‘I’d like to speak to the picture desk please.’

Mickey waited while his call was directed, looking at the Clarion’s front page. The three men whose faces had been letterboxed to fit next to the headline were all familiar, from his research of the past few months.

Joe Castagna caught staring out through his kitchen window at dusk. His face an exercise in light and dark. Looking like the truly evil bastard he was. Brilliant photography. Even if the camera had done all the technical heavy lifting. Tamara Egerton clearly had a talent.

His right-hand man Eddie Hickey. Shaved head, hard eyes. Reputedly Joe’s right-hand man from day one. One of the few people able to unblinkingly match his brutal sadism. Looking out through an open doorway, his stare icy.

His lawyer, Richard Holmes. Nominally his brief. In reality little better than a procurer of the best legal minds going. The kind of lawyers who’d sell their soul. And their genius. Caught climbing into his car in the same half-light. His expression deliberately blank.

Three faces. Their expressions differing, but the subtext the same for all three. These were the men who trafficked helpless women. Who smuggled drugs into the country. And sold both commodities, regardless of the harm they did to product or buyer. Not to mention all the other routine gang crimes. Protection. Fraud. Extortion. The usual litany of the strong preying on the weak. The way it had been since the dawn of humanity.

‘Picture desk, Mark speaking.’

‘Good morning Mark. I’m the policeman who arrested Ms Egerton in Beaconsfield last week.’

‘Constable.’

The first syllable predictably pitched to be an insult.

‘Yes, well the old ones are, unfortunately, the old ones.’ He paused to allow the disparaging reply to sink in. ‘Given your hostility perhaps I should hang up? I’ll just nick your photographer friend, shall I? Rather than give her a chance to avoid being banged up? Let her sit in a cell for forty-eight hours and tell her it’s down to your infantile sense of humour?’

‘Wait, what? What grounds could you—’

‘Possibly have for that? The fact that she was arrested inside the security perimeter of a secretary of state’s private residence. But please, do keep arguing.’

‘So… what is it that you want?’

‘A swift conversation with Ms Egerton.’

‘Well I’m not giving you her number.’

Mickey laughed softly.

‘I don’t need you to, Mark. I could call her now, if I wanted to. But I don’t know where she might be. Always a bit of a problem if you’re camped out in a gang leader’s hedge and the phone goes off just as his goons walk past. Isn’t it?’

‘Er… yeah.’

Perhaps a hint more sympathy in the voice at the other end.

‘So ask her to call me please. You can see the number on your caller display, I’d imagine.’