It wasn’t the sight of his daughter in flagrante delicto with a gang of musclebound imbeciles that bothered Dudley. Truth was, he no longer cared a damn what the crazy bitch did or what became of her. It wasn’t so much the money, either. What troubled him was the fact that these pests couldn’t be trusted to stick to a deal. Pay, and they’d soon be back wanting more. Then more. And more, until the day they decided to publish the photos anyway and sink him forever. This would never go away.

And so Dudley acted swiftly. One phone call, and the full force of his most powerful secret allies was unleashed on the blackmailers. These amateurish idiots didn’t realise who they were messing with.

The letter itself bore no fingerprints and the postmark revealed nothing, but the bank account number was easily traced to an address in east London, which turned out to be a shared house. A nocturnal visit ensued that resulted in three shaven-headed individuals being hauled from their beds, bundled into a van and taken away to a remote spot deep in Epping Forest, where confessions were extracted and bad things happened to them. The bodies would never be found.

Over the following weeks the remainder of the gang – there were seven of them altogether – were hunted down, the last man standing having fled to a campsite in Zeebrugge, which only delayed his inevitable violent demise. Along with the blackmailers themselves, every copy of the compromising pictures had been destroyed. The threat was neutralised, for now – but the problem of Annie still remained. Dudley knew she had no intention of ever mending her ways. Which led him to the only possible conclusion. This could not be allowed to happen again.

Annie had to go. And her father’s shadowy associates had a way of making it happen that served both their purposes. Because what nobody in the public world knew about the Right Honourable Tristan Dudley QC, Member of Parliament and the Privy Council, was that he was also a member of a secret society with very particular methods of dealing with people.

Its name was The Pandemonium Club.

Chapter 39

What should have been a ninety-minute drive from the heart of the West Sussex countryside to east-central London took over two hours in the crazy traffic. Ben had found the website of the Seaward & Laverack agency and set a course for their office address in Leonard Circus. Wolf was doing the driving while the whisky worked out of Ben’s system. Ben made use of his recovery time by making a tough phone call.

‘Hello, Ruth.’

‘Hello, stranger,’ she said in amused surprise. ‘Fancy hearing from you. Wow, so it’s true, I really do have a brother. Thought I’d just imagined it.’

‘I know it’s been a while.’

‘And you’re sorry you haven’t been in touch but you’re just so busy. I know the score.’