably be in danger. The two of them, Rob and Christine, needed to take care: until the gang was caught.

De Savary leaned from his deckchair and picked up his photocopied thesis: Fear of the Mob: Riots and Revelry in Regency London. The birds chirruped in the apple tree behind him. He read and took notes; then read some more, and took some more notes.

Three hours later he had finished. He slipped some shoes on, climbed in his little sports car and thrummed over to Grantchester. He went to the bookshop and idled between the shelves for a pleasant hour; after that he strolled to the computer shop and bought some ink cartridges for his printer. Then he remembered that Christine was coming over, so he stopped off at a supermarket and bought some fresh lemonade and three punnets of strawberries. They could sit in the garden, and have strawberries in the sun.

On the drive back to his cottage De Savary hummed a tune. The Bach Double Violin Concerto. Such a beautiful peace of music. He resolved to download a new version when he had time.

For another hour he Googled in his study; then the doorknocker went and there was Christine. Smiling and suntanned, with an angelic little blonde girl in tow. De Savary beamed with pleasure: he had always thought that if he hadn’t been gay Christine was the sort of girl he could have loved: dreamy and sexy, but demure and somehow innocent too. And of course deeply gifted and clever. And this suntan suited her. As did the little girl by her side.

Christine placed a hand on the girl’s shoulder. ’This is Lizzie, Robert’s daughter. Her mum’s in town doing a course…and I am her adopted mother for the day!’

The girl did a sweet sort-of curtsey as if she was meeting the Queen and then giggled and solemnly shook De Savary’s hand.

As Christine followed him through to the garden she was already telling him gossip and stories and theories: it was as if they were back in his rooms at King’s. Laughing and talking, passionately: about archaeology and love, about Sutton Hoo and James Joyce, about the prince of Palenque and the meaning of sex.

In the garden De Savary poured the lemonade and offered the strawberries. Christine was animatedly describing Rob. De Savary could see the romance in her eyes. They talked about him for a short while and Lizzie said she was looking forward to seeing her daddy coz he was bringing her a lion. And a llama. Then she asked if she could play on the computer and De Savary happily agreed, as long as she stayed where they could see her; the little girl skipped inside the cottage, and sat by the open French windows, absorbed in her computer game.