Taylor stood and almost fainted as he did so, feeling his world fall apart, especially when he saw Buster lean forwards to pick up the condiments box and wink at him. It was all pre-planned; they’d been set up, and he knew for sure that every single word the three of them had just exchanged had been recorded.

None of them said anything. The one thing they knew, with all those years of policing experience, was that nothing they could say at that moment would help.

36

Two Days Later

Tom sat back in his chair in the interview room at Jubilee House in Putney, the HQ of the Met Police Directorate of Professional Standards.

It was a typical police interview room, small and square with screwed down furniture, a camera in the corner and a digital recorder at the back of the room.

Detective Superintendent Jane Milligan switched off the interview recording and smiled just slightly while her assistant, who had introduced himself as DS Naz Patel, began to secure the master disc in a numbered sticky seal, which Tom signed.

‘Thanks for coming in, Tom. We needed to get your account and, as the most significant of witnesses in this sorry affair, we needed to record it,’ she said.

Tom had stayed out of the way for a little while after the arrests of Taylor, Albrechtsen, and Jones, just to let the dust settle. He’d needed to sleep properly and try to clear his mind after the events of the past week or so, as he felt seriously wrung-out and, frankly, exhausted.

Milligan and her team had been keen to interview him straight away, making it very plain that they were only looking at him as a witness who was the victim of serious police corruption. Tom had in turn made it perfectly clear that he wanted to wait a couple of days to get his head straight and, in reality, to decide what he would tell DPS and what he wouldn’t.

He obviously could say absolutely nothing about the CIA assistance; they would rightfully deny anything, and he could hardly confess to the five killings in Scotland and the numerous counts of illegal surveillance and computer hacking he’d been a party to.

He kept as close to the truth as he could, starting with his undercover deployment, his cover being blown and the failed kidnap attempt on him. He then moved on to his decision to go dark as he didn’t know who had been selling him out. He did tell them about his efforts to draw his chasers to Ealing, and furnished the DPS with the photos he had taken of his chasers which he hoped would help link everything together for them.