No Place to Die

Book 2: Connor Fraser

by Neil Broadfoot

Genres: Thrillers; Crime Fiction

Synopsis

'A true rising star of crime fiction' Ian Rankin

'Tense, fast-moving and bloody. Broadfoot's best yet' Mason Cross

'Tension that'll hold you breathless' Helen Fields

Blair Charlston swapped the stock market for salvation - and now he's making a killing.

Once a controversial venture capitalist, Charlston reinvented himself as a personal and business development guru after surviving an attempt to take his own life when a business deal went disastrously wrong. So when he decides to host a weekend retreat on the outskirts of Stirling for more than 300 people, Connor Fraser is drafted in to cover the security for a man who is at once idolised as a saviour and hated as a ruthless asset stripper.

For Connor, it's an unwelcome assignment. He's never had much time for salvation by soundbite, and Charlston's notoriety is attracting the attention of reporter Donna Blake, who's asking more questions than Connor has answers for.

But when an old colleague of Donna's is found brutally bludgeoned to death, and the start of Charleston's weekend of salvation becomes a literal trial by fire, Connor must race to unmask a killer whose savagery is only matched by their cunning.

Praise for Neil Broadfoot:

'Cracking pace, satisfyingly twisty plot. A great read' James Oswald

'Broadfoot is here, and he's ready to sit at the table with some of the finest crime writers Scottish fiction has to offer' Russel D. McLean

'Crisp dialogue, characters you believe and a prose style that brings you back for more . . . a fine addition to a growing roster of noir titles with a tartan tinge' Douglas Skelton

'This is Broadfoot's best to date, a thriller that delivers the thrills: energetic, breathlessly paceyand keeping you guessing till the end' Craig Russell

'Neil Broadfoot hits the ground running and doesn't stop. With the very beating heart of Scotland at its core, your heart too will race as you reach the jaw dropping conclusion of this brilliant thriller. First class!' Denil Meyrick

'A deliciously twisty thriller that never lets up the pace. Thrills, spills, chills and kills' Donna Moore

'An explosive, gripping page-turner with dark and utterly twisted murders. Simply brilliant!' Danielle Ramsay

'An atmospheric, twisty and explosive start to a new series by one of the masters of Scottish fiction. Get your wee mitts on it' Angela Clarke

'No Man's Land is a stunning, fast-paced, multi-layered thriller. Disturbing political unrest and psychological horror written with great confidence by Neil Broadfoot, who has one hand on Ian Rankin's crown as the king of Scottish crime' Michael Wood

'[A] gritty and fast-moving tale of shifting loyalties set against the backdrop of Scottish and Irish politics' Nick Quantrill

'Definitely a must read for all lovers of Tartan Noir: or anyone else who simply wants to enjoy a compelling tale' Undiscovered Scotland

Release date: September 12, 2019

Publisher: Little, Brown Book Group

Print pages: 320

Sample

Connor Fraser heard the laughter just as he felt his chest catch fire. It was the sound of the playground – illicit, humourless, cruel. He blocked it out, focused on the agony in his chest as the weight bore down on him. Closing his eyes he exhaled as hard as he could, pushing the weight back up, arms shaking, the heavy clang of the bar finally hitting the rack the sweetest music.

But then he heard the laughter again.

He sat up, world swimming slightly in a moment of light-headedness from his exertion, then looked around the gym. It didn’t take him long to spot the source of the laughter or its cause. If he was being honest, he felt a chuckle tickle in his own chest.

The kid was in the free-weights area at the far end of the room, looking like he was going to have a heart attack at any moment. His cheeks were angry scarlet, sweat-soaked T-shirt plastered to a sagging chest and a pendulous gut that hung halfway over the waistline of his shorts. The effort of lifting the dumbbells rippled through his chins like waves as he grunted and panted at the floor-to-ceiling mirrors in front of him. Finally, as he curled them up to shoulder height, his eyes gave a nervous twitch to the left, and the source of the laughter.

Standing around a bench, surrounded by an assortment of weights, were three young men. In their mid-twenties, Connor guessed. They might have stepped from the pages of a fitness magazine, designer workout gear clinging to every gym-sculpted muscle. Obviously no strangers to the salon attached to the gym, their hair was perfectly styled and their tans unnaturally healthy, even with the good weather Stirling had been enjoying recently. They were in a loose semi-circle, weights abandoned as they laughed and sneered at the fat kid.

