I searched for his name in the main body of the document and soon found the details of the case. Stephen Coldbeck was a key witness in a trial involving a drug dealer who was under the ‘protection’ of the Lewisham Serious Crime Squad. Cityside Investigations had been instructed by Peterson to make sure that he either changed his evidence or was a no-show. They had set him up in a honeytrap with an operative called Emily. They then threatened to reveal the video footage to his wife unless he modified the evidence he was going to give in court. The possibility suddenly dawned on me that she was actually working for Cityside Investigations the night we met, presumably keeping an eye on Brendan. If that was the case, though, why didn’t she leave when he left the pub? I doubt very much she had been instructed to investigate Gary Thorn. My memory was that we had made a genuine connection that evening. Perhaps she was just very good at her job.

It was all a bit too much for me to get my head around, especially as the booze was beginning to fuzz my mind up. I needed to put my head even deeper into the sand, so I went for an afternoon nap. Before I drifted off, I came to the decision that I should get the dongle out of the house and hide it somewhere for later consideration. It would also make sense to get rid of my old laptop, which might now have some sort of fingerprint from the dongle deep inside its hard drive.

19

I woke up a couple of hours later to find that a greetings card had been posted through my letterbox. It had a painting of a duck on the front and the words ‘WHAT THE DUCK ARE YOU UP TO?’ The message inside read:

‘Fancy a chocolate and orange velveteen tonight 7:30?’