I roll up the windows, meeting Bill’s eyes in the rear-view mirror. I don’t have to see his whole face to know he’s smiling. If I was him, I’d smile too. He wasn’t inside.

‘Good job, Marie,’ Jemima says, flopping back into her seat. ‘And if our resident drama queen over here hasn’t had enough for one day, shall we see if we actually did the job first rather than congratulating ourselves just for not getting caught?’

‘Here we go again,’ drawls Dominic. ‘Jemima Jonas, Nine News’s heart of stone and balls of steel. I just bought myself an underage virgin, for Christ’s sake. Every news network in the country will weep for days when this goes out, not to mention those useless suits over at the Met, and you’re more interested in giving me grief? It got hairy in there, since you asked. But we’re fine, thanks. Just dandy.’

‘Hairy? Hairy how?’ She snaps open the computer in her lap, stabbing at the keyboard.

‘They brought in another pair,’ I say, swallowing the heartbeat racing up my throat. ‘I thought it was just to jack up our price but they barely let the auction run before belting them—’

‘You what?’ Dominic interrupts, eyes blazing at me. ‘You think all that was just for kicks and giggles? There’s teeth still scattered all over the corridor…’

‘There wasn’t a madame though, was there? Two men. You said it yourself. There’s always a madame … and if it was really about the money, they’d have let it roll a bit longer, surely…’

‘They told you that, did they? In the many conversations you’ve had over the weeks, nay, months, that you’ve been meticulously developing contacts to get us here in the first place?’ 12

My face burns, even though I’m sure I’m right. Who would do all that just for a measly extra thousand?

‘Are you telling me there was a ruck? And you didn’t hit the button?’ Jemima smacks her laptop closed. ‘Tell me, what was the point, what was the bloody point of all our exit planning, all those code words, secret signals, hours of senior-management debate over whether this was too dodgy to even attempt, if on your first sniff of trouble, you just ploughed on like you were bartering over who buys the next round? What do you suppose we would have done if you hadn’t come out?’

‘We’re OK, though,’ Dominic spits, balling one hand into a fist in the other. ‘Really, we are. Don’t you worry about us. We can take this one for the team—’

‘Just shut up, Dom, OK? That was the deal, remember? We needed at least a signal that it was all going tits up. You said—’