‘Nice to see a Specialist Ops copper planning on doing something other than bodyguarding.’

‘Yeah.’ Kev took a slurp of his tea. ‘Especially when most of you lot are already too fat and old to do it properly by the time you get out. Present company excepted, naturally.’ He gave Mickey a level stare. Taking him back to his early years in uniform. ‘But what are you going to do, eh son? No way you’re going to make your thirty, are you?’

Mickey thought about that for a moment. Really thought about it. Kev’s bald question having been, he guessed, the first time anyone had asked him that directly. Including himself.

‘If you put it like that…’

‘Look Mickey, if your Uncle Kev can’t be brutal with you, who can? And the world’s at your feet. You’ve got a cracker of a wife, undeserved but there you are. You’re a bright boy too. Smart enough to do whatever you put your mind to. When you’re not being a lazy bastard and tossing it off sitting around and drinking tea in Whitehall. And you know bloody well that the top brass have got a hard-on for you, after that thing in Belize. And the story in the papers.’

‘But they put the story in the bloody papers!’

‘Cause and effect. Clever. Still game, set and match though, isn’t it? Face facts, Mickey, if the Job wants you out, the Job will have you out. One way or another.’

He finished his tea and stood up, reaching for his wallet.

‘This one’s on me. And you can stop pulling that surprised face, young Maisie. I know you’re doing it even when you’re behind me. Time we got back to let the rest of the team have a turn.’ He dropped fifty pounds on the counter and raised his hands to refuse the change. ‘And you, Mickey boy, need to start thinking about the future. Because it’s going to slap you in the face sooner than you think.’

45

Martin approached the early morning meeting with the contact he knew as Neutralise as cautiously as ever. Took up his post on the high ground overlooking the meeting place an hour beforehand. He always insisted on meeting early, to minimise the number of people in the park. Making every single person obvious. Always got there first. Used the high ground up the hill. Watched the park’s activities for an hour or so before the meet.