‘Which is worse!’ Roz leaning forward to whisper vehemently. ‘That makes them disposable!’

‘Don’t you mean dispens—’

Mickey shut the fuck up as his wife ramped her death stare way past anything Jasmine Chen could manage.

‘Don’t you even dare, Mickey Bale! You could be dead now, and me a widow. And all for some stuck-up, privileged piece of—’

‘Roz.’

She stopped talking. And just stared at him, half-raging, half-pleading. Raging because she knew she was right. And that, insouciant and obviously unjustifiable cool notwithstanding, her man had been in the line of fire without her even knowing it. Pleading because, just like a dozen times before, she knew he wasn’t for turning.

‘I know.’ She spoke without looking up at him. Contemplating the chocolate-flecked milky ruin of her empty cup. ‘It’s what you do. And it’s not going to change. But I tell you this, Mickey fucking Bale. The day I find out you’ve taken an unnecessary risk is the day you and I stop being a couple. You got that?’

And Mickey, just like he’d done a dozen times before, nodded soberly into her raised stare. And, somewhere inside him, the demon who had been unchained by his little sister’s death, laughed knowingly.

33

Mark was still enjoying his moment in the sun, three days after the Number 37 story first ran. He was, after all, part of the team that had blown open a major scoop. Modern-day sex slavery laid bare. That and the discovery of a vigilante hero determined to set them free. A man of action, taking action. No matter what personal risks he – or, their story had obviously speculated, she – ran. Although three days seemed to be the limit of the slightly unnerving adulation from management.

He wasn’t under any illusions that it was Tamara’s success that had pulled him out of comfortable obscurity. Success based on her source. And her source’s surprising willingness to bring her in on something so explosively newsworthy. Putting them both onto a bigger and faster hamster wheel. News editor Anthea already enquiring what they planned to scoop next. And only half joking.

He walked out of the Clarion’s office building with a jaunty step nevertheless. Life being a whole lot better now than it had been a week before. His elevation from so-so subeditor to part of a dynamic investigation team feeling better than just good. Feeling magnificent. Coupled with his strong expectation that Tamara had more than one rabbit in her hat. They were going places.

In the meantime, Mark was going to get the coffees. Neither of them caring for the machine sludge that was served by the in-house caterer. And so, preoccupied with his own thoughts, and looking at his phone for good measure, he ventured out onto the street. And was brought up short by the presence of a man standing in his path.