Tadeusz shrugged. ‘I suppose he thought he was doing what he had to to survive.’

‘You think so? That’s not how I do business. If you’re going to work outside the law, you need to be more honest than the straight people.’

He frowned. ‘What do you mean?’

‘If you operate in the straight world and you don’t deliver what you promise, you maybe lose your job or your marriage, but mostly nothing truly terrible happens to you. But if you operate in our world and you let people down, sooner or later it costs you more than you’re willing to pay. You sell fake drugs on street corners and you’re going to take a beating, either from ripped-off customers or from other dealers. You double-cross your mates on a bank job and you’re looking over your shoulder for the rest of your life.

‘Take Colin. If he did the dirty on one deal, chances are he did it on others too. And look what happened to him. Head blown off on a dirt track in the middle of the Essex marshes. Now, I don’t want that to happen to me, so when I do business with people, I do it honestly. And I expect the same from them.’

Tadeusz had drawn his arm back halfway through her speech. He was looking at her with a strange intensity, as if she was giving voice to his most deeply held beliefs. ‘You’ve obviously thought a lot about this,’ he said.

‘I’m a survivor,’ she said simply.

‘I can see that.’

‘Look, Tadzio, I’m a smart woman. I could have made a reasonable living in the straight world. But I didn’t want to make a reasonable living. I wanted to make a lot of money. Enough money to stop when I was young enough to enjoy it. So I found a way to work outside the system. And I’m bloody good at it. I try not to mix with other criminals unless I have to, I cover my tracks and I deliver on my promises. Now, are we going to do business?’

He shrugged. ‘That depends.’

‘On what?’

‘On who killed Colin Osborne.’ He raised his eyebrows.

She hadn’t expected that, and she was afraid her face showed how startled she was by the question. ‘What do you mean?’

‘Colin’s death was very opportune for you. And nobody seems to know what exactly happened to him. No one has claimed responsibility. Usually, when one villain takes out another, they’re eager to capitalize on it. Respect, fear. You know how it works. So, Caroline, did you kill Colin?’