Surely, she had to be crazy to want to plunge herself back into that same world which had chewed her up and left her like this.

A surge of black panic suddenly overwhelmed her.

It had been the wrong decision. She couldn’t do it.

She picked her mobile phone up off the coffee table. The small screen glowed as she activated it. She dialled Frank Grinham’s number. It began to ring.

Brrring… Brrring… Brrring…

She ended the call before he could answer. Switching off her phone, she tossed it aside, angry at her brief lapse in resolve. She realised now that her mistake had been quitting undercover work in the first place. It had left her too much time on her hands to think about stuff.

And some things it was just better not to dwell on.

Chapter 5

Considering that it was the nerve centre for some very delicate and high-stakes undercover operations, the office came across as kind of poky and a bit disorganised, with messy stacks of papers lying everywhere on the desks next to the computers. However, despite the apparent disorder, Bailey knew that there was a system of sorts in place.

‘It’s been a while since you’ve been here,’ said Frank over his shoulder as he led her through the desks towards one of the side rooms.

It was true. Previously, when she’d been working undercover, she’d seldom needed to come to headquarters, apart from the occasional briefing for the bigger or more sensitive jobs. More often, a job would just come through directly on the mobile phone she’d been issued with especially for that purpose and she’d take it directly from there.

Numerous black filing cabinets lined the sides of the rooms, containing files going back years relating to past cases. Noticeboards on the walls were adorned with mugshots linked together by lines tracing the connections between the various individuals within criminal organisations who were the subject of ongoing operations. There were several maps of the UK, including a big one of London, which were dotted with a plethora of coloured pins. All in all, it wasn’t as slick or as high-tech in appearance as people might have expected. But then, at the end of the day, undercover work was primarily about human beings rather than technology.

She followed Frank through the office into a side room that contained little more than a table and two chairs. Through the window, she could see that it had started drizzling outside, the London skyline receding into a grey foggy murk.

He closed the door. They both sat down and he scrutinised her in silence for a few moments.

‘I got a missed call from you the other night. Is everything okay?’

‘Everything’s fine.’ He didn’t need to know about the nightmares.

‘Are you sure you’re up to it? You know, I didn’t actually check the records to see if you’d been signed off as psychologically fit to return to undercover work.’

‘The shrinks all said I was fine.’ But she hadn’t told them the half of it. She just hadn’t been able to bring herself to.