But there was no knowing if she would bother to answer any of them. After all, there was nothing she could tell us that would encourage a judge to show even the slightest degree of leniency when it came to sentencing.

This woman was going to face the full force of the law. She had murdered four coppers, including the Metropolitan Police Commissioner. It was my guess she’d receive multiple life sentences and never be released from prison.

And throughout her incarceration she’d always be looking over her shoulder, wondering if her former boss in the cartel had put a price on her head for fear that one day she would reveal everything she knew about them.

76

Laura

A lot happened in the weeks following The Slayer’s arrest. She was remanded in custody, charged with various offences, including five counts of murder.

While she languished in jail, thousands of people lined the streets of London for the funerals of her victims. I was among them and so was Aidan who insisted on going along each time to pay his respects.

Roy Slack’s funeral was a much quieter affair and only a handful of people turned up. This was because many of those who had worked for the firm had been arrested or had fled abroad.

Danny Carver was among those facing long spells in prison. Others included two villains named Johnny Devonshire and Pat Knowles, who we discovered had been nearby when Roy Slack had battered to death the firearms officer Hugh Wallis.

They were then tasked with making arrangements to get rid of the body, which was put in a boat and attached to weights. It was dropped in the sea off the Sussex coast at night so they weren’t able to provide a location.

The pair were exposed as a result of a folder found in Slack’s hidden safe, which contained the deeds to a number of properties we didn’t know he’d owned, including one in Dulwich.

A detailed forensic search of the property uncovered traces of Wallis’s DNA and blood in the basement. The subsequent investigation led to Johnny Devonshire confessing to what he and Knowles had done.

It proved much quicker and easier to extract confessions from Tony Marsden and Kate Chappell. Marsden and three other police officers pleaded guilty to kidnapping Roy Slack. And Kate Chappell admitted taking bribes from the gangster over a number of years and providing him with confidential details about detectives on the task force. She also owned up to asking him to arrange for her husband to be run down by a car and killed after he walked out on her.

They were all now awaiting trial.

Needless to say Aidan and I didn’t manage to get away at Christmas. Instead we spent it at home with my mother and his parents who flew in from Spain.