The man stared at the money. His hand shaking, he hesitated before he finally picked up the cash and turned to leave.

‘Before you go,’ said Sleeman, ‘let me warn you that my collector will be calling on the first day of the month, for the next three months. If you fail to pay up on time, I don’t send out written reminders, but he will leave you with something to remember.’

The man shuddered and dropped one of the fifty-pound notes on the floor, which landed at the feet of the doorkeeper who bent down, picked it up and handed it back. ‘I look forward to seeing you on the first of the month,’ he grunted, as he opened the door. ‘Make sure you’re there.’

‘I’ll be there,’ promised Ross.

CHAPTER 25

‘I MAY HAVE HAD A breakthrough in the Sleeman case,’ said DS Adaja, as he sat down in the chair by William’s desk.

‘Walk me through it,’ said William, putting down his Biro and leaning back.

Paul handed him a see-through evidence bag that contained a single fifty-pound note. ‘An anonymous person left this for me at the front desk.’

‘Presumably you had it checked for fingerprints – did they find any?’

‘Mine,’ admitted Paul.

‘Idiot. Anyone else’s?’

‘Max Sleeman’s.’

‘Better. And, from the smug look on your face, they must have come up with someone else even more surprising.’

‘Leonid Verenich.’

‘The psychopath who was thrown out of the Russian mafia because he was too violent?’

‘The same.’

‘I thought he was serving a life sentence in Dresden prison.’

‘He was until he met a certain Colonel Putin, and became more useful on the outside,’ said Paul. ‘What I can’t work out is how he got past immigration control.’

‘That wouldn’t have proved difficult for someone with the connections Sleeman has, in both underworlds,’ said William. ‘So now all you have to do is find him.’

‘That won’t be easy. In Moscow he was known as “whispering death”.’

‘Whoever left that note at the front desk must know how to find him.’

‘But I have no idea who that was.’

‘I do,’ said William.

• • •

Ross had never travelled business class before, but as he’d barely slept for the past few nights and would need to be at his sharpest when he arrived in Cape Town, he reluctantly paid for an upgrade, looked up to the heavens and touched his wedding ring, once again thanking Jo, who was rarely out of his thoughts.

He knew he could spare only a couple of days to warn Mrs Pugh of her pending death, while Miles Faulkner remained his overriding priority. If the choirboy were to summon him, he’d have to drop everything and come running. That was assuming the choirboy could find him.

He leant back in his comfortable seat and looked forward to a long uninterrupted sleep, thankful that the place next to him was unoccupied.

The steward was just about to close the aircraft door when an overweight, out-of-breath man rushed onto the plane and lumbered down the aisle checking each seat number. Ross stared out of the cabin window and watched as the airbridge was pulled back, hoping the latecomer would pass by, but then he heard a squelch of leather as the man collapsed into the seat next to him, still breathing heavily.