‘One more thing, Royal. I’ve been keeping an eye on him and he’s been very jumpy since all this broke. He keeps making frequent trips down to his beloved Jag where he just sits inside talking on the phone. Very strange.’

‘Okay, mate, thanks for everything,’ said Tom.

‘Always a pleasure, never a chore, old son. Take care of yourself,’ Stan said and rang off.

Tom felt a little better after speaking to Buster and Stan. Although he did feel a little bad for the slight mistruth he’d just told Buster. He would certainly try his best not to kill anyone. Apart from Zjelko Branko. Zjelko was a dead man walking.

*

He left the pub and walked slowly around Covent Garden, pausing by a street entertainer who was amusing a clutch of tourists with a juggling act. He watched with mild interest, happy to let his mind wander away from current events.

He noticed the surveillance team almost immediately. His eyes were drawn first to a youngish-looking guy who he immediately pegged as a cop. The man was wearing a North Face fleece and Timberland boots: almost a uniform for plain-clothes cops. To make things worse, he could see the guy’s lips moving as he touched his finger to his ear. Tom picked up his pace a little, walking towards Leicester Square before turning left along Long Acre by a large coffee shop which had a plate-glass window on both sides of the corner. A classic ‘window trap’ used in anti-surveillance: glancing back would enable Tom to see through the glass corner. As Tom turned, he saw the guy in the North Face fleece start jogging to close the distance between them. He sighed. That was another schoolboy error.

He made a snap decision and quickly diverted into the coffee shop, going straight to the counter and ordering a coffee. As he waited, he used the large mirror on the back wall to observe the street outside. A man in a grey hooded sweatshirt walked past the shop and went across the road where he paused, apparently interested in the window display of an upmarket dress shop. He was clearly using the glass to try to keep watch on the door of the coffee shop. Tom knew there would be at least another two surveillance officers on foot nearby, probably taking cover in shops ready for him to move on.

He paid for his coffee with cash and sat at a table at the back of the shop. He didn’t have to wait long. The cop in the blue North Face entered within three minutes and made for the counter, making a big show of looking everywhere apart from at Tom. He quickly got a coffee and sat at a table by the door, using the same mirror Tom had used to observe the interior of the shop.