‘Not all the time. There are periods when I’ve been clean. Sometimes I’ve been able to get by with the odd pill or two. Other times, it’s worse than that. It gets out of hand. Then the drugs start controlling your life.’

‘Like now.’

‘I guess so.’

‘That’s why you left the family up there? To pop some pills?’

Bowman nodded, burning with shame. He hated himself in that moment. Despised what he had become. ‘Yes.’

Loader stared at him in shock and disbelief. ‘Why’d you do it, mate? Why get hooked on that shit in the first place?’

Bowman exhaled deeply. ‘You know about my family. What happened to them, back when I was in the Met.’ Loader nodded. ‘It was my fault,’ Bowman said. ‘They died because of me, mate.’

Loader’s eyebrows pinched together. ‘I thought they were murdered by the Albanian mob?’

‘Those bastards did the killing. But I was the one who put their lives in danger.’

He looked away, lips trembling, fists shaking with impotent rage. Loader waited for him to go on.

‘I was working undercover at the time, see. A long-term job. We were trying to penetrate a gang of ex-cons based in Essex. But the real target was the Albanian mobsters they were doing business with. The Hoxha clan. The older brother, Agon, was the boss of the outfit. They were involved in a lot of the big cocaine shipments coming in from Europe.

‘I spent months trying to earn their trust. It was hard work, hanging out with a bunch of sick gangsters all day long, sticking to my cover story, making sure I didn’t slip up. But it was worth it. All the int I gleaned I passed back to my handler at the Met. She was the only one who knew my true identity. That was the arrangement. No one else was supposed to know anything about me.

‘Eventually, Agon Hoxha invited me to a high-level meeting with the clan. A major arms-trafficking deal they wanted to discuss. I thought that was the big breakthrough. I’d go to the meeting and get enough intelligence to put the Albanians and their Essex business partners away for life. That was the plan, at least.’

‘What happened?’

‘Someone had tipped off the Albanians about me.’

‘Who?’

‘A bent copper. Agon Hoxha had him on the payroll. He’d managed to uncover my identity, piecing together scraps of information from the file. The Albanians found out and planned to lure me into a trap. Put one in the back of my head and dump my body in the Thames.’

‘How did you get away?’

‘I was on my way to the meeting when I got a message from my handler, telling me to get away immediately. I managed to escape,’ he added, his voice strained with grief. ‘But when the Hoxha clan couldn’t get to me, they took revenge on my family instead.’