The door slammed shut; the gang was gone.

Strapped to his chair, De Savary stilled his gasps of pain, and the anguish of frustration. He had been going to tell Christine-but he hadn’t had time. And now he was dying. There was no one to save him.

Then he noticed. There was a pen lying on the table very close, next to his book about Vikings. He could maybe reach the pen with his mouth. And write something; make some use of his final moments.

The tears of pain blurred his eyes as he stretched and struggled; the title of his own book stared back at him.

The Fury of the Northmen, by Hugo De Savary.

38

Rob was sitting in DCI Forrester’s office in Scotland Yard. The window was open and a chilly breeze was whistling through. It was an unseasonably cool, wet and overcast day. Rob thought about his daughter and fought back the anger and despair.

But the anger and despair were so powerful. He felt as if he was standing thigh deep in rushing floodwater: any moment he would lose it, lose his grip, and get swept away by his emotions. Like those people caught in the Asian tsunami. Rob had to concentrate on keeping upright.

He had told the police officers everything he knew about the Yezidi and the Black Book. Forrester’s junior, Boijer, had taken notes while Forrester stared directly and seriously at Rob. When Rob finished the senior officer sighed, and swivelled in his chair.

‘Well it’s pretty obvious how and why they kidnapped them.’

Boijer nodded. Rob said, bleakly, ‘Is it?’

Rob had only been aware of his daughter’s abduction for a few hours: since landing at Heathrow from Istanbul. He had rushed straight to his ex-wife’s house, then come straight to meet these policemen. So he hadn’t had time to work out how it had happened.

The policeman said, ‘Obviously Cloncurry read your article in The Times a few days ago.’

‘I guess…’ The words felt dry and pointless in Rob’s mouth. Everything felt dry and pointless. He recalled something Christine had told him-the Assyrian name for Hell: the Desert of Anguish.

That was where he was. The Desert of Anguish.

The policeman was still talking. ‘They obviously think, Mr Luttrell, you have some knowledge of the Black Book. So they must have traced your name. Googled you. And found out the address of your ex-wife. That was your old home, right? Where you were registered to vote?’

‘Yes. I never changed it.’

‘So. That was easy for them. They must have been watching that address for a good few days. Waiting and watching.’

Rob murmured, ‘And then Christine turned up…’

Boijer intervened. ‘She made it easier for them. All three of them went off to Cambridge, followed by the gang, no doubt. And then your girlfriend took your daughter to a remote cottage for the afternoon. The worst possible place.’

‘They may have known of De Savary already,’ Forrester added. ‘He was a bestselling writer, with books on sacrifice and the Hellfire Club to his name. Cloncurry must surely have read him. Or seen him on TV.’

‘Then…’ Rob was still swaying in the grey floodwater. He forced his mind to focus. ‘Then they waited outside the cottage. Knowing they could get Christine and my daughter all at once.’

‘Yeah. ‘ said Boijer. ‘They must have been waiting for hours. And then they rushed the house.’

Rob glared at Forrester. ‘She’s going to die isn’t she? My daughter? Isn’t she? They’ve killed everyone else.’

Forrester winced. And shook his head. ‘No…Not at all. We don’t know anything of the sort…’

‘Oh come on.’

‘Please.’

‘No!’ Rob was almost shouting. He stood up and stared down at the policeman. ‘How can you say that? “We don’t know anything of the fucking sort?” You don’t know what it is like, Detective. You can’t know what it is fucking like. My daughter has been abducted by some fucking killers. I will lose my only child.’

Boijer motioned at Rob: calm down. Sit down. Calm down.

Rob inhaled and exhaled, deliberately and slowly. He knew he was making a scene but he didn’t care. He had to vent his emotions. He couldn’t bottle them up. For a few moments Rob just stood there, his eyes blurred with anger. At last, he sat down again.

DCI Forrester continued, very calmly, ‘I know this is very difficult for you to appreciate right now, but the fact is the gang did not harm, as far as we know, either your daughter Lizzie or Christine Meyer.’

Rob nodded, grimly, and said nothing. He didn’t trust himself to speak.

The policeman pursued his logic. ‘We’ve found no blood, other than De Savary’s, at the scene of crime. Every other time the gang has struck they have, as you say, killed without compunction. But this time they didn’t. They abducted. Why? Because they want to get to you.’

The waters swirling around Rob seemed to weaken. He gazed attentively and even hopefully at Forrester. There was some logic here, some lucidity. Rob wanted to believe: he really wanted to trust this guy.

‘You gave an email address at the end of your article?’ Forrester asked.

‘Yes,’ Rob replied. ‘It’s standard practise. A Times email address.’

Boijer was writing on his pad. Forrester concluded, ‘I predict Jamie Cloncurry will be in touch with you. Very soon. He wants the Black Book. Desperately.’

‘And if he does get in touch? What the fuck do I do then?’

‘Then you call me immediately. Here’s my mobile number.’ He handed a card to Rob. ‘We need to string him along. Convince the gang you have the book. The Yezidi materials.’

Rob was confused. ‘Even though I haven’t got anything?’

‘They don’t know that. If we imply that you do have what they want, that buys us time. Precious time-for us to catch Cloncurry.’

Rob gazed across Forrester’s shirt-sleeved shoulder at the glass partition beyond. He thought of all the hundreds of policemen working away right now, in this building. Dozens of them on this case. Surely they must be able to find a gang of murderers? The trail of blood and cruelty was all over the papers now. Rob wanted to go out into that wider office and shout at people: Catch them! Do your job. Catch these fucking people! How hard can it be?

‘Where do you think they are?’ he said instead.

‘We have a few leads,’ said Boijer. ‘The Italian. Luca Marsinelli, has a private pilot’s licence. Maybe they are using planes to get in and out of the country, private jets.’

‘But these are just kids…’

Forrester shook his head. ‘Not just kids. Not just average kids anyway. These are rich kids. Marsinelli is an orphan. But he inherited a Milanese textile fortune. Immensely wealthy. Another gang member, we think, is the son of a hedge fund manager in Connecticut. These boys have trust funds, private fortunes, Jersey bank accounts. They can buy new cars just like that.’ Forrester clicked his fingers. ‘There are a lot of private airfields in East Anglia, old American airstrips from the war. Maybe they flew your daughter out of the country: we think Italy is the obvious place, given Marsinelli’s connections. He has an estate near the Italian lakes. Then there’s Cloncurry’s family in Picardy. Also being watched. The French and Italian police are up to speed on all of this.’

Rob actually yawned. It was a weird yawn of frustration and bitterness, not fatigue. It was a yawn from too much adrenalin. He felt thirsty and tired and wired-up and furious. The two women he most loved: Lizzie and Christine. Kidnapped; weeping; suffering: lost in the Desert of Anguish. He couldn’t bear to think about it.

Rob stood up. ‘OK, Detective, I’ll keep checking my emails.’

‘Good. And you can call me any time, Mr Luttrell. Five a.m. I don’t mind.’ The policeman’s eyes seemed to mist for a moment. ‘Rob, I do understand a little of what you are going through. Believe me.’ He coughed, then continued, ‘Cloncurry is an arrogant young man, as well as psychotic. He thinks he is smarter than everyone. People like that can’t resist taunting the police with their cleverness. And that’s how they get caught.’