Ness was beside him, following his gaze to the same star. He could feel her shoulder nudge his companionably as she leaned against the car. Her throat was slender, white and vulnerable where it stretched upwards under the starlight.

‘The carburettor’s probably just flooded,’ she said softly.

Her voice made even such mundanity sound sexy. He gave her a cheeky grin. ‘Are you coming on to me?’

There was a moment of silence and then she started to laugh.

He turned, trapping her body between his and the car.

He could see her teeth as she giggled, and was aware of her warmth heating his chest, hips and thighs. He felt himself grow hard against her and suddenly her teeth were hidden from him, and he could feel her ragged breath on his throat.

‘Yes,’ she said, pressing her hips into his, ‘I’m coming on to you.’

Ancient stars bore witness as they explored hungrily, using hands and lips as substitutes for eyes and words in the darkness. He felt Ness moan low into his mouth, and pressed her down to the still-ticking heart of the Honda. For the second time in thirty minutes his out-of-practice hands fumbled with his button-fly – and suddenly they were illuminated in the lights of an oncoming car heading towards De Rust.

Tom straightened and Ness propped herself on her elbows and quickly pulled her dress down over her thighs.

The car passed them, leaving them in the blackness again, breathing in its dust.

The moment was gone.

In the ensuing silence, Ness levered herself off the hood and smoothed her clothes. She didn’t look at him as she slid back into the passenger seat.

With a groan he couldn’t suppress, he realized he’d never even got his jeans undone.

*

This time when Tom turned the key, the car coughed into a semblance of life and – after a brief, heart-sinking wheel spin – he swung it back onto the road towards the wreckage.

They didn’t speak. Tom didn’t know what to say and her face gave nothing away – she was as calm and unruffled now as she had been when they were standing at check-in at LAX.

He’d like to track down the inventor of the button-fly and make him suffer …

The barn’s skeletal silhouette loomed out of the darkness unexpectedly soon. Tom parked the Honda so it lit their way to the barn and he and Ness walked the short distance in silence. His flashlight was still in his pocket, he was relieved to find, as they reached the remains of the engine housing on the port wing.

But the fan disc was no longer on the ground.

Tom frowned and swept the dust with the thin beam.

‘Where is it?’ said Ness.

‘We left it here, right?’

She nodded, confused. ‘Sure. You and Paul turned it over and laid it flat right here, see?’ With her toe she pointed at the faint, broken ring the fan disc had pressed into the dust.

Tom illuminated the mark. A footprint bisected it. He checked his own, and then Ness’s. Neither was a match. ‘Someone’s taken it.’

‘Taken it?’

Tom squatted to touch the footprint. ‘This print was made after the fan disc was lifted up.’ He was aware that his voice was calm, and realized it was because he was numb with disappointment. He stood up and waved the flashlight beam pointlessly at the road. ‘The other car. They must’ve been on their way here. No wonder the bastards didn’t stop to help.’

‘But why would anyone take it?’

‘It was the only evidence that there might be something wrong with the disc. The only proof. I should never have left it out here. Fuck!’ He kicked impotently at the dirt.

‘It’s not your investigation, Tom. It wasn’t your call.’

He waved her logic aside. He was a jerk. Possibly the only material evidence to two fatal crashes, and he had left it out here in the middle of a desert without security. Without even a door. With a polite little sign asking passers-by not to steal souvenirs. He needed his ass kicked, and hard.

Like missing paperwork, stolen wreckage told its own story, and the only pinprick of light in the tunnel of his stupidity was that the theft of the fan disc proved he was on the right track.

It was a small and feeble pinprick.

Tom stared sightlessly into the dust between his feet, the tiny grains thrown into relief by the narrow beam of his torch, which moved gently with his breathing.

He felt Ness’s hand on the back of his neck and almost laughed at the bitter irony. Out of the game and back on the bench for you, Patrick.

‘Maybe we can catch them.’ The thought jumped into his head, and before the words were out of his mouth he was running back to the car, heedless of leaving Ness in the dark.

‘Tom! Don’t!’

He jumped in and started the engine, threw the car into gear and gunned it forward, sliding to a stop beside her. ‘Get in.’

‘But, Tom—’

‘Get in or stay here!’

He saw the flash of anger in her eyes. He wondered if he’d meant it but, before he could decide, the door opened, then slammed and he hit the gas with a vengeance. ‘They won’t be expecting us to follow. They won’t be going as fast.’

She was fiddling with the heater.

‘Cold?’ he asked, trying for reconciliation.

‘No,’ she said. ‘I’m fine.’ But she continued to adjust dials and buttons and slides, and he knew it was so that she wouldn’t have to look at or talk to him.

Fuck it.

The Honda had recovered from its bronchial moment and was roaring along. Tom started enjoying the chase, even though the quarry was not in sight. Adrenalin surged through him. He glanced at Ness’s fingers exploring the air-con. Those fingers had touched him, held him, pulled him urgently towards her. Whether or not they caught the other car, he wanted to get back to De Rust as quickly as possible. They were both strapped in, and it was just as well. He threw the car around like a toy, careless of consequences. They’d had their crash of the night, he figured, so now they were protected by the god of lightning, who wouldn’t strike twice in the same place.

Once, a Merino loomed in the headlights and Tom detoured crazily across fifty yards of stone, sand and tufts at sixty m.p.h. It made him want to whoop, but he kept his mouth shut and his hands on the wheel.

‘Lights,’ Ness said, without inflection.

There was a faint red glow up ahead. In this black wilderness, they would be able to see even the tail-lights of a car from a long way off. They were gaining quickly.

They went into a shallow dip and lost the lights, but as the road rose on the other side, the glow was much bigger, and Tom realized it didn’t come from car lights – it came from a fire.

There was a short drop into De Rust and they could see a building ablaze. Before his mind had even worked out the geography, Tom’s gut told him it was the guesthouse.