Tragic though this was, it was also perversely comforting. Whatever fate awaited her, it would affect her alone. Sam Akehurst would not be missed. Her absence would not leave a hole in anyone's life.

Rick Ramsay's presence was likewise comforting. If this situation was all some elaborate trap, a snare for the curious and unwary, she didn't think he would hesitate to fight his way out of it. And neither would she.

Lillicrap ushered them into a cramped, cluttered room that was mostly taken up by a large table. Seated around it were ten men and women, all in various stages of boredom and disaffection. Refreshments — sandwiches, pastries, dips — were heaped on the tabletop, largely untouched. Coffee and tea making facilities perched on a trolley in one corner.

"Make yourselves at home," Lillicrap said to Sam and Ramsay. "And the rest of you — it won't be much longer now, I promise."

"No worries," said a sunburned man, in a sardonic Australian drawl. "Tell your boss to take his time. I've got nothing else to do but sit around all day with my thumb up my freckle."

Lillicrap sniffed and withdrew, leaving Sam and Ramsay as the focus of ten scrutinising gazes. Sam tried a disarming smile, put on more than felt. Ramsay got a result simply by saying, "The coffee in that pot better not be the watered-down piss it looks like." Someone chuckled and the atmosphere lightened a little.

Sam sat down in the last remaining chair but one, between a sharp-nosed blonde woman and an Asian man. The latter, in almost entirely unaccented English, introduced himself as Fred Tsang. The blonde favoured Sam with nothing more than a reserved nod.

Ramsay placed a coffee in front of Sam, which she was grateful for even though she hadn't asked for it. He then took the final seat, sipped from his own cup, wrinkled his nose and confirmed aloud that it was indeed watered-down piss.