‘Bailey, I believe you already know DI Dale Bleudore,’ said Frank.

‘I believe I do,’ replied Bailey. Eight years earlier, she and Dale had both formed part of the new intake going through training at Hendon Police College.

Dale stood up and held out his hand.

Bailey sheathed her hand in his firm cool grip, and her heart skipped a beat as she thought to herself that he was even more handsome than she remembered.

‘Although I don’t think we ever spoke more than two words to each other,’ he said, with a disarming smile.

Back at Hendon, Bailey had got the impression that Dale was a bit arrogant, but looking back now, she wondered if her reticence to talk to him had partially been out of shyness because she’d been a little intimidated by his good looks.

She brushed an imaginary speck of dust from the lapel of her Donna Karan trouser suit, suddenly glad she’d made the effort to dress smartly for this meeting.

So Dale was a detective inspector, she thought with interest. He was the same rank as Frank. While she’d been working undercover, Dale had taken the time to get promoted and move up the police hierarchy. He’d clearly done well for himself.

‘So what brings you here?’ she said, genuinely curious.

Dale raised one eyebrow and made an ‘over to you’ gesture to Frank.

Frank rubbed his greying red hair and fixed Bailey with his dead watery eyes. ‘You know that car bomb in West London a few days before Christmas?’

Of course Bailey knew about it. It had been all over the news. A nice posh street in Chiswick had been totally wrecked, all the windows blown out, including those of a restaurant belonging to some celebrity chef. Initial reports had speculated that it was a terrorist incident, but unofficial opinions were now leaning in a different direction.

‘Yeah, they reckon it was a gangland hit, right?’

Frank nodded slowly. ‘The victim’s name was Adrian Molloy. A member of the Molloy crime family.’

‘The notorious Molloys, eh?’ murmured Bailey.

‘Yeah,’ said Frank, with a knowing raise of the eyebrow. ‘He was one of them. He got blown up, along with some poor floozy who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. They found bits of them everywhere. They found her head in a tree a hundred and fifty metres away… and they’re still finding bits.’

‘Urgh!’ said Bailey as she visualised the macabre scene.

‘Initial feedback from the murder investigation team indicates that the bomb was clamped magnetically to the underside of the car, probably to the petrol tank at the rear. A small device, likely an RDX charge, set off remotely, probably via mobile phone.’

‘Any information as to the culprits?’

Frank shook his head. ‘CCTV in the street got us a brief glimpse of someone moving through the shadows, but visibility was very poor, and then they disappeared down a side alley which wasn’t covered by any public surveillance systems. Whoever it was, they were very good at evading CCTV coverage. They just seemed to disappear completely.’