A thought occurred to me and I said, ‘What worries me is that whoever sent this has all of our personal phone numbers. Now that can only mean one of two things – the personnel files have been hacked or someone leaked them.’

It was suddenly obvious to everyone that even if this did turn out to be a prank, it still gave serious cause for concern.

‘I need to refer this upstairs to the Commissioner,’ Drummond said. ‘In the meantime I don’t want anyone outside this office to learn about this. That includes families and friends. And call those detectives who aren’t here to find out if they’ve also received this message.’

He told us to crack on with our jobs as though nothing had changed. But that was wishful thinking on his part. Everything had changed and it was impossible to concentrate on anything other than the words contained in the message.

… those of you who refuse will suffer the consequences and either you or those close to you, including family members, will be killed …

9

Slack

So the die was cast, and Roy Slack wondered how long it would be before the cops came knocking on his door.

He was sure to be their prime suspect, but since there was no hard evidence linking him to the message all he had to do was deny knowing anything about it.

Before sending the text, Danny had asked him if he was sure it was the road he wanted to go down.

‘I’ve never been so sure of anything in my life,’ he’d told him. ‘The bastards have got this coming. And it won’t be enough to kill a couple of detectives. I want to put the Met itself on the spot. I want the world to see what a useless bunch of tossers they really are. And this is the only way I can think of doing that in the time I have left.’

That conversation had taken place an hour ago. Now Slack and his eight top lieutenants were sat around the long table in the conference room above the pub in Rotherhithe. These were the men who effectively ran his businesses. They carried out his orders and were paid handsomely for their loyalty. There was a hierarchy of sorts and even an organisational chart.

Danny Carver was second-in-command and had a roving remit. The others oversaw different parts of the operation. Frank Piper took care of the drugs. Billy Lightfoot was in charge of the clubs and restaurants. Adam Clarke ran the brothels and protection rackets. Clive Miller looked after the warehouses – and so on.

Below them was a small army of enforcers, bean counters, lawyers, bent coppers and a bevy of corrupt local authority officials.

Slack kicked off the meeting by telling them what they already knew – that they were now in the Old Bill’s line of fire.