On the table in front of him was the phone he used to communicate with Danny. He picked it up and called him.

‘Time to send the new message on to the media,’ he said.

‘Will do, boss,’ Danny replied. ‘How are you feeling?’

‘Better than I did last night. But I won’t be doing much today so you look after things and call me if there are any problems.’

They talked briefly about events in Balham and he told Danny not to be concerned, that Rosa was still on top of things and the Old Bill had no idea who or where she was.

‘But brace yourself for another visit from them,’ Slack said. ‘What Rosa does next will trigger a wave of arrests the like of which this city has never seen.’

Slack ended the call, but before switching off the phone he re-read his latest message and it thrilled him to think that it would cause even more panic within the Met.

I made it clear that the killings won’t stop until you and your colleagues resign from the task force. But your superiors say it won’t happen because it’ll set a dangerous precedent. So I’m going to do something that will make them reconsider their position.

His lawyer called at eleven o’clock to say that the police wanted to question him again.

‘They want you to go to the nick,’ Darren Peacock added.

‘Are they arresting me?’ Slack asked.

‘No. It’ll be voluntary.’

‘In that case tell them to get stuffed. If they want to harass me they can come here and do it. I’m not feeling well.’

Peacock called back thirty minutes later to say the coppers would be arriving at midday.

‘Don’t let them in until I get there,’ he said. ‘I’m on my way.’

Before getting dressed, Slack gathered up the phones he used exclusively for making contact with Rosa and Danny and put them back in the safe that was hidden behind wall tiles in the kitchen.

Then he made himself another cup of coffee and waited for the Old Bill to turn up.

They arrived at the same time as the lawyer and there were two of them. The detective who did all the talking was a cocky sod named Marsden. The other was a thin woman with short hair named Gloria Stanford. Slack recognised the names from the list he’d given to Rosa.

‘I understand from your lawyer that you’re not feeling too good,’ Marsden said when he was seated in the living room.

Slack stared at him, his eyes unflinching and fierce. The cop reminded him of a stumpy little pimp he’d beaten to death two years ago for trying to fleece him. For that reason he took an instant dislike to the guy.