Rosa saw immediately that he was the man she’d come here to kill. The target.

And he made it easy for her by standing under the glow of the street lamp nearest to the house while he spoke to the other men.

She centred the crosshairs on his face, which loomed large in the magnified lens.

The first bullet pummelled into the centre of his forehead and sent him flying backwards against the front door. The second hit him in the throat as he slid to the ground. And the third struck him in the chest.

As his bodyguards dived for cover, Rosa pulled the rifle back through the window into the darkened room.

Within sixty seconds the weapon was disassembled and back in the briefcase, and she was closing the room door behind her.

She knew she didn’t have much time, that the cops would close in quickly on all the most likely sniper locations, including the tall hotel.

And that was all the more reason to remain calm and avoid attracting attention.

Rosa went down in the lift and then walked calmly through the busy reception area and onto the street.

She did not encounter any problems or resistance because everyone she passed was blissfully unaware of what had just happened. The cops in Appleton Mews would still be struggling to get their act together. Screaming into radios while desperately trying to avoid being shot at themselves.

Imagining the chaos she’d just caused filled Rosa with a sense of accomplishment as she walked quickly away from the hotel.

She felt good because the mission had been successful. There was no way the victim would survive the three bullets she had pumped into him. And she was excited because she could now spend the rest of the evening with Alice.

Four streets on, she hailed a taxi and climbed in.

‘London Bridge railway station,’ she said to the driver and made herself comfortable in the back.

At the station she would enter one of the public toilets, take off the wig and stuff it in her shoulder bag. She would also dump the raincoat. Then she’d lose herself in the crowd before getting another taxi to the hotel in Vauxhall. No way would the cops be able to track her.

As the taxi carried her away from the scene of her latest assignment, she sat back and closed her eyes to reflect on what she had just done.

Once again she’d shown how easy it is to kill someone. The target had been easy to get to despite having four burly cops with him for protection. It served as a warning to everyone from prime ministers to presidents that they were as good as dead when a price was put on their head.