‘Last night I went to see a friend who works at the NCA. They’ve been trying to tap me up for a while. And, you know, you should be happy; if I leave they’ll have no excuse not to keep you on.’

‘You’re leaving? Jesus, Mads. The National Crime Agency? I thought you laughed at those bastards.’

‘No more than they laugh at us.’ She shrugged. ‘What does it matter? You know I hate it here, but I love the work, when I’m allowed to do it properly, and I’ll essentially be working on the same things but from another side.’

‘What am I going to do without you?’

‘Well, for a start you could look into why the fuck Emsworth was so keen to get rid of us.’

Gabriela felt her chest lift at the words and she narrowed her eyes.

‘You think he’s …’

‘Oh come on, we can both stop dancing around it now. You know as well as I do that there is something going on in this place, and that man has something to do with it. With my new contacts and resources at the NCA, I can do a bit of digging from my end. You’ll be here, in the thick of it. It’s perfect. Perhaps it’s for the best, what’s happened.’

Madeleine looked at Gabriela and she grinned.

‘OK.’

Madeleine crushed the rest of her cigarette against the wall.

‘OK. Let’s get that fucker and stick his head on a spike.’

Chapter 21

Isobel

Tariq’s words are still rolling through my thoughts when I arrive back at my desk. The light is flashing on the answerphone machine and I press play, but the crackling white noise at the end of the line is almost deafening, and after a moment I press delete.

There is a back catalogue of emails to catch up on as I settle back at my desk and I stay there, with my eyes fixed to the screen, for a couple of hours before standing up to have a cigarette.

I’ve barely taken a drag, finally allowing myself to return in my mind to the spate of stabbings, when my thoughts are interrupted by Ben, calling out from the office. ‘Answer your phone, would you? I’m about to throw it out the fucking window.’

Moving inside, I get to my desk just as the ringer stops. Looking over at Ben, I shrug and he rolls his eyes.

‘Have you written up that piece on the new parking proposals yet?’

I make a face. ‘But I’m working on the stabbing …’

‘Isobel,’ he says. ‘This is a local paper, you can’t ignore the bread-and-butter stories at the expense of the steak.’

‘Right,’ I mutter under my breath. ‘I really must get my priorities straight.’