‘We don’t have enough information to pin it down. Warren was known to enough people that whoever did him didn’t need any inside information. The cash collection was probably known to forty, perhaps fifty blokes.’

‘Yeah. I get that. Counters, guards, gang kids, all that. But add in Number 37…’

‘Gets us nowhere.’ The frustration evident in Eddie’s voice. ‘We never kept 37 a secret, not really. Half the organisation knew we had a training house, and half of them knew where it was, I reckon. One man with a grudge, that’s all it’d take. He turns snout, the filth pass the information to whoever it is that’s doing the hits. Did you see the co-operation that the Clarion got in getting inside?’

Joe was quiet for so long that Eddie was on the point of asking him what was wrong when he spoke again. With a thoughtful note in his voice.

‘The Clarion. Is that the answer, I wonder? You, Eddie, might just have shown me where to look.’

Eddie sounded faintly surprised. ‘I did?’

‘Whether you know it or not, yeah.’ A glint of delight in Joe’s eyes. ‘So we know that the Met have got a hard-on for gangs in general. And us in particular. Which is why we recruited that muppet Felgate in the first place.’

Eddie nodded. None the wiser. ‘But how does that—’

‘It all makes sense. The Met want to nail the gangs. That Chinese bitch is never off the TV. Telling everyone what a “corrosive influence” we are on London society, or some bollocks like that. So what if the Met was feeding information from some snout or other to a tame hit man?’

‘A hit man?’ Eddie strained every mental muscle not to betray his disappointment that they were back to that one again. ‘It sounds a bit…’

‘Over the top? Not a hit man then. Some bloke with a grudge. And access to weapons. Perhaps even provided by the Met.’

‘But that’d be like the shoot-to-kill thing in Ireland.’ Both men looked at Lewis, mildly surprised. Not expecting a constructive addition to the discussion from that quarter. ‘There’s no need to look at me like that. They made us learn about it in General Studies, and it was on the telly too. The army were right off their lead in the Eighties. Killing the IRA left, right and centre. All deniable and that, but everyone knew it was happening. And it was ignored, even when they shot criminals and civilians by mistake. Official collusion was what they said on Panorama.’

‘Yeah.’ Joe’s tone thoughtful. ‘Let’s face it, they’ve got the information. They’ve got the shooters. And they’re the biggest gang in London all right.’

‘So what was that about the Clarion?’

Eddie’s question snapped Joe back to his insight of a moment before.