Spider Trap

NINETEEN

The following day Kathy was caught up in one of her other cases, her court appearance scheduled and rescheduled in a frustrating series of delays.While she waited she thought about Brown Bread. Her Rainbow success, identifying the Mondeo, had been a small victory, but it didn’t seem to lead anywhere. The whole business of Rainbow surveillance had previously seemed rather dumb and unsavoury policing, but now she could appreciate its possibilities. Before long the net would be so extensive that they would probably be able to say where any given vehicle was at any particular time and, with the new facial recognition technology, any given person, too. She smiled grimly to herself at the thought of giving the coordinator Tom’s car number and asking where it was at one o’clock the previous night.What was he playing at? Come to that, what was Brock up to? The whole investigation felt directionless and remote.

When the Crown solicitor finally told her in the afternoon that she wouldn’t be called until the following day, she decided to take the long way back to the office.She made her way down to the Old Kent Road, across Blackheath and onto the Dover road, noticing several cameras along the busy route,but not at the point where she turned off to Shooters Hill. When she reached the golf club she turned into the car park and switched off the engine. There had been a spate of car thefts in recent months as well as two burglaries of the clubhouse bar, and Kathy was interested to see cameras covering the building, the car park and, of greatest interest, the entrance gates.

She got out of the car and walked around the clubhouse, seeing no one. The paraphernalia of golf carts and little flags and greens and fairways brought back the memory of an illicit weekend in Norfolk with Martin Connell, long ago. She’d forgotten about the game of golf they’d played, his instructions and guiding hand. The recollection was intense and bittersweet.

The course was deserted, the open ground enfolded by dark woods. She walked up the first fairway and then cut through a belt of dripping trees to emerge on the edge of the returning eighteenth. On its far side she could see the roofs and windows of The Glebe above its encircling wall. Some of the upper rooms had large picture windows, glinting in the reflected light of the low red sun, and balconies, so that their occupants could enjoy views out over the parkland and woods and the stream that had been turned into a picturesque water hazard across the final fairway.

Her phone trembled in her pocket and she turned back into the trees to answer it. It was Tom.

‘Hi, where are you?’

‘Playing golf.’

‘Don’t be sarcastic, Kathy, it’s not you. Look, I owe you a huge apology for last night.’

‘It’s all right.You can crash at my place whenever you want.’

‘I’d like to make it up to you. Can I buy you dinner tonight?’

‘Fine. How’s it going with Andrea?’

‘Oh great, we’ve had a good day. She’s given me one or two interesting things to think about.’

‘I’ll bet. Smart is she?’

‘Very. They all are, working over here, but she particularly. Oxford degree, you know. I’ll have to get her to show you around.’

‘Good idea. Damn.’

‘What’s the matter?’

‘Sorry, I trod in something. My feet are soaking wet.’

‘Where are you, really?’

‘I’ll tell you tonight. And you can tell me about Andrea.’

He took her to L’Odeon in Regent Street, which Kathy had to admit made it a handsome apology.When he gave her a hug she found herself sniffing his collar like a jealous lover. No trace of J’Adore. Maybe she’d been mistaken, what with the curry and the cigarette smoke. But then she remembered the handkerchief.What had she done with it? On balance she decided not to bring it up.

She told him about her day and he laughed.

‘You really were on that golf course? Alone? In the dark?’

‘It wasn’t quite dark. But I felt I needed to get to grips somehow with the reality of the Roaches.’

‘I know what you mean. And did it help?’

‘Not really. I couldn’t see much. I didn’t even want to ask the professional if they played there, in case he got suspicious.’

‘They do play there, the three sons and their wives, and some of their children. They’re all members.’

‘How do you know?’

‘Article and picture in the Plumstead Gazette,a family golf competition day last year. The whole clan in their snappy golf gear, the women with dazzling smiles, the men and kids scowling. I feel I know everything about them, and nothing. Like you say, it’s all on paper.’

‘Andrea had their picture from the Plumstead Gazette? Why?’

‘That’s a good question. She’s got passport records of every overseas trip they’ve ever made-how did she get those? She just laughed when I asked her. And she’s got graphs tracking the share prices of their companies against the FT Index. Michael Grant sounds rational enough, but I think he’s obsessed. He’s convinced the Roaches are behind half the drugs trade south of the river, and he’s got Andrea dredging for anything that might fit into an incriminating pattern.’

‘How does she feel about it?’

‘She believes him. He’s very convincing, very impassioned. She thinks he’s wonderful.’

‘What’s she like?’

‘You can meet her. Grant’s daughter is giving a concert on Saturday evening to raise money for one of her father’s good causes.We’re invited, Brock too.Will you come? Apparently she’s very good.’

‘Oh, well . . . Nicole and Lloyd suggested we go out with them on Saturday.’

‘They could come along, then we could get a meal together afterwards.’

‘All right, I’ll ask her.’

‘You’re right, you know, about the case,’ Tom said. ‘We’re doing it all wrong, not being aggressive enough. What’s Brock doing, do you know?’

‘He seems to be immersed in old police files.’

Tom shook his head. ‘More paper. It’s like he’s becoming bogged down in the past. Either we should have a go at the Roaches or we should forget about them and get on with something useful.’

‘What could we be doing?’

‘I’ve got one or two ideas.’

‘Like what?’

‘Not now.’ He looked at her.‘There are more important things to think about, like what we’re going to eat. The steamed sea bass is supposed to be a speciality of the house, so I’m told.’

Later she caught him looking at her with an oddly sad expression.‘What’s wrong?’

‘I’ve been neglecting you,’ he said.

‘We’ve both been a bit preoccupied with work.’

‘I’ll make it up to you, soon. Maybe we could go away somewhere, take a trip, get out of London.’

‘Where do you fancy, Jamaica?’ She smiled, but he just looked nonplussed, as if he couldn’t see that it was meant as a joke.

Later, he drove her home. She asked him up for a nightcap but he refused, saying he needed to get a few things prepared for the morning.

Kathy wasn’t required in court until ten that day, and decided to pay another visit to the flat above the laundrette in Cove Street. She guessed that George, if he was living there, was probably not an early riser. As she pulled into the kerb outside the tyre yard she saw the woman step out of the flat onto the access deck, this time unencumbered by her twins. Kathy waited while she hurried down the stairs and ran towards the street, then she went up to the front door. There was a light visible through the frosted window.

She knocked, waited, then knocked again. Finally the door opened.

‘Yeah, yeah, yeah . . .’ George grumbled, wiping his hands on a cloth.‘Wha-’

He stared at Kathy and his mouth stayed open as he recognised her.

‘Morning,’ she said.‘Can I come in?’

He recovered himself, sticking his head out of the door and darting his eyes up and down the deck and over the street below. ‘What you want?’

‘A few words, George.’ From somewhere inside a baby began to cry, then another, their wails rising to a coordinated shriek. ‘Won’t take a minute.’

He looked harassed.‘All right then.’

She followed the sounds of distress as he closed the door behind her, and found the source on the floor of a cramped living room, two shiny brown sets of limbs thrashing on newspaper.

