‘Exactly.’ She slowly circled her finger around the one area that was pin free. ‘The docks! The only location in Greenborough that isn’t either heaving with flat-footed policemen, or being patrolled both day and night by vengeful criminals. Something is going to happen at the docks!’

Joseph sank down on to a chair. ‘I don’t believe it! You mean all these petty crimes, the gang fights, the mask war, the murders? All orchestrated just to keep us chasing our tails and tearing our hair out?’ His face paled. ‘Dear Lord! Even Kerry Anderson’s abduction?’

‘What better than a missing girl to tie up every man and woman on the force? And even our natural enemies, the Leonards, have been thrown into disarray while they hunt for the killer of one of their own. As you said, total chaos!’ She picked up her coffee, and drank it back. ‘And another thing,’ she picked up Joseph’s earlier report of his talks with Mickey and leafed swiftly through them, ‘I know exactly why they tried to kill your boy!’

She found what she was looking for, then flung the folder on the desk. ‘I thought so! Mickey Smith was selling masks to his cousin, who lives here.’ She stabbed a finger on the map. ‘In a small estate of cottages, right on the edge of the docks.’

Joseph puffed out his cheeks. ‘That’s why they were so specific as to where the masks were distributed! And why they chose the Carborough! The damned place is located way across Greenborough, at the farthest point from the docks.’ He leant forward, head in hands, ‘And Mickey, the silly little sod, was introducing the masks straight into their “mask-free zone”.’

‘And where there’s masks, there’s coppers, so he may possibly have corrupted their whole plan.’ She grimaced. ‘No wonder Fluke lost his rag. He could see the whole operation going straight down the pan.’

‘And the whole operation is…?’

‘Drugs.’ Nikki almost whispered the word. In her world, it always came back to drugs. ‘Listen, I have to go speak to the superintendent. Meantime, do you have any mates in Peterborough CID? Someone in the know, and someone that you trust implicitly?’

Joseph thought for a moment. ‘Yes, I do. What do you want me to ask them?’

‘Word from the city street. Rumours of an incoming consignment, probably cocaine. A big one, and I mean really big. To go to all this trouble, it has to be massive.’

Joseph jumped up. ‘I’m on to it, ma’am.’

With her head still spinning, Nikki ran up to the superintendent’s office and told him everything that she suspected.

‘Would you ring that friend of yours, the one in the Met, sir? He helped me once before with information regarding a big drugs ring.’