Who had the opportunity to access the SD card, which should have been locked away in a police store? How was it wiped clean? Police stores were very secure, but transit storage outside of office hours? Not so much. It would probably have been locked in the custody office where anyone could have got to it, or maybe in the CID office with the investigating officer prior to it being reviewed. Again, anyone could have got to it.

Also, to sort everything against him in a matter of just twenty-four hours was seriously impressive and realistically unheard of, so whoever it was definitely had influence and ability.

All-in-all, Tom couldn’t come up with any cogent theory other than that it had to have begun with Adebayo and the Brankos. So that was where he’d start. One of them must have contacted the corrupt official, and that was his one opportunity: if Mike Brogan and the CIA had the resources Tom imagined they had.

A quiet knock on the door pulled Tom from his thoughts. He checked his watch: exactly seven o’clock.

He held the Sig in his right hand, concealed behind his back. He didn’t use the peephole in the door. If the caller was an enemy, the light shift in the peephole prism would show them exactly where his head was, enabling them to make a very effective assassination by a single shot through the door.

Instead, he unlocked the door then quickly backed into the room, ducking into the bathroom to the right.

‘Wait there,’ he called, his grip firm on the Sig.

A lightly-accented female voice replied, ‘Okay.’

‘Pet?’ asked Tom.

‘Yes. Mike sent me,’ the voice replied.

‘Come in.’ He didn’t move from the bathroom and instead aimed the Sig at the door.

The door swung open and a small woman slowly walked in, carrying a heavy bag over her shoulder and a rucksack on her back.

‘My hands are up, I’m not armed.’

Tom fixed the Sig on her. She was in her late twenties, of slight build, with short, choppy, auburn hair. She wore geek-chic spectacles and was dressed in a funky style with her slim frame clothed in green combat trousers, a denim jacket, and Converse All-Star sneakers.

‘Please don’t shoot me, Tom. Mike asked me to come help you out and these bags are really heavy,’ she said, giving him a shy smile.

‘Walk over and sit on the armchair,’ said Tom, lowering the pistol but keeping it by his side, following her as she walked past the bed and sat calmly on the chair.

‘Who sent you?’