‘Oh, phew.’ A pair of soiled, freshly opened nappies lay next to their bottoms.

‘Yeah, ’orrible, innit?’

‘Got fresh nappies? I’ll give you a hand, if you like.’

She squatted down and they took one each.

‘You’re better at this than me,’ Kathy muttered, trying not to breathe.‘Are they yours?’

He shook his head, mouth turned down with disgust. ‘No way.Where you parked?’

‘Outside the tyre yard.’

‘Anybody see you come up here?’

‘I don’t think so, why?’

‘The landlord don’t like coppers. He’d get really pissed off if he knew you were here.’

‘Teddy Vexx, eh?’

‘Teddy, yeah. How do you know that? What you want anyway?’

‘Winnie’s worried about you, George.Why did you leave?’

‘She got on my nerves, nagging all the time, wouldn’t stop telling me what to do. I couldn’t take it no more. Carole said I could move in here as long as I helped out with the twins.’

From the look on his face as he stared down at them he wasn’t sure he’d made the right choice. Kathy noticed a keyboard and some sophisticated-looking electronic gear on the table, mixed up with the jumble of breakfast things.‘You working, George?’

‘Off and on.’

‘Where did you nick that stuff?’

‘Give over, that’s all mine. That’s the other reason I had to leave Winnie-she couldn’t stand me practising.’

‘Is your group playing at the moment?’

‘Yeah,at the JOS.It’s the place,man.We just started there.It’s our big break.’ For a moment he grew a little stiffer with pride, then he sagged again.‘What do you want, anyway?’

‘Where are the binoculars?’

George looked startled.‘What binoculars?’

‘I want to know why you spied on us when we were digging up those bodies on the railway land.’

Now he was acting offended.‘I never did! Who told you that?’

‘Don’t lie to me.We found a spliff you were smoking over there. Pretty potent.You want me to arrest you and talk to you on tape?’

‘Oh . . .’ He slumped into a chair, shaking his head in disbelief. ‘This is so unfair. All the stuff that’s goin’ on and you pick on the little people like me.’

‘Stop moaning, George, and tell me what you were doing.’

‘I don’t know. They paid me, that’s all that mattered to me, but I don’t know what was the point. I sat up there freezing day after day and I said,What’s the point? They’ve cleared the snow, they’ve put up tents, I can’t see anything. And he just said, How many

tents? Where are they? He wanted a daily report.’

‘Who did?’

‘Teddy. But it was for somebody else. He was doing a favour for somebody who was interested, I don’t know who.’

‘You must have some idea. How did Teddy contact him? Did they meet? Did you ever see Teddy talking to him?’

But George was too afraid of Teddy Vexx, and knew he’d already said too much.‘You’ve no idea,no idea at all,what he can do. Just leave me alone. I don’t know nuffing.’

‘You should get away from Teddy and his friends, George. Concentrate on your music.’

‘I don’t have no money, do I? And he got us the gig at the JOS.’

‘Good luck.’

George darted ahead of her to the door and looked cautiously around outside before letting her go. Behind them the twins started bawling again.

When she got to court she found herself on hold once again, and she took the opportunity to make a couple of phone calls. She started with the Rainbow Coordinator at Greenwich Borough. When she got through she told him about the camera at the gates of the golf club, and he promised to check and get back to her. Then she rang Nicole and told her about the invitation to the concert on Saturday night.

‘What sort of music is it?’ Nicole asked.

‘I don’t know. Classical, I think. It’s for a good cause, not sure what.’

‘Oh well, we’ll give it a go.’ She made a note of the arrangements, then added, ‘What’s got into your boss these days, Kathy? He’s driving us mad with his demands for old files, buried in the deepest recesses. Is he writing a history book or something?’

On Saturday morning Brock sat at his desk surrounded by columns of stacked files that looked as if they’d been unearthed from some ancient crypt. Dot had attempted to rearrange them, he saw, perhaps to make an easier route to the door, but she hadn’t made much impression.From her withering looks the previous day he understood that she no longer considered the situation tenable. He sympathised, of course, but he couldn’t stop now, not having come this far. The problem was that the material evoked so many memories, so many side trails, that it was easy to get distracted. To focus his researches he had pinned a large sheet of detail paper over the top of the Brown Bread wall, and it was now covered with a hand-drawn timeline and incident record chart decipherable only to himself. Maybe today, maybe tomorrow, something would emerge out of the mist. He knew he couldn’t go on much longer. Then the phone rang, his mobile not the office one.‘Hello?’

The caller said nothing for a moment. He heard an intake of

breath, and repeated,‘Hello? Brock here.’ ‘Hello, David.’ It was his turn to be silent, giving the buzzing in his ears a

chance to subside.‘Suzanne,’ he said at last. ‘Was that you at the airport on Tuesday?’ ‘Yes . . . yes it was. I got cold feet when I saw the children.’ ‘I’m coming up to town this morning. Do you want to meet?’ ‘Yes,’ he said.‘I’d like that.’

Kathy also had a surprise in store that Saturday morning. Tom picked her up at nine for what he described as a mystery trip. He was wearing a warm jacket, and she noticed the strap of a camera hanging from its pocket. They headed north and east on roads she didn’t know, and after a while she began to see signs for the Lee Valley Regional Park, Waltham Abbey and Epping Forest. They drove through woodland on narrow lanes over rising ground, and eventually emerged on a hilltop, where Tom pulled over in front of a panoramic view back across the city. It was a fresh, blustery morning, with sunlight piercing the gaps in high cloud to pick out parts of the Thames basin in pools of brightness. Suddenly the sound of birdsong and the hum of distant traffic were punctuated by the sharp staccato rattle of gunfire.

‘Now do you know where we are?’

Kathy shook her head.

‘Lippitts Hill? You haven’t been to the firing range here?’

‘Oh, yes, but I must have come a different way. Have you brought me for a morning’s shooting then?’

‘Not quite. Something more fun, I think.’ He pointed up at the sky, and after squinting at the cloud for a moment Kathy was able to make out a tiny object dropping fast towards them. A little later and the growing dot was accompanied by a thumping noise that became a deafening clatter as the helicopter passed overhead and dropped behind a copse of trees. Tom restarted the car and drove after it to a set of gates beside a notice for the Metropolitan Police Air Support Unit.

‘I thought we might hitch a ride,’ Tom said.‘Okay?’

He was friends with the inspector who ran the police staff on the base, a former Special Branch man, who introduced them to the pilot. They had a cup of coffee together while the Twin Squirrel was being refuelled, and he pointed out the aircraft’s special features: the Nitesun searchlight, the Skyshout loudspeaker system, and the gyro-stabilised, thermal-imaging video camera.

Tom was trying to impress her, Kathy realised, and doing quite a good job, though she’d have been more impressed if he’d volunteered what he’d been doing the night before.

They climbed in, fastened seatbelts, and rose into the blustery air. Below them the canopy of Epping Forest spread away to the north. Spiralling higher, the full extent of the city became clearer, sprawling away to the distant horizons, east, south and west. They headed down the Lee Valley, following the chain of reservoirs, marshes and waterways towards the great silver snake of the Thames, crossing it near the Isle of Dogs and losing altitude over the ant-line of cars on the Dover road across Blackheath.

