‘Tom, I’ve been called by Detective Superintendent Wilkinson; you will be assisting his team on some deployment. I’ve told him it’s not good at all, that we’re strapped, and my clear-up rate will suffer. It seems, however, that you may be the only person with the requisite skills, despite the fact he won’t tell me what it’s about.’

It would have upset Taylor more than anything to not be cleared to know what his staff member was going to be doing. He didn’t look happy at all. Tom tried hard to keep a straight face.

‘So, it looks like you’re going,’ Taylor continued, ‘but don’t think this excuses you from your day job right now, so get cracking. There’s been another raft of domestic assaults that all need supervising. I want a progress report by close-of-play.’ The DCI turned back to his computer screen, indicating that the meeting was over. Tom walked out, unable to keep the smile spreading across his face.

He walked to his desk, offering greetings to colleagues as he passed them. He received a few nods and greetings in return; everything professional and distant, just the way he preferred things. In any case, they were all too busy to engage in much more than simple pleasantries as they beavered away on phones and tapped away at computers, trying their best to stay on top of the constant merry-go-round of territorial policing.

His phone buzzed in his pocket and he checked the screen to see a message from Neil Wilkinson. ‘1100hrs tomorrow, Becket House, St Thomas Street, EC1 for meeting with Home Office, I’ve told your boss, rgds, Neil.’

Becket House! The memories from all those years ago swarmed into his head: his mother attending that very same immigration reporting centre, stood in the queue for hours, waiting to see if their application for asylum had been granted.

Game on, he thought with a smile.

5

Tom woke early, as normal, and launched straight into his morning routine: a forty-five minute hard run around the Kentish Town streets. He followed this with a high-intensity circuit in his indoor gym: a minute on the punch bag, a minute’s skipping, a minute of push-ups, sit-ups, and burpees, with no rest between each set. And then repeat.

Fifteen minutes later he allowed himself to rest, breathing deeply as his pulse dropped back to normal before jumping into the shower. Pulling on clean jeans, a light shirt and a bomber jacket, he wolfed down a breakfast of scrambled eggs on toast with plenty of black coffee as he checked his phone for messages.

The screen lit up with a message from Neil Wilkinson.

‘Still on for eleven?’ Brief as ever.

Tom replied just as briefly.

‘Yes.’

He thought about the task at hand as he nursed his coffee at the kitchen island, enjoying the feel of the cool granite against his arms.