‘Oh put a sock in it,’ Mary says, meeting my eyes in the mirror. ‘I once had the misfortune of working with a reporter – who shall remain nameless, I might add – that refused to dig on a trafficking investigation because, and I quote, “underage whores wouldn’t get on pre-watershed and that’s where the air time is”. The nerve of that guy!’

I am thrust forward as Mary punches the back of my seat.

‘After all these years it still makes me crazy. But this … this story you guys have pulled together is really something. It’s potentially game-changing, isn’t it?’

‘Oh, Lady Mary, you are making me blush,’ Dominic says, grinning at me as he pushes her out of frame to squint at his reflection. ‘But you’re right, of course. As usual. This lot are literally hiding in plain sight while those losers in Organised Crime sit around whining about online privacy and who knows what other distractions—’

‘Who we still need to speak to, don’t we?’ I interrupt. ‘If we are going to have a cat in hell’s chance of changing this game?’

I fight the urge to smile as Mary and Dominic look like I’ve smacked them both in the face.59

‘Easy, tiger,’ Dominic says, raising an eyebrow. ‘As much as I edify the local press, I don’t believe the venerable Deptford Gazette will have availed you of a hotline to Scotland Yard.’

He turns to Mary. ‘You’ve got nothing else on the clock after this, have you? We can swing past on the way back, save us going back out later. We’ll get nothing on camera while they get their story straight but at least we can say we tried … and tell Olivia we tried, more to the point, before she teaches me how to suck eggs again.’

‘For you, anything,’ Mary says, plastering her grin back on to her face.

I wonder what her real story is, hidden in all those lines round her eyes. No way they are all from laughing. Nothing is ever that funny.

‘Give Jonas a heads-up, would you?’ Dominic’s eyes narrow at me in the mirror.

‘Will do,’ I say, pulling out my phone. ‘I already told her about Beata.’

‘I’m sure you did. But we’ll need to get ahead on the editing while we sit on the M1 to give us any chance of making tonight’s deadline.’

‘So why don’t you drop me off first on the way to the Yard? Between us we’ll have it done by the time you get back. Unless you want to show Mary the zoo, that is…’