Now Kathy realised what Tom had in mind.Soon she could see the pattern of tees,greens and bunkers on the golf course like a neat abstract painting, and recognised the belt of trees from where she had looked across the eighteenth fairway to The Glebe.Then it was laid out below them, an irregular octagon of roofs around the central space in which she could make out someone washing a car and two others on the tennis court. The tennis players paused in their game as the shadow of the chopper passed over them.

Tom was taking pictures and gestured for her to look at something to do with the stream across the golf course, but she couldn’t work out what he was saying. The helicopter banked into a wide sweep to the south before returning across Shooters Hill and heading back over the river towards base.

‘It was a great trip,’ she said to the pilot as they stepped out onto solid ground again, and she meant it, for the noise, the buffeting wind, the vibration, the exhilaration of height had energised her and she felt her face tingling with life. They thanked Tom’s friend, who said he couldn’t join them for lunch, but recommended a nearby pub, the Owl, which had its own pet owl in a cage in the garden.

Over pies and beer, Tom said,‘Did you get the point about the stream?’ He, too, seemed charged by their flight.

She said she hadn’t, so he got out his camera and replayed his pictures on the monitor screen.

‘You can see the route of it back here, beyond the old church, where there’s a winding line of willows. It curls around the church towards the original glebe house, then disappears.’ He clicked on through the frames. ‘Then we come to the Roaches’ compound,and on the other side the stream emerges again to form that hazard across the golf course, becomes the small lake near the clubhouse,and continues north to run into the Thames somewhere around Woolwich.’ He sat back with a quizzical smile, waiting for her conclusions.

‘So it’s been culverted where it runs around the Roaches’ place?’

‘Not around, under. To put together a big enough site for his family compound on the edge of the golf course, Spider had to build The Glebe across the stream. It runs in a culvert right under the development. And for maintenance purposes, there are two manhole access points into the central courtyard.’

As he made this revelation,Tom had a look of breezy elation on his face that made Kathy think of Biggles or the Famous Five, and she wondered if their aerial adventure had made him slightly drunk.

‘How do you know this?’

‘Because I’ve seen the plans lodged with the local authority. Planning approval was conditional on providing adequate means of access for council engineers.’

‘Andrea?’

He gave a smug little smile.‘Actually,no.I dug this up myself.’

‘You’re not seriously suggesting . . .’

Tom’s eyes lit up with mischief as he followed what was going through her mind, daring her to say it.

‘. . . posing as a council engineer?’

‘Not exactly that, perhaps. But let’s face it, the only conclusive evidence we’re likely to get against Roach will be inside The Glebe, yes?’

‘You want to break and enter?’

‘ “Covert entry” sounds so much better than “break and enter”, don’t you think? Sounds almost legitimate. Like nobody need know a thing about it.’

‘Tom …’

‘A moonless night,’ he mused, turning away to contemplate the owl in its cage outside the window. ‘The new moon is next Thursday . . .’

Kathy began to protest at how ridiculous the idea was, how impractical and potentially disastrous, until she saw his shoulders shake and realised he was having her on.

‘Tom!’ She punched his arm.

He turned back, laughing, and she joined in.

‘All right, you got me going.’

And yet, the reason she had fallen for it was that she had seen a quality in him that made it seem all too plausible.You might call it impatience with due process, or reckless courage, or the Nelson touch. She admired it, but also mistrusted it. Maybe she recognised a shade of it in herself.

‘I called in on Brock yesterday,’ Tom said later, as they were finishing their lunch.‘Have you seen his office lately? Like a paper recycling dump.We have to do something, Kathy, bring him back to the real world.’

They had arranged to meet at a small restaurant in Chelsea, a favourite haunt from years ago when Suzanne had lived in nearby Belgravia before she had moved down to the coast to open her antiques shop in Battle. Brock wasn’t sure what to make of her choice of venue, whether it was meant to resurrect the feelings they had shared when they first met, or to demonstrate how different things were now. He felt both sensations tugging at him as he stepped across the familiar threshold. Nothing had changed, not the decor, the layout of tables, or even the management. He was the first to arrive, and took his seat at a secluded table at the rear, ordered a dry martini because that was what they had done in those days, and sat watching the door with a trepidation he hadn’t felt in a long time.

She’d had her hair cut he realised as he rose to his feet, remembering the travel-worn figure he’d seen at Heathrow. The thick, shoulder-length dark hair had been trimmed back to her jawline in a new style he liked. He smiled to himself, for he too had visited the barber on his way over here. For a moment, as she approached, he wasn’t sure what to expect. Then her face broke into that warm generous smile of hers and she was holding out her hands to him.

‘David!’

He took the offered hands, then pulled her closer and wrapped his arms around her. ‘Suzanne,’ he murmured, with enormous relief. The maitre d’ beamed approvingly and eased out her chair and they sat.

‘Oh, dry martini! Yes, please.’

For a moment they said nothing, hands laid on the white tablecloth with fingertips just touching in mute contact.She looked reinvigorated, he thought, charged with new life.

‘Thank you for ringing,’ he said,‘for suggesting this.’

‘I wasn’t sure if it was a mistake, until I saw you just now. How have you been?’

‘The same.You look marvellous.The trip has done you good.’

‘Yes, I feel refreshed . . . in different ways.’

But he detected a shadow behind her words, and had the sudden awful suspicion that the purpose of this meeting was to make a final break.

‘A new perspective?’

‘Yes …’

He sensed some hard thing about to emerge, but then she veered away and spoke about the things she had done: riding horses on a cattle station, scuba diving on a reef, hiking through a rainforest.

Her martini arrived and he raised his glass to hers.‘Welcome home.’

She lowered her eyes.‘Did you miss me?’

‘Every day. Three months is a long time.’

She was about to reply to that when the waiter came for their order, and when he left she instead turned the conversation to the restaurant and its memories. Did he remember the old couple that always sat at that table over there, and how they’d invented their story from small clues-his taste in shoes, her silver-tipped walking stick, the tiny appointment diaries they would compare?

And how they would get tired of that, or discover a new clue, and invent a completely new story for them?

‘I had this idea that I could change our story too,’ she went on. ‘I used to think you were suffering from a malignant condition that I called Brock’s Paradox, a belief that you could only keep a relationship alive by not allowing it to reach its full potential.’ She gave a little smile.‘I thought if I could get you away for long enough I could show you that it needn’t apply, so I planned a long trip for us, overseas, but at the last minute you backed out.Work, you said.’

She propped her chin on a hand and looked at him quizzically. ‘Where did Brock’s Paradox come from, do you think? Was it your wife leaving you? Or does it go further back? Something to do with your mother?’

Brock was recalling that it was on the tenth anniversary of his divorce that he’d first seen Suzanne,been immediately struck by the woman getting out of the red sports car and going into the small antiques shop she ran just off Sloane Square. He had followed her inside and got her to tell him all about her cabinet of eighteenth-century English glassware.

