Jane thought about the money the Colonel had given Gentleman Jim for his information. If the twenty pounds in the envelope was from the informants’ fund, it seemed he had pocketed a tenner of it for himself and the ‘extra’ fiver from his own wallet wasn’t in fact his. She sighed. It wasn’t significant in the greater scheme of things, but it was still theft of the Commissioner’s money.

*

Jane had parked her car and was walking towards the squad building when she saw Teflon rush out of the front entrance with car keys in his hand.

‘Kingston said Fiona Simpson is willing to attend albums, so we may as well go straight to the pub to collect her.’

‘What’s the rush?’

‘Cam said Murphy’s on his way in and he’s got the hump.’

‘What about this time?’ she asked, hoping it wasn’t anything to do with the Jones family.

‘Who knows?’ Teflon shrugged as they both got in the unmarked police car. ‘How’d it go with the Colonel’s informant?’ he asked, doing up his seatbelt.

Jane smiled. ‘He’s quite a character. I think he might be on to something with O’Reilly.’

‘Take my advice – let the Colonel deal with his informants on his own.’

‘Why do you say that?’

‘Because his snouts often tread a fine line between giving an officer information about a crime and participating in it.’

Jane thought back to the Colonel telling Gentleman Jim to ‘keep your nose clean on this one’, and decided it might be best to change the subject.

‘How was Kingston this morning?’

‘I dunno, he’s asleep in his office. He called me from a payphone last night – it sounded like he was in a pub and had had a few. Probably drowning his sorrows with the Colonel as usual.’

‘I was with the Colonel earlier and he didn’t appear to have a hangover.’

‘The Colonel can drink more than the lot of us put together and still be sober.’

‘Kingston’s not doing himself any favours by going on the piss and getting home late.’

‘That’s his problem, not ours. Sorry I snapped at you yesterday; you were only doing what you felt was right.’

‘I was wrong, and I don’t blame you for telling me – in fact, it gave me a wake-up call. I’m going to speak to Murphy after we’ve been to the Yard and tell him what happened.’

‘I’ll do it with you if you want.’

‘It was my screw-up, not yours.’

‘I could have refused to drive you there.’

‘I’d have gone on my own anyway.’

‘Well, I’m not going to blab to anyone in the office about it.’

‘Thanks, I appreciate it.’

*