Suddenly he stood, causing Taylor to jump, just slightly, in fright. Tom took two steps around the desk and moved his face to within an inch of Taylor’s. ‘Be seeing you very soon, Simon.’ He smiled, exuding a latent violence that he didn’t really feel, but he wanted to leave a lasting impression.

Tom turned on his heels and walked out of the office, slamming the door behind him.

As he walked down the corridor, he pulled out his phone and sent a message to Pet. Game on, he thought grimly.

*

Simon Taylor sat, stunned, in his office, unable to organise his thoughts enough to decide what to do next.

He’d been unable to raise any of the Brankos since they’d captured Novak. He couldn’t think what had happened and the thought of it concerned him.

He felt incredibly vulnerable and couldn’t come up with any set of circumstances that could have landed him in the situation he was now in. Clearly the kidnap of Novak’s family hadn’t worked, but where was Branko and his wretched family? He wasn’t answering his phone since their last conversation in the night.

Adebayo had gone, that much he knew; one of his contacts in Special Branch had let him know about that. Gareth, who had been monitoring his accounts, had watched him clear them.

Best-case was that the Brankos had fled back to Serbia and, with Adebayo back in Nigeria, he and his friends may now finally be in the clear. Taylor was sure that Novak had nothing admissible or IPCC would have been there instead.

Perhaps just keeping his head down would be the best way forward, but he had to speak to Jones and Albrechtsen to see what they thought. Jones had access to everything at the NCA and could see if the Brankos had indeed fled.

He needed to speak to them right away: it was urgent. He pulled out his burner phone and composed a message to their WhatsApp group.

‘We need to meet. No details on phones, I’ll call you both in five mins.’

He pressed Send on the old iPhone and received blue ticks indicating that the messages had been read.

He needed to be careful: nothing written down, no messages that could be read if the phone was ever seized, not that he could see that happening. He decided to ditch his burner phone after meeting the others and would get them to do the same.

He wasn’t taking any chances, especially as he had no idea how Novak knew what he knew. He was sure of one thing, though: there was no way Novak could have heard any phone calls, as Gareth Jones was at the centre of the NCA intercepting mechanism.