He smashed it against his victim’s face, head and throat, tearing flesh and crushing bone and teeth. And he didn’t let up for a full two minutes, by which time Wallis was unrecognisable. And he was dead.

He’d made a right mess, though, and there was blood everywhere, including on his hands and shirt. But that wasn’t a problem because there was a wardrobe full of spare clobber upstairs.

He dragged himself to his feet and used his hanky to wipe his blood and prints from the knuckle-duster, which he then slipped back in his pocket.

He paused to look down at his victim, or, rather, what was left of him.

‘That was for you, Terry my son,’ he said. ‘The bastard got what he deserved.’

Slack walked back up the stairs where Johnny and Pat were waiting for him in the hallway.

‘I’m ready for that tea now,’ Slack said.

‘Is the guy sorted, boss?’ Pat asked him.

Slack nodded, a little breathless. ‘It’s time to call the clean-up crew. I want the body to disappear, along with every last trace of the cunt.’

13

Laura

There was another briefing at four o’clock. By then our approach to the new investigation was taking shape.

Tasks had been assigned and everyone had been brought up to speed on what intel the Met had on Roy Slack’s firm.

There was a lot of hearsay and speculation, along with a list of all the known faces who worked for him. Most of them had criminal records and violent reputations. But what was lacking was hard, incriminating evidence against them and their boss.

There had been some successes over the past few years. Two of the firm’s drug dealers had been caught red-handed and sent down, but had refused to say who they were working for. And a major haul of cocaine from Mexico – with a street value of ten million pounds – was intercepted on a ship at Dover. But although we were certain it belonged to Slack and came from his cartel partners, we couldn’t prove it.

The London gangs had managed to grow and prosper partly because of the huge cuts imposed by successive governments on police manpower and resources. The Met in particular had often been stretched to breaking point.

But it was a different story now with the task force initiative and the government’s determination to get on top of the problem.

The tide had turned in our favour and we were now getting results. Of course there was no way we could ever entirely eliminate organised crime in the capital, but at least we could inflict enormous damage and reassure the public that we were doing our job.