‘I see your point. I don’t like your police thugs, either.’

I was curious to know why I’d been brought to police headquarters, but not Leotta. Surely if I was to be kept safe, then she should be too?

‘Because she’s probably better off where she is for the moment. Nobody knows she’s there, apart from you, me and Mr Negrini. As I said, Mr Kemp, I want you both beyond the reach of the police.’

‘Then why bring me here? Why didn’t you go to Negrini’s?’

‘I was coming to that,’ said Hanna. ‘There is something else I must tell you. In the early hours of this morning I arrested Commissioner Barstow.’

For a moment I didn’t register what he had said. Then I felt my hair stand on end. ‘You’ve what?’

‘I arrested the Commissioner,’ he said with a grim smile. ‘My superior officer.’

Now I understood his tautness. ‘Do you expect to get away with that?’

He squared up the file in front of him. ‘Four police officers cannot just disappear on Campanilla. Not when I’m looking for them. I began to wonder whether Barstow would be such a damned fool as to put them in his own home. As soon as the positive results came from forensic I had his house watched. They were there. Barstow went home last night as usual and I had the house raided at four this morning and arrested the lot of them.’

‘What’s the charge on Barstow, for God’s sake?’

‘Conspiracy to pervert the course of justice. He’s in a cell now. The Prime Minister should be finding out any time, if he hasn’t already. I’m expecting a loud scream.’

‘They’ll cut your throat,’ I said. ‘Conyers won’t stand for it.’

‘It doesn’t make any difference,’ said Hanna. ‘I was finished anyway. The things I’ve been doing in the Salton case won’t help my promotion. If I had just stood by, Barstow would be asking for my resignation within a fortnight.’ He took a newspaper from his drawer and tossed it on to the desk. ‘Have you seen this?’

I looked at the headline. ‘I’ve seen it.’ I bent my head to peer at the heavily underlined words on the page: complete overhaul of the police force.

I looked at Hanna. ‘You’re taking a hell of a chance. What if the CLP doesn’t win the election?’

‘Then Conyers won’t have to cut my throat,’ he said. ‘I’ll have done it myself. But either way, he’ll have a lot of trouble explaining away Barstow.’

I said thoughtfully, ‘You ought to write a book. How to make enemies and influence people. Who knows about this so far?’

‘Not many.’

‘Conyers might try to hush it up,’ I said. ‘What you need is a press conference.’