But I was with Tony Marsden in believing that Slack should remain firmly in the frame. And it wasn’t just because of his track record as a cruel and cold-blooded gang leader. It was also down to his attitude and demeanour on those two occasions when I’d interviewed him. Plus, the way he’d looked at me as he’d answered my questions – like he wanted me to know that he was hiding a huge secret. And challenging me to find out what it was.

Well, I had never been one to shy away from a challenge. So as I started wading once again through the file we had on Slack, it was with a new sense of urgency. I was searching for something, anything, that might have been missed.

An hour later, my eyes strained from staring into the computer screen, I spotted something. It was in the notes relating to Terry Malone, the villain shot dead during the raid on his home by firearms officer Hugh Wallis, who had since disappeared. Malone had been working as a bouncer for Slack at the time.

What intrigued me was a brief reference to a remark made by a police informant who attended Malone’s funeral. He claimed that during the wake in a pub he overhead Slack say that Malone’s death was ‘the final straw’.

I was surprised that this hadn’t been picked up by those officers who’d questioned Slack about Wallis’s disappearance. It certainly hadn’t been mentioned during the formal interview.

But in the context of what was happening now I felt that it could be hugely significant.

And therefore I intended to follow it up.

34

Rosa

‘You’ll never believe this,’ Alice said. ‘There’s been another murder in London.’

Rosa sat up in the bed and rubbed at her eyes with her fingers. She’d been waiting for Alice to return from the kitchen where she’d gone to make some coffee.

‘It’s another bad one,’ Alice went on, placing Rosa’s mug next to her on the bedside table. ‘This time it was a woman and she was married to a detective who worked with the one who was shot the night before.’

Rosa let her jaw drop to give the impression that she was surprised.

‘That’s terrible,’ she said.

‘I know.’ Alice sounded visibly upset. ‘It’s most certainly not what someone on their first visit to this city should have to wake up to.’

Rosa forced a grin.

‘I’m used to it, Alice. You’re forgetting that I’m from Mexico. Murders take place all over the country every day of the week. Believe me, nothing that happens here will shock me.’

‘That’s not the point,’ Alice said, as she got back into bed. ‘I want you to be impressed by this country, this city. If you are then you’re more likely to come back.’