She moved back so he could close the door as she answered her phone. ‘What’s up?’

‘Ma’am?’ It sounded like Amala was in a moving vehicle. ‘Where are you?’

‘At home. Why?’

The sergeant said something away from the mic before her voice became audible again. ‘You said you wanted updates.’

‘Yes. What’s up?’

‘Our man’s on the move.’

44

The clock on the dashboard said it was just after seven as Hawkins pulled up at the junction, between a bed warehouse and a pub called the Beehive. Multi-coloured lights hung from the pub’s fascia. A three-quarter moon occupied the top corner of the windscreen, lighting the cloudless night sky.

She shook her head, checking that she hadn’t deviated from the sat nav’s suggested route to the address she’d been given.

This has to be wrong.

She pressed a button on the steering wheel, told the system to call Amala. There was a rapid string of electronic tones before it connected, to be answered after half a ring.

‘Ma’am.’ Amala’s hushed voice came through the speakers, filling the Giulietta’s cabin. ‘Where are you?’

‘Just off the high street in a sodding town centre. I am looking for an abandoned warehouse, right?’

‘Yes.’

Hawkins craned her neck to see past the white van in front, catching the remnants of rush hour traffic drifting back and forth. ‘What’s Mardell doing?’

‘No idea, chief,’ came the muted response. ‘But he drove straight here after leaving the sorting office. His car’s parked outside with several others.’

‘Nothing about this case makes sense.’ She saw the signal ahead change, crept forwards behind the van, which procrastinated so long that the lights changed again as it crawled away, leaving Hawkins stranded at the red. She banged the wheel, watching other cars begin to stream back and forth across her.

Partly her frustration was down to how she’d been forced to leave things with Mike, just as the situation between them had shown the first signs of calming down. He had understood she needed to take the call from Amala, and made cups of tea while she listened to the sergeant’s description of the route they were taking, while maintaining a safe distance behind Mardell’s Renault.

Twenty minutes in, and with the two cars moving west across London, coming towards Hawkins, she had taken the decision to get in the car and try to rendezvous with Aaron and Amala, the idea being that she could then take over surveillance duties from wherever they ended up.

She had even asked Mike to join her, thinking that a car journey and a potential night’s surveillance would give them a chance to properly resolve their differences. Mike had declined, but only because he had an unavoidable early start with the narcotics team.

Plus, he needed to tend to his wounds.