‘This has to remain within these four walls,’ she whispered. ‘No one must know about this. If it is true, then it is a stain on our family.’ Her eyes then widened speculatively. ‘Unless people already knew he was a grass,’ she murmured. ‘And that was the reason he got blown up. Maybe someone else thought he was dishing dirt on them and killed him because of it.’

She, better than any of them, knew that in the underworld anyone exposed as a grass developed a very short life expectancy, regardless of who they were.

‘Could be,’ muttered Rick. ‘Difficult to know.’ A dismal look settled on his face. ‘I tried to give him a chance,’ he said. ‘You know I did. I know he had his problems. His addictions and all that. But I tried to include him in our business where I could. Especially after that big argument we had last year after his fortieth. I tried to get him involved in more of the deals, thought it might help to calm him down, straighten him out. But I guess that was a mistake. I trusted him and he tried to fuck me over. Never in a million years would I have thought he would stoop so low…’

‘Traitor or not,’ she said, ‘he was still our blood and someone murdered him.’

‘You place too much of a premium on blood,’ Rick replied.

‘Blood is what makes us strong. It’s what ties us together. Without blood, we’re nothing.’

There was a tense pause between them.

‘I followed all the way through when it came to catching your father’s killers,’ she said firmly. ‘And I’m going to do exactly the same with whoever killed your brother.’

‘I understand your need for revenge, Mum, but like I said before, war is bad for business.’

She raised her voice in exasperation. ‘Don’t you understand anything I’ve taught you? Your father would turn in his grave if he could hear you right now. If we let them get away with it, then it makes us look weak. If they think they can get away with murdering an actual member of the Molloy family, it’ll be open season on us. We have to find out who killed Adrian and we have to make them pay. Whether they killed him because they thought he was a grass, or whether they just killed him because they’re trying to move in on our business, it makes no difference to me. Either way, we need to find them and deal with them.’ She punched a pointed finger emphatically as she spoke.

Rick sighed in capitulation. Nancy knew she’d always win out in this kind of situation. Her son ultimately always deferred to her, especially on this particular subject which he knew was so close to her heart.

‘Okay, Mum. But we do have a problem though.’

‘What’s that?’

‘The police use informants as a way of infiltrating businesses like ours. It’s very possible that Adrian…’ He left the implication hanging in the air.