Mallet laughed. ‘I expect you’re right,’ he said. Then he looked intently at Bowman. ‘So you knew the Lang twins, eh?’

‘Everyone did, boss. We were a tight-knit community.’

‘Any criminals in the family, Josh?’

Bowman knew better than to lie. ‘My uncle had friends in the underworld,’ he said. ‘My granddad too. Every family knew someone linked to the Langs or one of their gang associates. It was just a way of life for us back then.’

He left out the part about his brother-in-law and oldest friend, Carter Grant, working as a lieutenant for the Lang twins. His drug dependency. The opioids he bought from Lang’s dealer.

Mallet stared at him thoughtfully. ‘I understand you used to be a police officer.’

‘That’s right, boss. Three years in the Met.’

‘Undercover work, I hear. Gang stuff.’

Bowman nodded.

‘Rather unusual, isn’t it? Someone from your background, joining the force. Like siding with the enemy.’

‘Not really,’ said Bowman. ‘I spent years growing up around gangsters. I saw how they really operated. How they bullied people and ruined lives. I figured I should do something about it. And I knew how to behave around them. How to talk like them, how they thought. That gave me an edge, working undercover. Helped me to blend in.’

‘You’re something of an expert on mobsters, then.’

‘I know a fair bit. More than most, I guess.’

Mallet was silent as he sized the younger man up. He looked at Bowman the way a butcher assesses cattle at a market. Bowman couldn’t tell what he was thinking. Reading Mallet’s face was like picking up a book and finding it was written in a foreign language. You knew there were words on the page, but that didn’t make it any easier to read.

Then Mallet’s phone buzzed. He glanced at the screen without answering, nodded at Bowman.

‘Forget about Davey Boy,’ he said. ‘He’s not your concern. But there is one thing I must ask you to do.’

‘Yes, boss?’

‘Do not repeat anything Lang told you to the police.’

If anyone else had told him to withhold information from the cops, Bowman would have questioned it. Or at least demanded to know why. But for reasons he couldn’t quite understand, he didn’t want to disappoint Mallet.

‘No worries, boss,’ he said.

Mallet looked him in the eye and said, ‘If they press you for information, just say Freddie was out of it and babbling like an idiot. You couldn’t understand a word he was saying.’

‘I was a copper once,’ Bowman replied coolly. ‘I know the procedure, what questions they’ll ask. I know what to do.’

Mallet placed a hand on his shoulder. ‘Good man.’

‘What about the two BGs? Any word on them?’