So was that their intention? To punish him?

The warning from the mole inside the task force had come too late.

Don’t go out. You won’t be safe. I’ve got wind of a plot to …

If it had been just minutes earlier he would have stayed in the apartment or arranged for a tooled-up crew to accompany him to the restaurant.

But he had lucked out, and now he was at the mercy of these men in masks. And he had no idea where they were taking him.

57

Laura

I waited until Aidan’s parents arrived before I left the hospital. The plan was for me to go home and get changed before going to the Yard.

Aidan was happy for me to return to work if Drummond was prepared to let me. In fact he positively encouraged it.

‘They need all the help they can get,’ he told me. ‘You’re wasted sitting here with me. I’m fine. You know that. So get back into the game, for everyone’s sake. And find the fucking bitch who did this to me, even if you have to break the rules to do so.’

There was fire in his eyes as he spoke and his words were like slaps to my face. They prompted me to think the unthinkable – that perhaps the only way to bring this whole thing to an end was to break the rules.

I was taken home in an unmarked police car with two armed officers. The forensic technicians had finished their work and our house was in a much better state. The kitchen doors had been replaced and most of the mess cleared up. But there was still a fair amount of damage that would have to be repaired in the coming weeks either by us or the landlord. We’d need a new dishwasher for one thing, and a new patio light.

However, I still wasn’t sure I wanted to go on living there even if the interior were to be given a complete makeover. It just didn’t feel the same anymore and I doubted that it ever would.

I showered and put on a beige sweater and grey trousers, which I wore under a black wool trench coat. I then got my armed escort to take me to the Yard.

We drove north through Clapham and Lambeth, and as usual the streets were heaving. London always came to life on a Sunday. Tourists and day-trippers turned out in force and now they were being joined by Christmas shoppers.

The way life was carrying on made it seem like the city wasn’t in the midst of a crisis. But it was. A crisis that had already cost the lives of four people.