After collecting Kask and his workers, and transferring them to the local station, Hawkins had purposely minimized activity at Streatham Motors. For now, the place was simply off-line, shut down, no one on site. Of course, the services it provided, both legal and otherwise, would be disrupted, but from the outside there was no sign that anything dramatic was to blame, no visible police activity – just a couple of plain clothes officers watching the door in case anyone came for evidence, to deposit, collect, or destroy.

But her overriding hope was that the drug gang had greater concerns than exactly what was going on at the garage. The gang were obviously experts in keeping daylight between themselves and the grubby end of drug distribution, but that wasn’t necessarily the case when it came to murder.

Clearly the upper echelons had received word from somewhere that the business was under police scrutiny, but without knowing exactly why, or if their other outlets might soon be subject to similar raids, their likely reaction would be to lie low for a few days at least. Potentially giving Hawkins time to track them down and coordinate a cross-departmental intervention.

The rest of her motivation was to avoid making things any worse with Mike by further damaging his team’s investigation.

She hadn’t seen or heard from him since the dramatic end to their argument the previous night. As far as she knew, he hadn’t been home, despite the late hour at which he’d walked out; hardly an ideal time to be turning up on a friend’s doorstep, hoping to commandeer the couch.

Would he really sleep in the car?

Her attention was dragged back to the present as Kask cleared his throat.

Hawkins looked up, convinced for a second that the garage owner was about to speak. Instead, he merely shifted in his seat.

She adjusted her approach. ‘I should remind you that we have four members of your staff in custody, too. They’re currently in the cells around yours. I was hoping you’d want to end this nightmare for them by helping us, but your continued refusal to do so makes me question the extent of your involvement.’ She watched his eyebrows rise. ‘Is the truth that you went to them?’

For the first time Kask’s answer was emotional, unrestrained. ‘No.’

‘Then give me names.’

He shut his eyes, shook his head. ‘I cannot.’

‘Fine.’ Hawkins stood, chair screeching again. ‘I’ll talk to your staff, and we’ll see if they’re so loyal to supposed enemies.’

At last Grange interjected, following Hawkins to her feet. ‘My client is the victim here, Detective. But he has no confidence in the Met’s ability to safeguard his loved ones.’