‘So what’s the occasion, Ricky? I was supposed to be taking Ettie to the vet this afternoon. I’ve had to reschedule her appointment.’

She’d called him Ricky ever since he was a boy and she continued to do so now, even though no one else referred to him by that moniker.

He looked back at her with his black eyes and rubbed the dark stubble on his square jaw. He had his father’s strong jaw and his mother’s dark eyes. She could tell instantly that something was troubling him and he looked uncharacteristically hesitant.

‘You’re not going to like what I’m going to have to say, Mum. Probably best if you sit down.’

She settled herself on one of the leather seats, a sense of unease growing within her.

‘Do you want to hear the bad news or the really bad news?’ he asked.

The unease swelled into a distinct feeling of dread and she braced herself for something unpleasant.

‘Okay, I’ll start with the bad news,’ he continued. ‘I had some private investigator following me around.’

She frowned. ‘Private investigator? Sent by who?’

‘One of our rivals probably. He was taking photos of me.’

Her eyes widened. ‘Taking photos of you?’

‘Building up a picture of my movements. Setting me up for a hit, I reckon.’

Her heart went cold at the thought of it. ‘Maybe the same bastards who killed Adrian?’ she whispered.

He gave a grim shrug. ‘Maybe. But that kind of brings us, in a roundabout way, onto the second bit of news. The really bad news.’

She swallowed. How could it get any worse than this?

Rick took a deep breath. ‘Adrian was a grass.’

The news totally blindsided Nancy. She blinked, momentarily unable to breathe, as if someone had punched her in the guts. Denial immediately welled up inside her. No member of her family could be a grass. It just wasn’t possible. Hatred of the law was bound up in their very DNA.

‘I don’t believe you,’ she said stoutly.

‘I said you wouldn’t like it.’

Deep down though, she knew he was right. Rick wouldn’t come out with something like this unless he was a hundred per cent certain. That was one of the reasons she’d put him in charge. She felt a lurching sense of nausea. This was really bad news indeed.

‘He was talking dirt on us?’ she hissed through gritted teeth. ‘How can you be sure?’

Rick’s eyes flickered to Stephen. ‘The police hit an airstrip in Essex a few days ago, on the third of February. Customs too. They were under the impression that a planeload of ecstasy pills were coming in.

‘But it was fake information. There were no pills. I told different people different locations, different dates. Adrian was the only one who knew about that airstrip in Essex. He was the only one who knew that the ecstasy was supposed to come in on that particular day. He was the only one who could have leaked that information to the police.’