Ryan batted a clump of mud off his cheek, and double-tapped his earlobe to activate the microphone on his com unit as he set off at a jog.

‘You there, James?’ Ryan asked. ‘Did you catch all that?’

James laughed. ‘Sounded like progress to me, pal. You OK?’

‘I’m trashed,’ Ryan said. ‘Can you pick me up?’

‘Last time you rode on the back of my motorbike you said it was the most terrifying experience of your whole life,’ James noted. ‘And that you’d never ride with me again.’

Ryan reached the electronic gate and realised that Beast had shut it behind him. Glancing around, he found a tear in the fence close by.

‘Well you’re still alive,’ Ryan noted. ‘So I guess your riding isn’t that deadly.’

20. BAGS

It was past 3 a.m. by the time James dropped Ryan back at Nurtrust and filed a detailed report so that staff on campus could start doing background research. He still looked tired the following noon, as he walked into a Costa Coffee in central Birmingham and spotted an Asian woman. She had tight-cropped hair and wore dayglo Nikes and leggings, like she’d be heading towards the gym.

‘Tanisha?’ James asked, as he approached holding freshly squeezed orange and a triple espresso. ‘Can I get you something?’

‘I’m good,’ Tanisha said.

‘Thanks for meeting at short notice,’ James said, as he settled on a leatherette bench and laid a document pouch on the table. ‘Are you good friends with Inspector Patel?’

Tanisha smiled. ‘Aisha started off as a community support officer, back when I was a junior scribbler for the East Birmingham Echo. We got to know each other quite well.’

‘Inspector Patel said you’re the person to talk to if you want to know about Uncle. She said you wrote articles about him, most of which weren’t published.’

Tanisha raised a hand and sounded blunt. ‘Who are you?’

James pulled a credit-card-sized ID out of his wallet. It showed him as a detective inspector with the Metropolitan Police.

‘And who are you really with?’ Tanisha said, smirking.

‘That’s a genuine ID,’ James said defensively. ‘Look at the hologram.’

‘I know they fast-track graduates in the Met, but how old are you? Twenty-five, tops.’

James snatched back his Met Police ID and swapped it for his real one.

‘Her Majesty’s Intelligence Service,’ Tanisha read. ‘So you want to know if Uncle is a radical, sending all that racketeering money back to Islamic State in Syria or wherever?’

‘Is he?’ James asked, before glugging his orange juice.

Tanisha laughed. ‘The answer is complex.’

‘Story of my life,’ James grinned.

‘Uncle – or Martin Jones to use his proper name …’

‘Is that his real birth name?’

‘Uncle was born in 1968, when racism was far more out in the open than it is today,’ Tanisha explained. ‘Welsh mother, Pakistani father. They decided to give him an English first name and use his mother’s surname.