As he showered, he realised he was going to have to seek a favour from not only Stan, but Buster as well. He couldn’t take Pet to those meetings as he was probably going to ask them to do something not strictly legal, and neither of them would want a witness.

He quickly dried off and got dressed again before rejoining Pet. They left the apartment and headed up to the restaurant, where they both ordered scrambled eggs on toast, and coffee.

The Brankos were currently missing; he didn’t know where, but he didn’t feel he would learn much more from listening to them in any case. He could ask Pet to track them by their phones and monitor the laser-listening device while he did what he had to do.

One thing was for sure; he needed some help in identifying Simon Taylor’s cohorts and the only two people he knew he could trust were Buster and Stan.

‘I have to go off on my own for a bit,’ he said.

‘Why alone?’

‘I need to meet a couple of guys. They’re friends and I trust them, but I may be asking them to do something questionable and they’d be more comfortable without a stranger in tow.’

‘Okay. So what do I do?’

‘Can you monitor cell sites on all the phones we know about? I need to make sure I’m not going to bump into the Brankos, and I also need the laser-listener monitored just in case something comes up.’

‘I can do that, but are those really all the reasons why you want me out of the way?’ She fixed him with a piercing stare.

He shrugged. ‘I don’t want you getting hurt, Pet. I’m going to have to confront these guys soon, and Ivan was killed because of me.’

‘I can look after myself. I’m a big girl. But I understand you have to do what you have to do. Just make sure you come back; you’re a good guy.’ She smiled but there wasn’t much humour in her green eyes.

Tom smiled back. ‘Come on, let’s go. We’ve work to do, and I can’t do it without you.’

Tom paid the bill, and they went back to apartment 618, Pet settling straight in front of her laptop.

‘I have to go,’ Tom said. ‘Can I take the satellite phone? I need to make untraceable calls while I’m out and about.’

‘Take what you need, Detective. I’ll be here waiting for you and you need to call me regularly.’ She programmed her number into the phone and tossed it to Tom, who caught and pocketed it. ‘Don’t do anything stupid, like getting killed.’