Wankers.

Connor sighed, turned back to his workout. He was just racking another twenty pounds onto either side of the barbell when he heard the clatter of weights and an explosion of laughter from across the gym.

The fat kid was sitting on a bench, weights abandoned at his feet where he’d dropped them, head between his knees, taking deep, hitching breaths, knuckles white on the edge of the bench, gripping it as though it were a raft in a typhoon. With an irritated roll of his shoulders, Connor stood up and headed for the drinks fountain in the right corner of the gym. He took a paper cup from the dispenser and half filled it with water, then headed for the kid, feeling the eyes of the chortling meatheads following him.

‘Leave him, man. Fatso’s taken a whitey. He’ll spew all over ye …’ one called.

Connor ignored him, touched the kid’s shoulder gently. ‘Here,’ he said, offering the water, ‘drink this. Slow sips. It’ll make you feel better.’

The kid looked up, pale green eyes watery with tears. His face was a mess of hectic colour, two scarlet plumes on his cheeks. Couldn’t be much more than nineteen or twenty. Despite himself, Connor felt a vague snarl of contempt. How the hell did anyone let themselves get this out of shape so young?

‘Th-thanks,’ the boy said. ‘Just went at it too hard, you know.’

Connor nodded briefly. He wasn’t looking for a conversation, just didn’t want to have to deal with the kid if he keeled over. ‘Take it a bit easier,’ he said. ‘Get your breathing sorted. Inhale when you’re relaxing, exhale when you’re moving the dumbbells, okay? And drop the weight you’re lifting a little, take it slow.’

The kid’s head bobbed up and down eagerly, a nervous smile tugging at the corners of his mouth.

Connor watched the kid breathe for a moment, the gasping breaths becoming more even, the hammering vein in his neck calming. Satisfied, he turned and walked back to his own barbell. Started his set, got about halfway through when he heard the laughter again, followed by the same voice as before.

‘Aw, fuck’s sake, man, now I’m gonna puke. Lookadit jiggle!’

Connor finished his set, sat up. Saw the kid had moved to a running machine, gut and chest bouncing in time to his awkward half-jog. His eyes were locked on his own reflection, face set in loathing and bitter defiance. Despite himself, Connor felt a surge of admiration for the kid.

Decision made. He got off the bench, ignoring the small voice in his head that urged him not to get involved. Walked across to the trio of meatheads. The shortest of the three, who made up for his lack of height with width, turned as he approached and took a half-step forward. Connor watched as the other two fell in loosely behind. They might as well have painted a target on their friend’s forehead.

‘Problem, pal?’ the meathead asked. No menace, just a cold smugness born of the knowledge that he was king of this castle and could handle anything that came his way. Connor studied him: the oily skin, the over-pumped muscles, the dilated veins that snaked up his arms like a roadmap. Wondered if the perfectly sculpted little shit in front of him had any idea how deep the waters he had just waded into really were.

‘No problem,’ he said, his voice low, even. ‘Just keep it down, okay? Kid’s doing his best, doesn’t need you reminding him how far he’s got to go.’

The meathead broke into a smile as fake as the rest of him. ‘Fuck off.’ He chuckled. ‘Seriously, man? Who the fuck you think you are anyway?’

‘I’m nobody,’ Connor said. ‘I just want to work out in peace. And I don’t need to hear your shit when I’m doing it.’

The first meathead tried to take another step forward, but Connor was already moving. He stepped to the side, got an arm around his shoulders in a we’re-all-friends embrace. Dug his fingers into the hard mound of neck muscle, heard a sharp intake of breath as he found the nerve cluster and squeezed. Leaned in close enough to smell sour sweat, eyes strafing the other two weightlifters, watching for them to make a move.

‘Like I said, I’m no one,’ Connor whispered, voice now as hard as the dumbbells. ‘So let’s keep it that way. You don’t know me, I don’t know you. Don’t want to. But leave the kid alone. Otherwise …’ He dug his fingers in deeper as he let the sentence trail off, pain delivering the rest of the message for him.

The meathead stepped back, his two friends crowding in on him. Connor stood, breathing slow and easy, eyes on the three of them. He saw the argument rage in the poisoned dwarf’s eyes, the battle between humiliation and pain being waged.

