“Fuck you.” Shaw coughed and reached for more whiskey. “John Harris was worth ten of you. You’re not worth the piss stains on his underwear.”

“Come off it, Shaw, the two of you were as bent as the day is long. He might have had a good excuse for it, but you…? You couldn’t remove every scrap of evidence from the archives. All your arrests were for burglary, assault, fraud and the occasional domestic murder. Doesn’t that tell you something?”

“What, smart-arse?”

“That all the time Carlo Fiorino was running prostitution, escort agencies, illegal gambling, protection, porn and drugs with absolute impunity. Sure, you had him or one of his henchmen brought in once or twice for questioning, just for the sake of appearances, but guess what—either the evidence disappeared or witnesses changed their statements.”

Shaw said nothing, just sipped more whiskey.

“Fiorino fed you his opposition,” Banks went on. “He had eyes and ears out on the street. He knew what jobs were going down. Small-fry, or competition. Either way it made you look good and deflected attention from his own operations, which included supplying Rupert Mandeville with as many bodies as he wanted for his ‘parties,’ male and female.”

Shaw slammed the tumbler down on the table so hard, the whiskey slopped over the side. “All right,” he said. “You want the truth? I’ll tell you. I’m not stupid. I worked with John for too many years not to have my suspicions, but—know what?—I never took a fucking penny in my life. And maybe I blinkered myself, maybe I even protected him, but we did our jobs. We brought down the bad guys. I loved the man. He taught me everything. He even saved my life once. He had charisma, did John. He was the kind of bloke everybody noticed when he walked in the room. He’s a fucking hero around these parts, or hadn’t you noticed?”

“And that’s why you’ve been doing everything in your power to scupper DI Hart’s investigation into Graham Marshall’s murder? To protect your old pal’s memory. To protect Jet Harris’s reputation. To do that you get someone to break into her flat, try to run her down, have me beaten up.”

“What the fuck are you talking about?”

“You know what I’m talking about.”

He looked at Michelle, then back at Banks, a puzzled expression on his face. “I certainly never had anyone intimidate DI Hart in any way. I wasn’t worried about her. It was you I was worried about.”

“Why’s that?”

“You’re the loose cannon. It was you I needed to keep an eye on. It was different for you. Personal. You knew the victim. I could tell the first time I saw you that you weren’t going to let go.” He shook his head and looked at Michelle again. “No,” he said. “If anyone had a go at you, DI Hart, it wasn’t down to me.”

Banks and Michelle exchanged glances, then Banks moved on. “Are you asking us to believe that you worked with Harris all those years and you hadn’t a clue what he was up to?”