The Broadwater Farm estate had 1,063 homes consisting of one-, two- and three-bed flats and maisonettes, in twelve blocks named after Second World War airfields. Aside from Tangmere House, there were eight other six-storey blocks, adjoined by a lower four-storey maisonette block and two nineteen-storey towers. The were 3,400 people from different ethnic backgrounds, with a substantial black population, whose relationship with the police was one of mutual hostility and mistrust.

Cam parked the unmarked squad car by Tangmere House.

‘I’ll bet you have to use the stairs to get to number sixty-eight.’

‘You reckon the lifts will be out of order then?’ Jane asked.

‘Either that or full of piss and shit – so you’ll definitely be using the stairs, but I can guarantee they won’t smell much better. If you aren’t back here in half an hour, I’m calling in the cavalry.’

‘If sixty-eight is on this side facing you, I’ll wave out of the window to say we’re in the premises and fine,’ Teflon said.

Jane and Teflon got out of the car and went through the ground-floor communal door into the lobby, which smelt like a sewer. The walls were covered in abusive graffiti, the lift door was stuck open and inside was a pool of urine. Jane had to put her hand over her mouth and nose to stop herself gagging.

‘Looks like it’s the stairs. After you, madam.’

Teflon opened the door, and another waft of stale urine assaulted them.

‘This place is worse than I imagined. How can people live in this filth?’ Jane remarked.

As they trudged up to the fifth floor, two young white men walked past them and Jane heard one say ‘white slag’ as he passed them on the stairs. She stopped to challenge him, and Teflon nudged her in the back with his hand.

‘Ignore them and keep going,’ he whispered.

‘He just called me a white slag!’

‘Only because you’re with me and he thinks we’re an item. It ain’t a good idea to start an argument in here – besides, I’ve clocked his face and won’t forget it next time I see him out on the street.’

‘The racist mentality of some people sickens me.’

‘Tell me about it,’ he said with a shrug. ‘If it had been two black guys passing they’d probably have paid me a compliment about you.’

‘What would they have said?’

‘You don’t want to know.’

They reached the fifth-floor landing and Jane knocked on the door of number 68, which was in good condition and had a clean brown coir mat in front of it. They waited, but there was no reply. She knocked again and still there was no answer.

‘Looks like there’s no one in.’

‘Put a note through the letterbox with your details on and ask Miss Wilson to contact you,’ Teflon suggested.