‘Ah, fuck ye,’ he said at last, turning away as he rubbed at his neck. ‘Nae fuckin’ worth it.’ He stormed off, friends trailing behind him. Connor watched them, just to be sure, then headed for the bikes. He saw the fat kid nod to him in the mirror, returned the gesture. He didn’t want a friend, definitely didn’t want a lost puppy following him everywhere. That only led to trouble.

He set himself up on a static cycle, was just getting into a rhythm when his phone buzzed in his pocket. Fished it out, irritated. Should have left the damn thing in his locker. But that wasn’t an option any more, was it? As an employee, he could go off grid for a while, let Sentinel Securities run itself. But with Lachlan Jameson out of the picture, thanks to his part in three murders and an attempt on Connor’s own life, Connor wasn’t just an employee any more. The board – a strange blend of investment bankers and ex-service personnel – had asked him to stay on with Sentinel, and even elevated him to senior partner. It was, they said, good business. After all, the Jameson case had shown Connor could handle a crisis.

Connor had smiled at the compliment, but knew better. The former chairman of the board and founder of the company had been exposed as a cold-blooded contract killer with a taste for beheading his victims. The affair had very nearly brought down a government. Connor had managed to stay mostly out of the coverage. But, as always, there were rumours. And one of those rumours was that Connor Fraser was not a man to take lightly. So, along with a leg wound that still ached when the nights were cold, he had come through the Jameson affair with a reputation, and a job offer.

More money. More responsibility. More headaches. And a phone he could never switch off.

He opened the text message, read it. Let his legs come to a slow halt.

Time to go to work.

Sitting on a hill that overlooked the three acres of carefully manicured grounds surrounding it, Robbie Lindsay was forced to admit that the Alloa House Hotel and Spa was an imposing sight. It ticked all the right boxes for a luxurious mansion turned country retreat – the secluded location, the sandstone-and-glass façade that screamed wealth in the uniquely restrained way Scots had perfected, the car-park at the side of the property just visible enough to show the high-end saloons and sports coupés of the guests to anyone arriving. This was a place that wore its exclusivity casually, like a four-figure handbag on the elbow or an understated watch that cost as much as six months’ mortgage payments for a normal mortal.

Looking up at it again, Robbie was forced to conclude that the Alloa House was something else too.

It was a total pain in the arse.

He ground his toe into the perfectly raked slate-grey gravel that made up the driveway, looked out again at the view. A long, sweeping expanse of lawn led down to a thin copse of trees. He knew from studying maps of the place that there was a small stream beyond those trees, then about two square miles of dense woodland that backed onto a narrow, winding B-road that led, eventually, back to the main road to Stirling. No fences, no CCTV cameras, no security patrols. Normally, that wouldn’t present a problem. The main house was covered by security cameras, the alarm system had a hot trip line wired directly to Police Scotland’s area command centre in Stirling, and the main entrance to the hotel was manned by a rotating team of security staff twenty-four hours a day.

Problem was, this was anything but a normal weekend.

Robbie sighed, took another expectant look up the driveway. He hadn’t wanted to call in Connor on this – he still felt the need to prove himself: he had almost let a client get away from him after a court appearance in Edinburgh. But after what he had been told when he arrived an hour ago, after what he had seen, what choice had he had?

None. Not when Blair Charlston was your client.

The dull, echoing thuds of the punches ricocheted off the walls of the room, cut through by the almost-musical jangle of the chain anchoring the heavy bag to the ceiling as it danced and jerked. He glanced up at the clock mounted above the mirrors that dominated the far wall. Made a quick calculation. One minute more. Sixty seconds.

Plenty of time.

He darted forward again, chasing the bag, shock juddering up his arms as he dug into it with a combination of jabs, uppercuts and crosses. Saw faces in the bag, taunting, mocking him, heard voices in the shimmer of the chain. Those three sentences. The sentences that had transformed his life. And then there was her. That night. That room.

Now.

He blinked, forcing the thoughts away as he drove forward even harder, the thunder of his punches unable to drown out his thoughts. Felt his legs begin to shake with the effort, the air growing hot as he tried to take in ragged breaths, lungs not big enough to meet the growing scream in his muscles as his body clamoured for air.

He blinked away the sweat that stung his eyes, glanced at the clock. Fifteen seconds to go. Just fifteen …

‘Mr Charlston?’

The voice startled him, made him stumble mid-lunge towards the bag. He whirled, anger churning with terror in his gut like acid, even as he felt instinct contort his face into a mask of practised calm. A mask he had crafted after that night – the night that had changed everything.

Now.

