Navigating her way through the heaving South London traffic was easy now that she had the hang of riding on the left side of the road. The number of motorcyclists surprised her, but it worked in her favour. She could move around the city without drawing attention to herself and that was going to be important in the days ahead.

She left the bike two streets away from the house where she knew there were no CCTV cameras. She removed the helmet but left the hat on as she moved towards the house carrying the bunch of flowers, lowering her head whenever she passed another pedestrian.

It was a terraced house and the small front garden was enclosed by hedges on either side, which was perfect. As she approached it she was pleased to see that the street was empty.

There were lights on inside the house and a car on the driveway.

Rosa’s body was rigid, her jaw clenched, as she walked up to the front door.

She filled her lungs with air and held the flowers in front of her face. With the other hand she pulled the gun from inside her jacket. Then she rang the bell.

She heard movement inside after only a couple of seconds, and suddenly the door was pulled open.

Dave Prentiss appeared and she saw his smiling face through the flowers. As soon as he started to speak she squeezed the trigger. The bullet popped as it exited through the silencer and ploughed into his chest.

He fell backwards into the hallway, blood spurting from the wound like an industrial sprinkler.

Rosa lowered the flowers, took aim, and fired two more shots into the cop’s face.

Job done, she slipped the gun back into the jacket and turned away from her blood-drenched victim.

As she headed back down the driveway she heard a baby start to cry somewhere in the house. But it didn’t cause her to break her stride as she calmly walked away from the house.

She dropped the flowers into a trash can at the end of the street.

PART TWO

20

Laura

I was in the office when the call came through at just after seven thirty. I’d decided to work late so that I could be around when the techies finished going through Roy Slack’s phone and laptop.

It was Drummond who took the call and he came straight out of his office and summoned everyone together. There were seven of us – four detectives and three support staff – and we gathered around him with a shared sense of anticipation.

From the look on the boss’s face it seemed obvious that he had some bad news to impart. His skin was the colour of sour milk and his bottom lip appeared to be trembling.