‘Is he fucking sure? How are we supposed to plot his daughter’s last movements? I mean, in all honesty, where would we start? She could have been literally anywhere.’ Marcus Dewer was genuinely perplexed. He was also feeling worried – like many of Michael’s workforce, he was guilty of having known Jessie Flynn in a biblical sense. If he was honest, on more than one occasion. Now she was on the missing list, and he was terrified that Michael would find that out. Like most people, he believed she was on the nest somewhere, drugged out of her brains and oblivious to all the aggro she was causing.

Jamie Gore shrugged. ‘It is what it is, Marcus. She likes this part of Brixton because she can score here. So let’s get parked, and start asking round.’

Marcus sighed, and parked the BMW neatly. He looked at the photo of Jessie; she was a pretty girl, there was no doubt about that.

‘This is fucking stupid! Everyone knows there’s a price for information on her. The whole of the Metropolitan Police are scouring the Smoke. So what we are supposed to find out I don’t know.’

Jamie Gore secretly agreed with his friend, but he was too shrewd to say that. ‘Marcus, do me a favour, will you? Shut the fuck up, and do what the man is paying us for. Who knows – we might stumble on to something accidentally. In fact, I think we should poke our heads into a few skag houses. You know what junkies are like – the fucking Third World War could erupt and they wouldn’t even notice until they ran out of heroin. So there’s a chance, albeit a very slim one, that they might not know about her being missing. And don’t forget, Marcus, if we find out something important, we will be greatly rewarded.’

Marcus nodded, but he wasn’t convinced. He was more worried that they would be the ones to find her, overdosed and dead as a doornail. That wasn’t the kind of news he would relish giving Michael. It was what the majority of people believed had happened to Jessie Flynn – they were waiting for her body to turn up, and no one wanted to be the one who found it.