Another draw on the cigar.

‘’Course, I couldn’t blame them if they did. ’Cause if they didn’t, my organisation would go down under the weight of a hundred little gangs. Like rats on a mastiff. Causing chaos. Costing lives. Hurting their businesses as much as mine. So obviously they’d step in. Stabilise my turf. Either exile me or just kill me. And my family. Because it’s as true now as it was two thousand years ago. You kill the king, you kill his heirs. Leave no risk of revenge, twenty years down the line. And I’m not having that.’

Joe inhaled again. The exhale followed by the sound of his cigar being ground out.

‘So I’m going to entertain you in my soundproof playroom. And you’re going to tell me everything you know. You play nicely, take what’s coming and give me the rat, I’ll free your Roz. Leave the reporter alone, if she promises to behave. But if you don’t show, everyone you ever cared about is going to suffer. Wife, friends… fuck, I’ll even track down your ex-girlfriends and have them as well. Which is why the twenty-four hours. I want you to have the time to reflect on just who’s going to pay the bill for all that if you don’t. I think you’re out of choices. And I reckon you’ll walk in, just like I said. Don’t you?’

Mickey paused for a moment. Making the eventual concession sound even more painful than it was. ‘Yeah.’

No other choice.

47

‘That’s got the Met’s hit man put in his place.’

Joe cast an eye over Eddie and Richard. The former looking determined, the latter queasy. The ponce.

‘Right, so me and Acid are staying here for the day. No way that fucker could come after me inside these walls. And with this much firepower it’d be a bloody short gun battle if he did. If he could even find a gun at this notice.’

Eddie nodding agreement. Having warned the half-dozen men he’d ordered to stand guard to stay on their toes.

‘He’ll spend all day trying to decide whether to top himself or not.’

Joe shook his head. ‘He won’t. He’ll already have decided to come in to take his punishment like a good boy. Because he knows my reputation. He knows I’ll make everyone he cares for regret the day he was born.’

‘And you’re going to spare them if he does?’

Richard. Who sounded a bit too shaky for Eddie’s liking. Not temperamentally suited to this game, he’d always thought. And here was the proof. Likely to start winding Joe up if he didn’t pack it in. Joe shrugged, with that “couldn’t really give a fuck” look that he wore when he actually really wanted to hurt someone.