‘So things didn’t quite work out as I’d planned. Quite the opposite, in fact. The thing was that, even though I’d put thousands of miles between us,every time I saw something interesting-green shoots coming out of the ground after a bushfire, an electric storm out to sea, a flock of pink-chested parrots filling a tree-I mentally turned to you to compare notes. I thought I could change you, and there I was, unable to change myself.You were still inside my head, and I decided I didn’t want to let you go.’

‘I’m glad,’ he said, and was.

‘But that wasn’t why I came home.’

The waiter appeared with oysters and a bottle of white wine.

‘Last week I got a panicky phone call from Ginny, who’s been running the shop.’

Brock stiffened. Had Roach made a move against her after all? It would be ironic if he’d been the cause of bringing her back.

‘Stewart had been in touch with her. He said that he and Miranda had been living on their own for the past two weeks,without anyone knowing-doing their own shopping and cooking, getting themselves off to school-but now they’d run out of money, and didn’t know what to do. He was quite apologetic. He had no idea where their mother was.’

Suzanne’s grandchildren would now be ten and eight, Brock reckoned, and it was their return to the care of their mother, after Suzanne had looked after them for a number of years in her absence, that had precipitated Suzanne’s plans for an overseas trip.

‘Ginny called the police, who traced Amber to the psychiatric hospital in Hastings. Apparently, she’d been found lying on a headland outside the town after taking an overdose. She had no identification.’

‘Oh no. I’m sorry.’

‘You know what she was like,always erratic in her moods.After she came back from living with that man in Greece she went through a black period, very depressed. Her doctor referred her to a psychiatrist who diagnosed her as suffering from Bipolar I Disorder.That did make sense.It’s a long-term illness,and it seemed to explain a pattern of extreme mood swings over the years. Also it’s heritable, and her father had similar symptoms-and you know he killed himself. The thing is that it’s treatable, with drugs and psychotherapy,and when she went on the medication she improved so much that I was tremendously relieved. When she said she wanted to look after the children again, I was really confident that she could do it. She was doing fine when I left . . .’

Neither of them had touched their oysters, and Suzanne’s voice had dropped to a flat murmur. Brock tasted his wine and she followed suit.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I should have kept in touch with them. I never thought.’

‘No, you couldn’t, not after the way we parted. It seems the hospital disagrees with the diagnosis. They think she’s suffering from Borderline Personality Disorder, which has similar symptoms but is less amenable to treatment. Also, when the social services went to the house to see the children, they found drugs-cannabis and methamphetamine. It seems Amber had never really given them up. I didn’t know. I should have been more careful.When I got home I discovered she’d taken things from my house, little things she could sell, and Ginny told me she’d discovered things missing from the shop.’

He watched the distress building in her, and reached out to put his hand over hers.‘You don’t deserve this. It isn’t your fault.’

She took a deep breath, reining her feelings in. ‘Anyway, I wanted you to know; that’s why I’ve come home.’ She picked up her fork and stabbed it at a grey mollusc.

They ate in silence, then she said, with a forced attempt to change the subject,‘So,and what are you doing at the moment?’

He told her about Dee-Ann and Dana, and despite her preoccupation, she gradually became drawn into the story.

‘Michael Grant, yes, I’ve seen him on TV. I thought he was very impressive. I wish there were more like that at Westminster. So the other three victims were his contemporaries. I suppose he could have been one of them, if things had been different.’

‘Exactly. This is why he’s taking such a personal interest in the case, that and his suspicions about Roach.’

‘But if he has evidence against him he should give it to you, surely?’

‘He’s giving us access to his files, but I don’t know if he’s holding something back. So far we’ve seen nothing we can act on.

We’re looking for a pattern of incrimination, you could say. My

lot are beginning to think I’m obsessed.’

‘What, you?’ She laughed.‘Don’t they know you by now?’

‘When your hair turns grey people start to look for signs of a similar deterioration inside your head. Kind of applied metonymy. Even Dot’s giving me funny looks.’

‘And how’s Kathy?’

‘Okay, I think. She’s going out with a bloke who’s working with us at the moment, on secondment from Special Branch. I’m keeping a close eye on him.’

‘I’m sure she’ll be glad about that.Why don’t you just let her get on with it?’

‘I don’t interfere!’ he protested. ‘I’m just not sure about her taste for Special Branch officers.Why can’t she meet a nice lawyer or something? Someone with a safe desk job. Anyway, you can catch up with her yourself this evening, if you feel like it, and Michael Grant too.’ He explained about the concert.‘And maybe afterwards . . .’

‘I have to get back this afternoon, David,’ she said quickly.‘I’ve got a note of the train times. Thanks.’

‘Of course.’ He stiffened, mentally cursing himself for spoiling everything.‘They’re staying with you now are they,the children?’

‘Yes, back to the old routine. I must say they seem happy about it. I wonder what went on, what they saw.’

The main course came, and suddenly they both discovered that they were very hungry. Later, over a shared dessert, Brock casually came out with the question that had been haunting him all week. It seemed that the tall, tanned man pushing Suzanne’s trolley at the airport was an acquaintance of her sister’s from Sydney, who just happened to be on the same flight.

The concert was to be held in a new library and community centre in Michael Grant’s constituency. The radical-looking structure, a prismatic blue oblong supported along one side by oddly angled columns,looked as if it had been dropped in,by helicopter perhaps, among the jumble of scruffy buildings cowering beneath the street lights and drizzle along the high street. As she and Tom made their way towards it, Kathy could see other people, some in suits with umbrellas and others in anoraks and jeans,heading under the raking columns towards the entrance. They waited in the shelter of the overhang until they saw Nicole and Lloyd running towards them, hugged and shook hands and made their way inside, where a stairway took them up into the belly of a curving pod, within which they found themselves in the foyer of the community hall.

Michael Grant was there, welcoming visitors. He shook their hands warmly, showing where they could leave their coats and find a glass of orange juice or wine, and said to Tom, ‘You must introduce your friends to Andrea. There she is, over there.’

He gestured towards a very attractive young woman who was talking animatedly with another couple. As they approached, however, the group broke up and the young woman turned away to speak to someone else.Tom led Kathy and the other two past her to a small, erect, grey-haired woman whose glass was being refilled.

‘Andrea!’ he cried, and bent to kiss her on the cheek.

‘Tom!’ The elderly woman’s eyes twinkled with delight.‘And is this Kathy? At last, I’ve heard so much about you.’ She took Kathy’s hand and squeezed it hard.

Andrea, Kathy later discovered, had been the CEO of a merchant bank in the City and then the head of a large charity before retiring, becoming very bored, and joining Grant’s office. As she talked, pointing out people who were present, it was clear that her mind and her wit were razor sharp. It transpired that the attractive young woman they had seen was Michael Grant’s daughter Elizabeth, who would be performing for them that evening with three of her friends from the Guildhall School of Music and Drama.

‘She’s extremely talented,’Andrea whispered,‘and very beautiful. Isn’t that the most perfect complexion? Creamy butterscotch. One day,when the mixing pot has done its work,we’ll all have skin like that,the ultimate human colouring.Too late for a wrinkled old mouse like me.’

