Nothing that she loved greeted her. An estate agent would have called it minimalist; in fact, it was mind-numbingly Spartan. The front door opened directly into the living room, off that was a bedroom with what the landlord laughingly called an en-suite, and a kitchen/diner with French windows that opened into a tiny, private courtyard garden. And that was the only part of the miserable place that Nikki had some mild affection for.

She pulled off her damp jacket and threw it over the back of the room’s only chair, then went through to the kitchen. Exhausted as she was, sleep never came easily. Her body was shutting down, but her mind was in overdrive. She needed help to switch off, and for years it had been in the form of single malt. Now she couldn’t even do that. If she got a call, a lead, anything that might bring another result, she’d have to be ready to go at a second’s notice, and you sure couldn’t do that if you’d had enough units to detonate a breathalyzer.

Nikki opened the fridge and peered inside. The top two shelves were lined from back to front with dozens of small bottles of wine. Red, white and rose. French, Italian, Australian. Sweet, dry, sparkling. Neat little bottles that held one large wine glass full to brimming. Just enough to relax the mind, but not enough to dull the senses.

She selected a Grenache and tipped every last drop into the only glass in the cupboard. Normally she would have sat in the garden and planned her next day’s hunting, but tonight the rain thwarted her.

The lounge housed a lonely chair, a large metal-frame futon with a huge soft blanket thrown over it, and something that probably started life as a corner unit for a television. At present, it held a phone charger, a telephone book, a laptop computer and a lamp with multicoloured glass shade that screamed out faux-Tiffany.

Nikki slumped on to the futon and tucked her legs beneath her. As always, she had felt the initial rush of relief at having prepared the way for another pusher to face the legal system, but it was never enough. Not any more. There were too many dealers, too many drugs out there.