In front of him, a tall man had the grace to look embarrassed at the intrusion. Blair placed his hands on his knees and leaned forward, using the moment it took to calm his hitching breath to try to remember the man’s name.

‘Yes, ah, Robbie?’ he said, stars dancing across his vision in crampy waves as he straightened. He was aware of the heavy bag behind him, still swinging slightly, the chain’s earlier jangling replaced by a dull, whispering squeak.

Now.

‘Sorry to interrupt,’ Robbie said, his eyes focused over Blair’s shoulder on the heavy bag. The man hated making eye contact. It was something Blair was used to. People who knew about him had two reactions – disgust or indifference. He guessed Robbie Lindsay was veering towards disgust, but was forced to keep it indifferent because Blair was paying his wages for the next three days.

Too bad for him.

He waved a hand that had almost stopped shaking. ‘No problem,’ he said, giving Robbie a smile as practised as his expression. ‘I’m done anyway. What’s up?’

‘Mr Fraser just arrived,’ Robbie said, his eyes sliding to meet Blair’s at last. Interesting.

Blair considered. ‘Okay. Give me a couple of minutes to clean up. Tell Mr Fraser I’ll see him in the suite in, say …’ he made a show of looking at the clock on the wall ‘… twenty minutes?’

If keeping the boss waiting for twenty minutes annoyed Robbie, he hid it well. ‘Whatever you say, Mr Charlston,’ he said, as he gave a butler-like nod and backed out of the room.

Blair watched him go, the silence rushing in on him. He turned back to the heavy bag, which was now almost still.

Now.

Drove forward with a jab that sent the bag swinging again, then turned and left, leaving it to pirouette and twist, like his own thoughts.

Connor stood outside the Alloa House, feeling a vague discomfort that had nothing to do with the sun beating down on him from a cloudless August sky. He took a deep breath, admonishing himself. He lived in a garden flat on one of the most exclusive streets in Stirling, had more than a few quid stored away thanks to an old-money inheritance from his mother, and had arrived in an Audi that cost more than some people could earn in a year. And yet, for all that, he couldn’t shake the nagging feeling that he didn’t fit in here as one of the wealthy. It was a feeling that had been magnified by his university days in Belfast, when he had studied during the week, then headed down to see his grandfather in Newtownards at the weekends. He and Jimmy O’Brien would spend their time either in the pub or in the home-made gym Jimmy had constructed in a shed at the back of the garage he ran, slowly building Connor into the man he was today. A man who preferred a gym to a ‘health spa’. Or a Guinness to a gin and tonic.

He shook himself from his thoughts as he saw Robbie jog down the granite staircase that led up to the hotel’s main entrance. Knew from the knotted shoulders and sheepish smile what he was about to say. ‘So,’ Connor asked as Robbie came to a halt in front of him, ‘how long is Mr Charlston going to keep us waiting?’

‘Ah, twenty minutes or so, boss,’ Robbie said, a hectic red running around the line of his shirt collar. ‘He was going hell for leather at a punch bag when you arrived.’

Connor arched an eyebrow. A punch bag? Interesting. Not exactly in line with the public image Blair Charlston was projecting these days and definitely not on message with what he was selling this weekend, but entirely consistent with what Connor had found out about the man.

The initial contact had come from Aaron Douglas, an investment banker who sat on Sentinel Securities’ board of directors as a non-exec. Connor knew he had put money into the firm when Lachlan Jameson had set it up seven years previously. It had been Douglas who had approached Connor and asked him to join the board when Jameson had been charged with the Stirling murders – the case that had culminated in Connor beating Jameson half to death in the ground of the Holy Rude Church at the top of the town and nursing a knife wound to the leg. It was exactly the type of coverage that a firm specialising in close protection didn’t need: operative moonlights as contract killer and political assassin. Rates competitive. Satisfaction guaranteed.

For three months after the Jameson affair, Connor had wondered if his elevation to the boardroom would be the shortest-lived promotion in history as the company hurtled towards ruin. But then Douglas had stepped in with this contract, and the work had started to flow.

Blair Charlston was a familiar name to anyone who had switched on the TV news or opened Twitter over the last five years. He had made his name as an investment banker in London, branded himself as the man who could raise the funds when a company needed them. He’d invested in everything from coffee shops to insurance companies, football clubs to high-street chains, stepping in and helping the companies to avoid bankruptcy through capital and aggressive growth plans. He’d been good at it, too, hauling firms back from the brink and into the black while pocketing a sizeable chunk of the profits.