She pointed out Grant’s wife, too, an elegant, rather calm-looking woman alongside her husband’s restless vitality, in conversation with a couple who looked as if they’d dressed for the opera at Covent Garden, and whose stiff expressions suggested they wished they were there instead.

‘Nigel Hadden-Vane and his wife,’ Andrea explained. She pronounced his name with an exaggerated posh accent that made it sound like ‘hard and vain’. ‘Tory MP, on Michael’s HAC-sorry, Home Affairs Committee. The enemy,’ she added,‘or one of them. Margaret Hart does her best to keep him in line.’ She pointed out a woman wearing a dramatic deep-red cloak.‘She’s the chair of the committee. Great fun. She tells people exactly what she thinks of them.You can watch them live on webcast. There’s another round of sittings coming up. But of course you’ve got better things to do.

‘Talking about the enemy, the person I’d really like to have invited here is Edward Roach-I’ve never met him in the flesh. Have you? No. But your Mr Brock has, hasn’t he? Is he coming tonight?’

‘He was invited,Andrea,’Tom said.‘Though he seems to have a lot on his mind at the moment.’

But at that moment Kathy spotted him arriving at the top of the stairs, making his way towards Michael Grant, who greeted him enthusiastically. She watched them talking together and was struck by how different Brock looked from when she’d last seen him in his office, weary and preoccupied. Now he had a smart haircut and seemed ten years younger and as animated as Grant. The MP led him over to meet his wife and daughter, and it was apparent from the way they were responding that he was being amusing and charming.

There were other faces there that Kathy recognised-Father Maguire,Winnie Wellington and, to her surprise, George Murray, trying to keep out of Winnie’s line of sight. He looked anxious when he saw Kathy watching him, and she smiled and gave him a little wave. As they took their seats, Lloyd made some comment about classical music and what to do if he started snoring too loudly. It occurred to Kathy that Lloyd had insulated himself with a few drinks before coming. ‘The tragedy is he means it,’ Nicole said, as Michael Grant appeared on the stage and silence fell.

Grant welcomed them and gave an outline of the youth programs their money would support,then introduced his daughter and her companions.Elizabeth took the microphone and explained that they called their ensemble ‘Doctor Breeze’, taking the name of the warm trade wind that soothes the beaches of Jamaica.They had selected a variety of pieces of music, she said, to reflect the diversity of the audience and the community they represented. She was a flautist, holding her flute as she spoke, and she introduced a classical guitarist, a cellist, and a young man at the piano, but behind them the audience could see other more esoteric instruments laid out on a table-a lute, a viola da gamba and others.

They began with Telemann, and Kathy heard Lloyd groan softly and saw him close his eyes. From Baroque Europe they then moved to twentieth-century South America with a piece by Villa-Lobos, then further south to Argentina and Astor Piazzolla, for whom Elizabeth exchanged her flute for an accordion-like bandoneon, to capture the poignant spirit of the Tango Nuevo. As the group moved from classical to jazz to world music, exchanging instruments, centuries and countries, the audience seemed to fall under a spell, both stimulated and lulled by every unexpected twist in the journey. They finished with a Vietnamese piece by an American composer, Monica Houghton, ‘We Rise Above Our Little Quarrels’, and by the end the listeners really did seem transformed. The applause was spontaneous, a single roar of sound, to which the group responded modestly. An encore was demanded, and they ended by returning to the eighteenth century from which they had begun, this time with Marin Marais. Lloyd had fallen asleep, and mumbled his objections as Nicole dug him in the ribs and they got to their feet.

Kathy wondered if she should say hello to Brock before they left, but he was deep in conversation with Jennifer Grant and the others were keen to leave, so they joined the crowd milling around the cloakroom. Kathy found herself standing next to Kerrie, the manager of Grant’s office in Cockpit Lane, and they were chatting about the concert when the imposing figure of Hadden-Vane swept by.Stopped momentarily by the congestion,he half turned to them. Noticing the flounce of a blue silk handkerchief in his top pocket to match his tie, Kathy thought of Martin Connell’s story about the MP and the knickers. She smiled, then abruptly suppressed it as Hadden-Vane turned and looked straight at her.His eyes connected, then passed on to Kerrie and lit up. He leaned towards her in a little bow and said softly,‘Hello,Kerrie.Enjoy the show?’

She smiled back and he continued on his way. Seeing Kathy’s look of surprise, Kerrie, still smiling to herself, said,‘He’s an MP. Full of himself. Reckon they all are over there, don’t you?’

Their coats arrived and Kathy said goodbye and joined the others. They headed down the street for a curry at a place nearby that Lloyd recommended. They took their seats and while they waited for their drinks to arrive they talked about the concert. Lloyd queried the fact that they’d played so many different instruments. He seemed to think this was a bit flashy and disreputable until Tom suggested it was like being a pentathlete. Then Lloyd caught the look on Nicole’s face and changed the subject. ‘Your boss didn’t show up then, Kathy?’

‘Yes, he did eventually. He was talking to Grant’s wife when we left, otherwise I’d have introduced you.’

‘Pity, I’d have liked to have met the great man before he quits.’

Kathy was used to Lloyd playing the joker, and she assumed from his exaggeratedly innocent expression and the flicker of exasperation on Nicole’s face that he was having her on. Still, she took the bait and said,‘Quits?’

‘Sure, any day now is what I hear. Hasn’t Tom told you that he’s taking over?’

Now it was Tom rolling his eyes, as if this was an old joke that had outlived its use-by date.

‘No, I don’t think he mentioned that.’ ‘Really?’Lloyd frowned with puzzlement and concern.‘Well,

he’s told us all about it, hasn’t he, Nic?’

‘Shut up, Lloyd,’ Nicole answered, but Kathy noticed she didn’t actually deny it. Tom was looking uncomfortable.

‘Oh God, yes, all kinds of plans to streamline . . .’

There was an awkward pause while the Indian waiter brought their lagers.

‘No, well,’ Lloyd went on, ‘I’m probably jumping ahead. I’m sure he’ll consult with everybody before he puts the more draconian measures into practice.’ He leaned forward conspiratorially.‘It’s the timing that’s so perfect,Kathy.Cheers.’

‘Shut up, Lloyd,’ Tom growled, ‘for Christ’s sake. You’re not funny.’

‘What do you mean, about the timing?’ Kathy asked.

‘Well, he can’t go back to Branch now, can he? Not now.’

Tom made to say something, but Kathy cut in.‘Why not?’

‘Hasn’t he told you about that,either?’Lloyd’s face was a picture of innocent bafflement. He turned to Tom, then to Nicole, one of whom had apparently kicked him under the table.‘What?’

‘Why?’ Kathy said, trying with difficulty to make her voice sound light and amused.‘Why can’t he go back to Special Branch?’

Lloyd shrugged, looking as if he suddenly realised he’d gone too far.‘Personality clash,Kathy.Tom’s boss is an old woman.’He frowned, realising that wasn’t the right thing to say either. ‘A geriatric desk-jockey at forty. Sad case. Resents like hell the fact that this guy has balls.Well, you’d know all about that . . .’

