‘Special Branch had an undercover guy on the team. He’s here. They were going to kill him. Why the hell does the right hand not know what the left’s doing?’

‘I’ll find out,’ said Button. ‘Are you OK?’

‘No, I’m not OK,’ said Shepherd. ‘I’ve just killed two men. And you’d better tell the cops on the way to the farm that the van’s on a timer, set to go off in about six minutes.’

‘I’m on it,’ said Button. ‘We’ve got your location, we’re on our way.’

‘I won’t be here,’ said Shepherd. He tossed the phone away and jogged over to the van.

There were seven men and a woman sitting at two tables at the back of the café, all Somali by birth but all with British citizenship. The café was in a run-down area of Ealing in West London and it was owned by one of the men, Simeon Khalid, whose hands were clasped together around a tall glass of iced water. He was a short, stocky man with skin the colour and texture of old leather, his fingernails were bitten to the quick, and he looked a good ten years older than his true age of twenty-four. Simeon Khalid was the name that he used on official papers, but even that was not his true name. The British demanded a family name and a first name so that was what he had given them, but in Somalia men and women were not named that way. Somalis did not have surnames. They identified themselves with a given name followed by the father’s given name and the grandfather’s. They effectively had three first names, but the British didn’t understand that so when they insisted on a family name he had given them Khalid, the name of his father. They had accepted that and Simeon Khalid was the name on his driving licence and his tax file, and it was the name on the British passport that he was eventually given. Simeon Khalid had nothing but contempt for the British but he was happy to take advantage of their stupidity.

There were four Somalis sitting at the second table, two teenagers in cheap suits and ill-fitting shirts, and an older couple, worried parents. The woman was holding back tears, occasionally dabbing at her eyes with a lace handkerchief. Her husband was a big man but stooped with age, and he sat with his arms folded and stared straight ahead, a battered trilby on the table in front of him. The two teenagers were the accused, and they were the reason that the gar had assembled.

A Somali man in his twenties was standing at the door to the café, looking out. ‘He is coming, Wiil Waal,’ he hissed.