I didn’t say anything because I didn’t trust myself not to go too far. What Slack had said was vile and unwarranted, but he hadn’t committed a crime.

So we went through the motions, searching not just his office but also the other rooms on the top floor. And while we did that the smug bastard and his gold-toothed henchman went downstairs to the pub to have a late lunch and a drink.

When we left there we took Slack’s phone and laptop with us, but I knew there’d be nothing on them of interest to us.

‘So what do you think?’ Kate said as we got back in the car.

‘I think that man is a sorry excuse for a human being,’ I answered. ‘And I think there’s a good chance he’s behind this. But I don’t know how the hell we’ll be able to prove it.’

19

Rosa

It was just after 6pm and Rosa was ready to go to work. But, as she was about to leave the hotel room, a news item on the television caught her eye.

CNN were reporting on the murder of a journalist back home in Sinaloa.

‘Award-winning reporter Antonia Castillo was shot dead in the street as he got out of his car,’ the anchor was saying. ‘Mr Castillo was famed for his coverage of drug cartel activities. He’s the ninth reporter to have been murdered in Mexico this year alone.’

Rosa couldn’t help but smile. Castillo had been pissing off Carlos Cruz for some time and his death had been on the cards. If she hadn’t been five and a half thousand miles away in London she might well have been the one assigned to get rid of him.

She wasn’t complaining, though. This was a dream job. An all-expenses paid trip to a European capital. The chance to stock up on designer clothes at some of the world’s most famous stores. And then there were the targets who were going to be sitting ducks, plus the huge fee, of course.

The money from this job would take her savings to over three million dollars. That was enough to retire on. But she wouldn’t be doing that anytime soon because killing made her feel good and gave meaning to her life. She enjoyed the thrill of it, the power, the sense of absolute control. She couldn’t imagine lying on a beach every day or doing some crappy job just to alleviate the boredom.

CNN moved onto another story so she switched off the TV and checked herself in the mirror.

Her hair was gathered up and pinned at the back and over it she’d put on a woollen hat pulled down over her ears. Under her leather jacket she was wearing the navy polo sweater and black jeans she’d bought earlier, along with a new pair of dark trainers.