‘Oh please.’ Nicole finally stepped in. ‘That’s enough. He’s been drinking this afternoon, Kathy. Take no notice of him. I know we all work for the Met, but do we have to talk shop?’

‘Hear hear,’ Tom said.‘It’s slightly shop, but Kathy and I got a flight with Air Support this afternoon.’

‘Oh really! Where did you go?’

It was a good try, but it would have taken a better actor than either of them to make it sound convincing. Lloyd gave Kathy a sheepish look and muttered,‘Yeah,they’re right,take no notice of me. I’m pissed. Had a bad week. Almost killed a guy . . .’

And so the conversation veered off, but Kathy hardly heard it.

Not half a mile away, Brock also was seated at a restaurant table, but in much more relaxed company. The Grants had insisted he join them and the musicians for a meal and now the conversation flowed easily around the table in the mood of post-performance euphoria. They were all so likeable, he thought, modest and talented and full of youthful optimism,talking excitedly about their plans for when they finished at the Guildhall later in the year. Elizabeth had been accepted for the Artist Diploma program at the Juilliard in New York, and her mother was proud but anxious about her move away from them.

At the end of the meal Brock made his good nights and set off home, stopping along the way to phone Suzanne. She sounded pleased to hear from him, and they agreed that it had been good to see each other, and they would do it again soon. They were both careful in what they said, but warm, definitely warm. The atmosphere of the restaurant still clung to Brock and he hummed a snatch of Tango Nuevo as he went on.

The atmosphere of the restaurant clung to Kathy, too, as Tom drove them away. She waited for him to say something, but when he remained silent she started.

‘So what was that all about, you not being able to go back to Branch?’

‘I told you I’d been having problems there lately.’

‘Not really.You haven’t really told me anything about what’s been happening.’

‘Like Lloyd said, it’s a personality clash. It happens all the time.’

‘And what about your plans?’

‘I’m just playing it by ear.’

‘That’s not what Lloyd said. He and Nicole seemed to know all about them.’

This was the nub, of course, that her friend Nicole, who’d never met Tom until she’d introduced them, seemed to know more about what was going on inside his head than she did.

‘Oh, it’s nothing. I bumped into them one lunchtime and was shooting off my mouth about stuff, that’s all.’

Kathy bridled. Tom didn’t shoot his mouth off to strangers. He was secretive and highly selective in what he said. ‘Stuff you haven’t told me.’

‘Look, it’s difficult sometimes to discuss certain things with you.You’re involved, with me, with Brock . . .’

‘Brock? What about him?’

‘You’ve been with him a long time.You’re very loyal to him, understandably so.’

‘And I would see your thoughts as disloyal?’

‘I’m just saying that it’s difficult sometimes to air ideas freely without feeling they may be taken the wrong way.’

‘Whereas with someone who’s practically a total stranger, like Nicole, you can feel free to shoot your mouth off? That’s bullshit.’

She felt the knot tightening in her stomach.What also irked her was the way in which he hadn’t discussed where they were now going, but had simply driven north towards Finchley on the assumption, presumably, that he would be inviting himself in.

They were almost there now, and she was just preparing some line to challenge him when he pulled over and said,‘I’m sorry,Kathy, we got off on the wrong foot tonight. It was Lloyd’s fault. Let’s leave it for now. We’ll catch up tomorrow or Monday and talk about it. Okay?’

Stung, she unfastened her seatbelt and got out of the car, and then, looking back in through the window, she caught a glimpse of him checking his watch impatiently before he waved and took off. She stared after him and thought she saw a familiar shadow draw out behind him as he crossed the junction down the street, but this time she didn’t phone him.

Sunday, a dark overcast morning, and Kathy woke after a disturbed sleep. The knot of tension in her stomach was still there, and she found she couldn’t swallow the coffee she made. There was only one cure she knew of, and that was work, so she took an empty tube train into the city and walked to Queen Anne’s Gate. The offices, too, were deserted and she felt like an intruder in the silent building.

Loose ends, Brock had said. She went back over her case notes and identified a few. They still hadn’t been able to contact the owner of the red BMW sports car she’d seen in Tallow Square, a Mrs Coretta Wilkins with an address in Chigwell, and Kathy tried the phone number again without success. They had no record for Mrs Wilkins,whose car hadn’t been reported stolen,and it seemed that her improbable presence there must be coincidental. Then there was Mrs Lavender, whom Father Maguire and Brock had mentioned from the old days in Cockpit Lane, but hadn’t been on Michael Grant’s list. She could try to track down people who worked at the old Studio One club on Maxfield Street where the three victims used to go, or trace ‘Rhonda’, who had possibly had a boyfriend called Robbie, perhaps the third and most elusive victim. Or she might find out more about Teddy Vexx and Jay Crocker, and their dodgy laundrette.

She worked for five hours with little success, finding nothing that stirred any real interest in her, until the silence began to get her down. She switched off her computer and left, walking across St James’s Park to Trafalgar Square and on past Leicester Square to Gerrard Street where she had a quiet meal in a tiny Chinese restaurant she knew. Afterwards she went to a movie, feeling as if her life were on hold, waiting for something significant to happen.

The following day she was called to a meeting with the Crown prosecutors,and it wasn’t until the early afternoon that she returned to her desk, determined to draw up a report for Brock, along with a request to be taken off Brown Bread. There was one new bit of information waiting for her on her computer, a list of car numbers courtesy of the Greenwich Rainbow Coordinator, taken from the golf club camera in Shooters Hill. Comparing them with her list of numbers of interest was what her old schoolteacher would have called busy-work, but there was a kind of mindless entertainment in it, like playing a poker machine, hoping for a random match. When she had eliminated all the numbers known to belong to Roach family members she had a list of their visitors’ cars for the past six days.Unfortunately this didn’t cover the night of the Singhs’ intimidation,for the camera tape had been reused since then,but in any case, there was no sign of Vexx’s Peugeot or Crocker’s Mondeo on the list. She began to run checks on the unknown numbers and soon came to one that made her sit up-Mrs Wilkins’ red BMW had been a frequent visitor to The Glebe.Kathy checked the times.

Not just any visitor, but an overnight visitor no less, on three of the last six nights.

Encouraged, Kathy continued to check numbers. Several were innocent enough-a plumber, a messenger service, guests for Sunday lunch who lived nearby. Then Kathy hit another jackpot, and this time she felt that little dizzying adrenaline shock that people describe as heart-stopping. She checked the number again. It occurred four times, twice coming and twice going, both late at night, after midnight, in the early hours of Sunday and before that on the previous Wednesday. A Subaru, registered to Tom Reeves.

She took a deep breath, then got on the phone to Greenwich, requesting digital copies of the camera images for a number of the times recorded.They said it would take a couple of hours if it was top priority and she told them it was, giving DCI Brock’s name. Kathy waited, heart thumping, then rang down to the front desk to see if Tom had signed in that day and was told that he’d been there since noon. She forced herself to complete her check of the car numbers, then saved the file with a new password and began her report for Brock, no more than a list of key facts, the way he liked it.

