‘You’re not kidding. Nobody knows what to do. It seems the only way to stay safe is to lock ourselves away but that’s not practical. I came here in a car with two armed minders, for God’s sake.’

I shook my head. ‘It’s all so unreal. We’re the police. We shouldn’t need protection. What’s more, every officer who’s assigned to protect us is putting his or her life on the line as well.’

I stopped talking and let the silence fill the room. Kate dropped onto the chair opposite me, and her hands fell onto her knees, fisting anxiously.

For long seconds it was as though we were both paralysed by our thoughts. We just stared at each other, and the only sound was our own heavy breathing. But then came another sound. The all-too-familiar sound of a text arriving on our phones at the same time. Moments later we were both reading the message. It consisted of just three short sentences.

And it contained a threat that was every bit as sinister as the first one we’d all received.

46

Slack

As soon as he woke up, he started to curse the cancer that was going to shorten his life.

The symptoms were getting worse, and last night had been the most difficult so far. The nausea, the gut pain, the ache in his head that even the pills couldn’t drive away. The doctors had warned him to expect this and had told him how bad it would get.

He’d been fine before going to bed and had spent a pleasant evening by himself drinking Scotch while flicking between the news channels.

As soon as the story broke about the shootings in Balham he’d known it was the work of Rosa Lopez. He had to wait an anxious couple of hours before he received a text from her confirming that she hadn’t been arrested and apologising for missing the target. She’d ended the message with the words: It won’t happen again. And for some reason he believed her.

He felt she’d already made up for her mistake by bringing down two uniforms and the partner of detective Laura Jefferson, the smart-arsed cow who had interviewed him. It was a shame she wasn’t dead but that didn’t mean she wouldn’t be within a few days.

Before going to bed, Slack had sent Danny another text that he wanted forwarded to all the detectives on the organised crime task force. They’d have received it by now, and he knew it would prompt them to come and see him again.

They’d want to ask a whole bunch of new questions, including why he had never told them that he was Terry Malone’s father. He knew they were now aware of it because he’d been tipped off last night by his mole on the inside.