Returning to her flat, Jane poured herself a large tumbler of whisky. She then lit one of the cigarettes from her stash and thought about what Elliott had told her. Apparently Nichols’ cellmate had asked to speak to Operation Countryman officers and revealed that Nichols had been boasting about a ‘bent cop’ on the Flying Squad who had tipped him off the night Jane was working undercover as a waitress at a wedding, where Nichols and the Ripley brothers were finalizing details for the Shoreditch robbery. Nichols had not revealed the police officer’s name, but Countryman were almost certain it was DCI Murphy he’d been talking about.

She took a drag of the cigarette. ‘That two faced-bastard,’ she said to herself.

At the time, she had suspected that Nichols recognized her. She shook her head and almost laughed, remembering how she had gone to Murphy, afraid she could have blown the undercover operation. Now she knew she would do all in her power to help arrest and convict him.

The phone rang. It was Spencer.

‘Do you want to know the latest?’

‘Just tell me, Spence.’

‘OK, here you go: Farook has a teenage daughter called Yasmin. And guess what?’

‘She was on your list.’

‘Correct. I mean, I don’t know how many Yasmins there are in the world, but it’s a fucking big coincidence. The thing is, if Farook is our man, we mustn’t tip him off.’

‘Did you take Yasmin’s phone number down when you listed her as one of the girls?’

‘No, that’s when I realized that they were no longer clients and were not on their books, so I tossed them aside. The rest of the girls’ names I took from a stack left on the desk.’

‘Who gave you the name Yasmin?’ Jane asked.

‘I talked to Michael Langton. I had to wait an hour before he came out of his therapy session.’

‘How did you get around to asking about Yasmin?’ Jane asked.

‘I was going through my notes, and I had written down that Michael Langton had said that Farook was a lovely guy, very religious, with a very beautiful daughter. But he didn’t give me a name.’

‘You didn’t bring that up at the meeting with Tyler,’ Jane replied curtly.

‘For Christ’s sake! It was only when I was going through my notebook afterwards, and it just triggered something that I thought I should check out.’

‘So what did you say to Michael Langton?’ Jane asked.

Spencer sighed irritably. ‘I just thanked him for seeing me and said that I was checking into something and asked if I was right that he had mentioned Farook had a daughter. He came straight out with it and said he had never met her, but he knew her name was Yasmin. I’m not stupid, I didn’t keep on at it and quickly changed the subject, all right? Is that OK with you, Jane?’