The file of requested images finally arrived on her computer and she opened the first, for the early hours of Wednesday morning, when he’d turned up exhausted at her flat. And there he was, no mistake,his face caught behind the windscreen by the streetlight opposite the golf club entrance, and beside him, smiling prettily, Miss J’Adore. Then she checked the most recent image, just the other night, after the concert and their quarrel-same again, with the same dark-haired girl. In each case there was a second image taken less than an hour after the first,showing the Subaru emerging from the lane leading to The Glebe,the driver now alone in the car. And then she realised who Miss J’Adore was.

Kathy moved on to the other images she’d requested, of Mrs Wilkins’ BMW, and there was the girl again, behind the wheel this time. She should have thought of it, she told herself-wasn’t Coretta a Greek name? Coretta Wilkins was probably an aunt or cousin of Magdalen Roach, Miss J’Adore herself, who’d been borrowing her car.

‘You bastard,’ Kathy whispered, staring again at the image of Tom and Magdalen in his Subaru.‘You stupid bastard.’ She pressed the key for a print.

She found him in the basement ‘Roach Room’. He was sitting tilted back in his chair, feet up, hands behind his head, contemplating the photos on the wall when she opened the door, and he reacted with a jump, swinging himself upright.

‘Oh, hi, Kathy. How are you?’

She closed the door behind her.‘A bit clearer now, Tom. Here, I’ve got another picture for your rogues’ gallery.’

He reached for it with a smile. ‘Oh, thank-’ He froze as he took in what it was.‘Fuck.’

‘Is that what you do with her?’

He stared at her, mouth open.

‘An eloquent answer. I’m going to see Brock.Want to come?’

‘No!’ He leapt to his feet.

‘What, this is all a terrible mistake, this is not what it seems? Don’t insult me, Tom. There are other pictures.’

‘My God. How . . .Who?’

‘Never mind.’ Kathy reached for the print and turned away. ‘I think I’ll see him myself first.’

Tom rushed towards her, and for a moment she thought he was going to grab her, but instead he threw himself between her and the door.‘Kathy, listen, don’t do anything until you’ve heard what I’ve got to say. Please.’

She considered a moment, then said, ‘All right, but it had better be good. One false note and I’m off.’

He took a deep breath.‘Sit down, please.’ He went back around the table and took his own seat.‘I’m not going to stop you leaving, but it’s very important that you hear me out. It wasn’t my idea to target Magdalen.’

‘Target? Is that what you call it in the Branch?’

Tom held up his hand. ‘Just listen. What I told you about wanting to get out of Special Branch was true-I can’t get on with my boss, and he’s been making things difficult. So when he offered to loan me to Brock for the Brown Bread investigation I was very happy. Then when Brock made it plain that he was going after the Roaches, I had a quiet word with one of my mates in the Branch. He said he’d heard something about another operation against them.’

‘What operation? We haven’t heard about this.’

‘I don’t know, it’s probably in the past. My friend had the impression it might have originated outside the Met. MI5 maybe, or the JIC. Anyway, he felt it could be useful my being here, in Brock’s team, in terms of my career.’

‘As a spy.’

‘No, no. I’ve had no contact with these other people, if they exist, and I haven’t been talking about Brock’s investigation. It isn’t like that, Kathy. I may be able to help him, and us too.’

‘By screwing-sorry, targeting-sweet Magdalen?’

Tom took another deep breath.‘I asked my friend to keep his ears open, and he came back with a hint about one of Roach’s grandchildren being rebellious and a possible source of inside information on the clan. I took a good long look at them all and came to the conclusion that it had to be Magdalen. She’s been a bit wild, recently divorced, reputation for partying. Four months ago she was picked up for drink driving,with traces of coke in the glove box, and when local CID interviewed her she said one or two odd things about her relatives that the detective thought significant enough to pass on to the Central Crime Squad.She had her driver’s licence suspended. The drugs matter wasn’t pursued.

‘So I decided to find out more about her, where she goes, who her friends are. I arranged to bump into her a couple of times at clubs, and gradually got talking to her. She let me take her home, because she shouldn’t be driving, although in fact she does use a car belonging to a relative who’s overseas. Since her divorce she’s been living in her parents’ house in The Glebe, but she’s pretty hostile about some members of the family, especially her father, Ivor. She’s really vitriolic about him and the way he treats her mother. That was the main reason she went to stay with them, she said, to keep an eye on her mother. They seem to be very close. She’s told me things we didn’t know, like the fact that her grandpa has a trophy cabinet, with guns.’

He let that sink in, watching Kathy’s mind working. ‘Brown Bread?’ she asked.

‘It’s possible. That’s one of the things I’d like to find out.We joke about her being like Rapunzel, living in a castle, and how I’d like to see inside. That would be impossible, of course, with her parents there, only they went to New York at the weekend for a few days, and most of the rest of the clan are travelling up north today for a family function. I’m seeing Magdalen at the club tonight, and she’s promised to take me home and show me around.’

‘Bren knows about all this, does he?’

Tom shook his head.‘Nobody does,until now.’

Kathy gaped at him. ‘Nobody? You’ve carried out your own private operation on the Roaches and you haven’t told anyone? And tonight you’re planning to walk into The Glebe without back-up, without letting anyone know?’

‘I’ve put everything down on file. It’s in the cabinet over there, everything I’ve done and learned, and when the time comes I’ll

go to Brock with it. But not yet.’

She made to protest, but he leaned urgently across the table. ‘Kathy, you know that Michael Grant was right about the connection between the Roaches and the Yardies, but we’re getting nowhere.We’re like a ship without a rudder. This is what I do-undercover work. If I find something, I’ll take it to Brock. If not, no harm done.’

‘You’ve got to tell Brock before tonight, Tom.’

‘And if I do, what will he say? My guess is that he’s been told to back off. If so, he can’t afford to let me go in.’

‘Try him.’

‘Kathy, it’s better he doesn’t know.’

She thought about that. It dawned on her just how badly Tom wanted a coup, something spectacular to recharge his career or wipe out whatever had gone wrong for him in Special Branch. His secretiveness was breathtaking, but then that was the way he’d been trained to be, and maybe only he could pull off the stunt he was planning. She also remembered Lloyd’s niggling joke about Tom wanting Brock’s job.

‘But I know.’

‘No you don’t. This conversation never happened.’

‘Of course it did. I’m involved now. If we don’t tell Brock, then I’m as responsible as you are. So I’ve got to be part of it.’

‘No way.’

‘She won’t see me, but I’ll be there, your back-up.You’ll keep in touch by texting me, and if you’re not out of The Glebe by a set time I’ll call in the troops.’

‘No. Having you in the background will only increase the risk to me, Kathy.’

‘Tough.’

‘You don’t trust me, do you?’

‘I wonder why?’

He sighed, and reluctantly began to negotiate their working arrangements for the evening.