But then came Perigee Designs. And Blair Charlston’s life had fallen apart.

At first glance, it looked like just another deal. Perigee Designs was a bespoke kitchen design and manufacturing company, based in Kinross to the east of Stirling. It had grown popular in the 1990s and early 2000s when a Premier League footballer had agreed to a glossy magazine shoot of his mansion. The writer had become enamoured with the man’s kitchen and expressed his feelings in the purplest of prose across two spreads. Connor wondered how much the owners of Perigee had paid for that affection, but it had done the trick – Perigee became the name in interior design for every fashionista and wannabe in the country. But, like fashions and political parties, Perigee had eventually dropped out of favour, overtaken by the Next Big Thing. Orders slumped and the company began to cut costs – with its workforce. Then the threat of Brexit delivered the killer blow by sky-rocketing the price of shipping its products, and Perigee found itself dancing around the business pages like a prizefighter about to collapse. Connor remembered the headlines that had been part of his briefing pack for this job: ‘Kitchen Fitter Set for Last Supper’, ‘Perigee Set to Fall with Loss of 50 Jobs’, ‘Local MP Calls for Crisis Talks to Save “Heart of Kinross” Perigee’.

And then, just as Perigee had hit the canvas and the referee got to eight in his count, Blair Charlston had stepped in. A deal was agreed to buy the company and its assets, with Blair installed as finance chief and his fellow investors taking up other boardroom positions. At first he was hailed a hero, the visionary who had ridden to the rescue from the City to save a family firm and the community that depended on it.

Unfortunately, the goodwill didn’t last long. Reports of asset stripping soon became rife, of Charlston and his team awarding themselves staggering bonuses, exorbitant salaries and expense-fuelled ‘business trips’ at the same time as they streamlined the business and set about cutting the workforce. But, like an abused partner clinging to the lie that ‘they only hit me because they love me’, the Perigee staff and the wider town had stood by Charlston and his team.

Until Graham Bell. And what Charlston had done after that.

Connor was roused from his thoughts by the soft crunch of gravel beside him. He turned to see Robbie standing in front of him, his face expectant, like a waiter about to take his order. Connor smiled. ‘Sorry, Robbie, caught in my thoughts. Let’s go inside, get a coffee and you can bring me up to speed. Shouldn’t take more than, say, twenty-five minutes.’

Connor saw the calculation run behind Robbie’s eyes even as his mouth dropped open. ‘But, boss, that’ll mean …’

Connor waited for Robbie to catch him up, a small smile tugging at the kid’s face. He had potential, but he was still a little slow at reading the situation. Connor made a mental note to work on that with him.

He acknowledged the smile with one of his own – felt as though he was throwing a puppy a treat. ‘Come on,’ he said. ‘Coffee. And you can tell me what’s going on, and why Charlston needs to see me.’

It was, Donald Peters realised, the quiet that was the problem.

He was sitting at his kitchen table, laptop in front of him, Donna Blake’s familiar smile frozen on the screen. She was thinner than he remembered, and her make-up and wardrobe had definitely had an upgrade since her time at the Western Chronicle thanks to her new job as a reporter for Sky, but her eyes hadn’t changed. Still that same glacial blue, made all the more piercing by Donna’s habit of staring straight at you. She’d been labelled intense, even intimidating, by those she interviewed and those she worked with. It was one of the things Donald had liked about her. He hoped she still had that intensity, that it wasn’t just an act for the cameras.

She was going to need it.

Lost in thought, his eyes wandered to the patio doors facing him and the garden beyond. He gazed out at it until the central heating gave a soft click and he heard the boiler switching on. And that was when it hit him. The near-perfect silence. The peace and quiet. He was used to the constant buzz and chatter of a newsroom as he worked, of calls being made, keyboards clattering, conversations shouted from one end of the room to the other. Even getting home had been no respite: Janet had been a noisy child, charging around the house, always making sure the TV was turned up too loudly, always eager to sit with her dad and listen to his stories. And then there was Carrie, his wife. A music teacher, she supplemented her income by giving private tuition, filling the house with music on the rare weekends that Donald had managed to get away from the Westie.

