“He’s thinking about it. Which— I’m not a nark, Mr. Sabini. I don’t want to consult for the Met. Well, it isn’t for the Met, it was ‘in a private capacity’, but it’s still working for the busies, isn’t it? But like you say, I’ve a record, and if a detective sergeant is telling me what I need to do for my own good, I don’t have much choice. The dinner was him being nice about it, and I don’t want him to be nasty, but...” He gestured helplessly. “I suppose you’ve called me here because you don’t want me to do it, and I understand that, I truly do, but I’m between a rock and a hard place. I can’t just tell CID to piss off.” He looked plaintively at the gang lord. “What should I do?”

“Maybe I can tell him to piss off for you,” Darby said. “If you give me the information I need.”

Joel perked up. “Could you? What do you need?”

“Enough to get rid of Mr. Fowler for good.”

“But I don’t have anything like that,” Joel said, and heard the very real crack of fear and frustration in his voice. “Honestly, if I could get rid of him, I would.”

“And what’s to stop you saying he made a pass? Who’s to know?”

Joel had been afraid of that. He grimaced. “Well, him? He’s bigger than me. Got more hands. And the last time a policeman made a pass at me, I ended up doing two months, so I don’t want anything to do with all that.”

“Then what have you got to offer me?”

“Nothing,” Joel said wretchedly. “I did say, Mr. Sabini, and I’m very sorry. Well, except that Mr. Fowler did say not to tell anyone? But—”

“Tell anyone what?”

“About me working for him. He said he’s shown me confidential documents so I need to keep my mouth shut about all of it, and that I couldn’t put it in my advertising—‘Consultant to the Metropolitan Police’, you know, which, if I have to do it you’d think I might at least get the benefit, but he said no. He said that my readings wouldn’t stand up in court, and a decent defence brief might even get a case chucked out just because he’d involved me, and then he, Mr. Fowler, would get in trouble. So I wasn’t to tell anyone he was consulting me, and especially not that I’d seen any documents.”

“What documents?”

“A couple of written statements and some letters,” Joel said earnestly. “He said they were evidence in an investigation, but he didn’t say what. He wanted me to tell him if someone had committed a crime. Which, as I said, I can’t do.”

“Well,” Darby said slowly. “Well, now.”