Tom had arranged to meet Magdalen at a pub in Eltham, a short taxi ride from her home, and drive her from there to the club where they planned to spend the evening. It was the same one, the JOS, part-owned by Teddy Vexx, where George Murray had told Kathy that he and his group were appearing, and she found the coincidence alarming, especially when Tom confirmed that Vexx and Jay Crocker knew and were friendly with Magdalen, who apparently had a taste for Jamaican music.

For this reason, Kathy didn’t go into the JOS, but waited in her little Renault in the street opposite. She saw Vexx and Crocker arrive in the throbbing Peugeot,and later Tom and Magdalen in his Subaru.While she waited she watched the customers coming and going, listened to the muffled thump of the music and studied the band posters covering the outside walls, Black Troika among them. She wondered if George Murray was any good.

Shortly before midnight her phone signalled a text message from Tom: ‘WAKE UP ON OUR WAY’. They appeared soon after, Tom having to support Magdalen down the front steps. Her long legs looked as unsteady as a newborn pony’s or the rubbery hand she flapped at another couple leaving in the other direction. They laughed and waved back, and Tom gave them a rueful grin that Kathy felt was probably meant for her before he turned to steer his partner away down the street.

He drove at a sedate pace across South London, Kathy on his tail. It was twelve-forty when they reached the golf club gates at Shooters Hill, where Kathy pulled onto the verge beneath a low tree and watched Tom, parked further up the lane leading to The Glebe, ease Magdalen out of his car and help her walk towards the gates. They fumbled with the keypad for a while and then they were inside and everything was still.

The agreed deadline for Tom’s return was two, but at one-fifty Kathy received another message: ‘WORKING L8 MAKE IT 3’. The minutes crept by, getting closer and closer to the hour, until Kathy had her phone out, pressing the numbers for help-and then he was there, letting himself out of the gate and hurrying towards his car, head down, arms wrapped around his chest as if against the cold. His footing seemed unsteady, and at one point he stumbled and almost fell. Then he was in his car and turning, coming fast back up the lane. He hurtled past as Kathy made her turn and she watched his tail-lights disappear into the distance.

He was waiting for her at the junction with the main road, turning onto it as she appeared, and for a couple of miles she followed him towards central London. His driving seemed erratic, the Subaru weaving in and out of its lane and at one point almost colliding with a turning truck,and Kathy became alarmed,worried that something was wrong. Finally he signalled a turn into a quiet suburban street and drew in to the kerb. Kathy parked behind him, jumped out and pulled open his door.

‘Are you all right?’

‘Yeah, yeah. Just not fit to drive. Take me home, will you? I’ll leave the car here.’

He hauled himself out and stumbled to her car, still clutching his leather jacket as before, and sank into the seat with a sigh.

‘Are you sure you’re all right?’

He nodded, eyes closed. ‘God, she took a bloody age to pass out.’

‘So, how did it go?’

‘Okay, I think.’

‘Did you find anything? Brown Bread?’

‘Not that, but maybe something better.’ He looked up at her with a Belmondo grin, took hold of the zip on his jacket and slid it slowly down, revealing a fat yellow envelope.‘Let’s go home and see what we’ve got.’ He closed his eyes again and fell asleep.

As she turned her car back to the main road Kathy felt a surge of relief. At least it hadn’t been a total disaster.

Tom woke as she drew to a stop outside his flat. ‘Thanks,’ he mumbled.‘I don’t think I’d have made it.’

He let them in.‘I’m having coffee,’ he said.‘Want a drink?’

‘Coffee’s fine. So tell me about it.What happened?’

‘Oh, she got pretty legless at the club, more than normal, but at least she was willing to leave earlier than usual. Not for me,’ he added quickly.‘With her parents away there was another attraction. When we got to the house she said her father kept dope in his office safe and she wanted my help to get into it. She had the key and a combination for the lock, but she couldn’t get it to work.’

‘Why did she think you could do it?’

‘I’ve told her I work as a security consultant. So she took me into her dad’s office and I had a look. It took me ten minutes to figure out what he’d done-you had to subtract one from each of the digits he’d written down to get the true entry code.Inside there were half a dozen sachets of cocaine, some of Magdalen’s mother’s jewellery, a pile of papers and a file. Magdalen removed one of the packets of coke and we went out to the living room.’ He shrugged. ‘Like I said,it took forever for her to fall asleep.She got all wild and lively again, wanting to dance, and then finally flaked out, just before the time I was supposed to leave. So I sent you the message and went back into the office and had another look. The papers seemed innocuous-birth certificates, company registration documents, stuff like that-but the file was odd. It was labelled “Dragon Stout”, and seemed to be concerned with a consignment of Jamaican beer for the Paramounts off-licence chain. I thought it was strange having just one business file in among that other stuff, and I had a closer look. Most of it was straightforward letters and documents about suppliers’ contracts, container layouts, shipping arrangements, customs forms, things like that, but then I came across this sheet . . .’

Tom opened the yellow envelope and emptied its contents onto the coffee table. He thumbed through them for a moment, then lifted a single sheet with the letterhead of the head office of Paramounts Beers,Wines and Spirits, Importers and Retailers. It was dated the previous year and took the form of a handwritten list of points, like a summary for a presentation or a report, and ran as follows:

TERMS:

standard 20' container holds 1120 cases of 2 doz bottles of DS

300 (25%) cases of ‘special’ = 7200 bottles

@ 80 gm/bottle = 576 kg FGBC

@ ?20,000/kg = ?11.52m

‘DS is Dragon Stout?’ Kathy said.

Tom nodded.

‘What’s FGBC?’

‘Could be first-grade base cocaine. Twenty thousand a kilo is about right for wholesale Colombian, uncut.’

‘You think they’re bringing it over in bottles of beer?’

‘That’s how it looks.’

‘This isn’t the original, is it?’

‘No. There was a photocopier in the room, and I copied as much as I could of the file until I ran out of time. I haven’t really examined the rest. I know there are letters to the bottling plant in Jamaica and the names of distributors in the UK.’

Kathy frowned, worried.‘Isn’t this a bit too easy? I mean, are they really going to put this sort of stuff down on paper?’

‘It’s a business, like any other, Kathy. They have to keep records of what’s been agreed, what’s been paid. Look at the initials at the bottom: I.R., Ivor Roach. He’s the accountant, he has to know. It’s his file, in his private safe, in his home.Where else would it be?’

‘When is this going to happen?’

‘It already has. According to the dates there were four container loads delivered last year. That’s forty-six million pounds worth of cocaine wholesale, say a hundred million on the street as crack or coke.’

‘Well.’ Kathy felt incapable of judgement. It was four in the morning and she wanted sleep and time to step back and digest this. She felt she barely recognised the man beside her. His face was flushed, his pupils contracted and his nose running. ‘No wonder they’ve all got better cars than me,’ she said.

‘Yeah.’ He sniffed and wiped his nose.‘And no wonder they’ve got plenty of friends.You look tired.’

‘Yes, I’ll be on my way.’

‘Kip here. Then you can run me back to my car in the morning.’

She was too weary to argue, and they tumbled onto opposite sides of his bed and fell into a troubled sleep.