One thing she was good at, though, was tailing people. She had practised religiously, picking out a stranger at random, following them to their car and seeing if she could follow them all the way home without detection. She had a database of the addresses of everyone she had tailed along with notes, especially where the target had shown signs of suspicion: speeding up, stopping, constantly looking over their shoulder, that sort of thing. It wasn’t easy. According to the FBI procedure, which she had researched, you could really only successfully execute mobile vehicle surveillance if you had a team of at least four cars to box in the target car. But, if you got lucky, and maintained the right distance between you and target vehicle, you could get away with tailing for a short distance in an urban environment, provided there are plenty of other cars on the road.

Fox’s current target, however, had spent most of the time sitting in the car, doing nothing. It had turned out to be more of a stake-out, during which Fox had managed to get through two whole packets of Doritos. After what seemed like an age, Priest had appeared, having been into Mims’s flat. He got into the car and they had driven off together. Fifteen minutes later they had pulled up and Georgie had got out. This was presumably where she lived.

Fox had pulled up on the other side of the road and killed the lights. Luckily, there had been enough traffic to merge into, and she guessed that the dazzle of her lights prevented Priest from recognising the car. Most cars look the same square on at night.

She had quickly made a note of the address, or at least the street and building name. But when Georgie had opened the door, the Volvo’s internal light had flickered on, giving Fox a perfect view of the kiss they had shared before she had staggered home.

And so it became clear. Fox had suspected Georgie all along. The woman who had burst in on them at Priest’s flat was irrelevant. She certainly hadn’t acted like a scorned lover, just stood there with her arms folded. Unimpressed, yes, but not cheated. Priest’s sister maybe?

No. The girl in the way was the ginger one. Three’s a crowd, little missie, Fox had thought. She had thought about following Georgie to her flat, see exactly where she lived, but decided against it when Priest drove off. Not yet. First it’s time to mark my territory, she had thought while striking up the ignition.

*