The Cold Case Unit reassembled in the conference room with the urgency of soldiers retreating to higher ground. No one spoke at first. Even the air felt different—tense, watchful, as though the walls themselves were listening.

Georgie shut the door.
Riggs locked it.
Fizz dragged a chair under the handle for good measure.

Pauline watched all of it with the bleak recognition of a woman who had lived through too many locked-room stand-offs in her MI5 days.

‘We’re doing siege tactics now?’ she said quietly.

‘Yes,’ Don answered. ‘Yes, we are.’

He moved to the head of the table. He wasn’t the highest rank in the room, but the others looked to him now, instinctively.

‘Before anyone asks,’ he said, ‘n...

Please subscribe to keep reading.