‘We’re not telling you anything,’ spat Stephen. ‘We just want to know if you’re Old Bill.’

‘For some reason my mother seems to trust you,’ said Rick, ‘and normally I respect her opinions. But Stephen here convinced both of us that we should take some extra precautions. Just to be on the safe side. After all, you know how careful I am.’

She glanced at Stephen. He had a self-satisfied smirk on his face. God, she really detested him.

‘All we want you to do is answer some questions truthfully,’ he said.

‘Are you going to use eye accessing cues?’ she asked with a faint tone of disdain.

Stephen smiled unpleasantly and shook his head. He nodded to Archie who was sitting on one of the breakfast stools. Archie reached inside his jacket and withdrew a small black pouch from his inner pocket. Bailey eyed it with trepidation.

He unzipped the pouch and took out a hypodermic syringe. A horrible sinking feeling went through Bailey. She had a bad track record with needles.

‘What’s that?’ she whispered.

He smiled his death’s-head grin. ‘It’s scopolamine. It’s a truth serum.’

Shit. Bailey knew what scopolamine was. It was a drug that induced a state of total compliance, as well as completely wiping your memory. It was more commonly used to facilitate robbery or rape. She knew that under the influence of scopolamine she could very easily end up revealing that she was an undercover cop.

‘Why don’t you take a seat?’ said Archie, gesturing at the sofa which Rick had just vacated.

Bailey got the idea it wasn’t so much a request as a demand. And if she didn’t obey…

She glanced behind her. Shane was still standing in the hallway, blocking her exit. Mentally, she started to choreograph her escape from the flat, trying to work out which jiu-jitsu moves would give her the best chance of escaping. It would be tough, perhaps even impossible to incapacitate four grown men. But if she was fast…

She stopped herself. Maybe there wasn’t the need to resort to that quite yet. There might just be a way out of this.

She smiled amenably, stepped forward and sat down on the sofa. Archie got up from the breakfast stool and sat down beside her. Brandishing the syringe, he gestured for her to roll up the sleeve of her left arm.

Bailey held up a hand.

‘Just a moment. Maybe we don’t need to do this. Before you inject me with anything, why don’t you check who I am with one of my former bosses? I worked for him for several years as a sales manager for his financial services company. Now, I wouldn’t have been able to do that and be a copper at the same time, would I? I’ve got his card in here somewhere.’

She rummaged around in her purse and pulled out a slightly crumpled business card. She held it out to Rick. He looked down at it emotionlessly, making no effort to take it.