Patrick sat down and his minder followed suit. Flowers returned to his seat behind his desk. He had dropped a clanger and knew it. But he was relieved. If the press got wind of who Kelly was, then the fact that his daughter was one of the victims would cover up the fact that he and the Chief Constable met socially.

‘I’m sorry, Patrick, but this place is literally under siege at the moment.’

‘And you’ve missed your golf as well? My heart’s breaking for you.’

Flowers did not like the fact that Kelly had hit the nail straight on the head but he swallowed the insult. Kelly was a formidable man and knew too much about Flowers and others ever to be made an enemy.

Janet came in with the coffee and left it on the desk. She smiled at Patrick briefly before leaving. Flowers poured it with a hand that was trembling slightly. Kelly always affected him like this.

‘What can I do for you?’

‘I have a proposition for you, Freddie me old son.’

Flowers looked perplexed. Surely Kelly wasn’t here to talk business?

‘What kind of proposition?’

‘It’s about the murderer. I think I know how we can catch the ponce.’

Flowers put down his coffee cup.

‘Do you know who he is?’ He knew that Patrick Kelly had a price on the man’s head. In some circles it was common knowledge.

Patrick sipped his coffee slowly.

‘No, I don’t know. If I did then he’d be dead, Freddie. Deader than a week-old kipper. No. I don’t know who he is, but I know how we can catch him. I need your help, though.’

‘In what way?’ Flowers was puzzled.

‘In Leicester a few years ago every man in the vicinity of a murder case was given a blood test. Which narrowed down the police’s line of inquiry.’

Flowers put up his hand in a gesture of dismissal. ‘It would cost too much money, Patrick. Plus there’s no guarantee it would work. You don’t know the whole of it. We’d have the NCCL after us, not to mention every other crackpot group. They’d say it was just an excuse to monitor people. That their DNA samples would be ready and available for investigation in every sex crime that occurred. That it was an infringement of their civil liberties. Oh, you don’t know the half of it.’

Patrick finished his coffee and put his cup on the desk. ‘Listen, Freddie, I couldn’t give a monkey’s bollock for any of this. It is going to be done, and I am going to pay for it. So just button your mutton for five minutes and listen to me. All right?’

Kelly’s eyes were hard and Flowers felt the power of the man in front of him.

Patrick Kelly began to talk, slowly and deliberately. After five minutes he had Flowers in a state of fear so acute he could taste it. But after fifteen minutes he could see the sense of what Kelly was saying and relaxed. Two hours later they had reached an amicable arrangement. Patrick got up to leave.