But that was a lifetime ago. Janet was half a world away now, enjoying a new life with her husband, Stuart, who had been lured Down Under by the promise of a high-paid job and a better life away from the UK. Donald saw the appeal, supported Janet when she told him of their plan, helped in every way he could. But he knew the truth, saw it in Janet’s eyes every time they spoke. She wasn’t emigrating. She was running away. From this house, from memories of her mother, who had been taken by a cataclysmic brain aneurysm one day when she was halfway down the stairs. Donald had found her when he got home that night after another too-long day at the office, could still remember the chill of her skin on his fingers. The doctors told him that Carrie would have felt only a momentary flash of pain before she knew nothing more. Donald took comfort in that, but what haunted him was the time: the time she had lain alone at the bottom of the stairs, the silence crowding in on her as her body stiffened and cooled. It was estimated she had died sometime in the morning, meaning she had lain undiscovered for at least ten hours before Donald got home.

All that time alone. In a silence like this.

He forced his attention back to Donna. It was a tight shot of her standing in front of an ornate entrance gate, the name ‘Alloa House Hotel and Spa’ carved into a sandstone wall in oh-so-tasteful lettering. He had paused the playback just as the wind picked up, teasing a stray strand of hair across her pale forehead.

Smiling slightly, he hit play, letting Donna reach up and brush the strand away as she spoke.

‘… and it’s here, five miles from Stirling, that Blair Charlston will host his ITOI weekend for more than three hundred guests. These three-day events, which Mr Charlston describes as an “immersive experience in personal power and liberation”, have proven hugely popular since Charlston re-emerged as a lifestyle coach and business strategist following the Perigee scandal and the death of his partner, Kimberley George. While ITOI Consulting has refused to comment on attendees this weekend, I understand several A-list stars are expected to arrive over the course of the next few hours, undeterred by the ongoing controversy that surrounds Mr Charlston, or the threat of protests from those connected with Perigee …’

He tuned Donna out as she started to recount the details of Perigee. He knew them all too well. About how the cuts at Perigee had driven one of the workers there, a man named Graham Bell, to take his own life at the factory. This had set off a chain reaction which culminated in the company falling into administration for a second time and the death of Charlston’s long-time girlfriend, Kimberley George. It had only been a month from Bell’s body being found slumped in a toilet in the Perigee factory, arms opened from wrist to elbow, to the discovery of George’s body in a London hotel room, Charlston slumped beside her, their blood mingling in a widening pool on the bed they lay on, but during that insane month five years ago, Donald felt he had lived a lifetime.

Seized by an urge to move, he got up from the table and busied himself making yet another cup of coffee.

He focused on the growing rumble from the kettle as it started to boil, using the sound to block out the maddening stillness in the room and the doubts that tugged at his mind. As he did, he tried to rehearse the conversation he would have with Donna when he gave in to the inevitable and called her. Found, again, he had no idea how he was going to tell her what he knew – and whether his courage would hold long enough for him to say it.

If the hotel was luxurious, Blair Charlston’s suite was nothing short of opulent. It was a study in understated good taste rendered in antique furniture, plush rugs and oversized soft furnishings. The suite was situated in the centre of the hotel’s top floor, the grandeur of the living room’s ornate marble fireplace offset by floor-to-ceiling windows that led out to a small balcony overlooking the grounds. To Connor, it looked as though the landscape had been designed to be best appreciated from this view: there was a symmetry to the hedgerows, paths, flower beds and ponds that you just couldn’t appreciate from ground level.

Aye, but tea is tea in a china cup or a tin mug, he heard his gran whisper in his mind, forcing him to suppress a smile. Ida Fraser, who now spent her days in a care home similar to this hotel – another grand house redesigned for residential use – had never been an easy woman to impress. And Connor doubted whether these shows of wealth would do the trick, nice views or not.

They were greeted at the door by a tall, thin woman who introduced herself as ‘Anne James, Mr Charlston’s personal assistant.’ Her hand was a fragile thing in Connor’s large paw, warm when he shook it. She had thin lips that she had attempted to plump up with fresh lipstick, and wore a blouse that looked as if it had been ironed onto her, its precision somehow at odds with the hectic colour in her cheeks and the glistening of sweat on her top lip. But despite this, it was her hair that Connor’s eyes kept drifting to. It was a rich auburn, sleek at the front, but tousled around her long ponytail, almost as if—

‘Mr Fraser, Robbie, sorry I kept you waiting.’

Connor turned away from Anne, his train of thought lost as Blair Charlston swept into the living area of the suite, eyes flicking between Robbie and himself. He was shorter than the TV footage, . . .