‘You briefed the Clarion against me. You called Anthea Hall, on a video link. You told her some things that should have remained secret. Officially secret, I’m guessing. And then some things that you’d invented, to make me look bad. Leading to an article in the papers intended to make me persona non grata across government. A small-minded act of personal revenge for my not rolling over and telling you everything when I got back from Belize. And you got away with it, despite the fact that the source must have been fairly obvious. Because it suited more than one agenda. Covered up the participation of ex-military contractors in the minister’s protection, for one thing. Made it look like all my own work. After all, I had been sacked. No smoke without fire, eh? Weren’t those the words you used? On your call to Anthea?’

She visibly relaxed. ‘Let’s assume that what you’re saying is correct. And that someone you know managed to witness it. Just for the sake of argument. Yes, it would be a difficult thing for me to step out from under. But here’s the thing, Sergeant. You can’t prove any such thing. So I can charge you with the Margetson killing in the certain knowledge that you did it. Thanks.’

Mickey grinned at her. And held the expression for long enough that he could see her confidence starting to crumble. Then fished out his phone.

‘Before I show you this, let’s think about one more thing. Specialist Operations has a leak. You know it. I know it. How else could whoever it was that hit us in Fulham have known our route? We only logged it with the control room just before leaving the Hall. One of a small number of people leaked that information to the hit team, and whoever was controlling them. Who used it to ambush us, and to set up the hoax bomb alert in the Cromwell Road to divert us down the secondary route. Which means that the deaths of a dozen of our own and numerous wounded civilians is on your directorate. And you, Assistant Commissioner, have form for leaking. Just saying.’

Gave her a moment to consider that before continuing. Adopting a cheery tone as he put his phone in front of her.

‘Here you go. Just watch this. Amazing the quality of video that a decent digital SLR will record these days. Complete with metadata showing the date and time, there on the screen. And there you are, less than four hours after you forced me to make you look stupid in front of your management team and the commissioner. The audio is dubbed over it, obviously. I had to pay a lip reader to tell me what it was you were telling Ms Hall. And I had to pay quite a lot to get a proper expert-witness-level job done of it. But it was so worth every penny.’