When Zelda thought of the task ahead in those terms, she felt ready to give up. She ordered a coffee. The alternative would be to admit defeat and go to Alan and tell him where she had located Goran Tadić, who would almost certainly lead him to Keane. Let the police deal with the lot of them. But it still came down to trust. She might trust Alan, but he was one small cog in a large machine, and she didn’t trust that machine one bit. All it took was one man, a whisper in the right ear, and you wouldn’t see Petar and Goran for dust. Or Keane. And even if there wasn’t an informer in the ranks, which she very much doubted, then the evidence against them—if any was found—would be lost or destroyed, or a jury would be nobbled. Somehow or other, the course of justice would be perverted, and they would walk away scot-free.

So she had to regain her resolve, harden herself. There was only her, and she had to get close to Goran Tadić and do it herself.

Which led to one more important question:

• 5. Will he recognize me?

Because if he knew who she was and didn’t let on, she would be walking into a deathtrap.

IN ADDITION to various rental properties around town, the Kerrigan brothers also owned a nightclub and a video arcade on opposite sides of the market square. They had their offices in the club, which used to be known as the Bar None until they took it over and refurbished and rebranded it as The Vaults. It was an unimaginative name, perhaps, but they had brought in flashy new lighting and cocktails with cheeky names, like “Sex on the Beach” and “Between the Sheets,” and sold mostly imported bottled beer. They also employed a local DJ keen to make a name for himself on the national scene, and the kids flocked in. There wasn’t much else to do in Eastvale after ten o’clock, especially if you were too pissed to drive to Newcastle, Leeds or Manchester, where there were better clubs.

The Vaults was located under the shops across the cobbled square from the Queen’s Arms and the police station. Banks walked down the steps at ten o’clock that Friday night, when the place was just opening, flashed his warrant card at the bouncer and headed past the long bar with its array of colored bottles and glasses, across the dance floor with its disco ball and revolving lights, to the offices at the back. He gave a shudder as he remembered the last time he had been there, when it was still called the Bar None, to a crime scene involving his then chief constable’s daughter, Emily Riddle, found dead from a batch of poisoned cocaine in the ladies’ toilet.