Frank again glanced at Dale, who’d been sitting back listening with his leg resting on his knee. Dale uncrossed his legs and leaned forward to speak.

‘It’ll help first if you know a bit of background about the family themselves. The Molloy organisation was founded by Arthur Molloy back in the mid-eighties. He was an armed robber who used his ill-gotten gains to invest in the drugs trade and he did well enough out of that to be able to branch out into other criminal activities and make even more money.’

Bailey watched him talk, getting a better impression of him as he did so. He exuded an undeniable aura of confidence and an authority in his subject, and she found he commanded her attention with ease.

‘But then, in 1994, Arthur was murdered in Spain, shot dead in the back garden of his luxury hacienda in Marbella. At this point, his wife, Nancy, took over the operation. She’s a formidable character in her own right, but more about her later.’

A smile crinkled the corners of his eyes as he spoke to her, indicating to Bailey that he enjoyed being in the spotlight like this.

‘Eventually, because she was getting older, I guess, Nancy decided she wanted to step back a bit and put one of her sons in charge. After all, they were more than old enough by then. Adrian, being the eldest, was logically the one to step up and take charge, but he was too much of a playboy and a cokehead. He liked to trade off his dad’s reputation, but he lacked that inner steel and ice-cold intelligence that’s crucial for staying on top within the underworld. So Nancy skipped Adrian and put Rick in charge instead.

‘Rick’s a much cooler customer, and the smarter of the two by a long way. He’s got an extremely short record sheet and he’s never once been to prison. He’s very good at keeping his hands clean and he’s beaten almost every charge that’s been thrown at him. Witnesses tend to have a habit of dropping their testimony at the last minute, or in some cases, meeting with unfortunate accidents.’

Dale paused for a moment, his face taking on a weighty expression. She sensed he was about to reveal something important.

‘It’s common knowledge that Adrian Molloy was a gangster,’ he said. ‘And we won’t be shedding too many tears now that he’s gone. One less villain for us to worry about. But what’s less well known… in fact, what has been kept top-secret, and remains so even now, is that he was a registered informant.’

4

Bailey raised her eyebrows in surprise.

‘Adrian was a snout?’ she murmured. A snout was police slang for an informant.

‘That’s the reason Dale’s here,’ said Frank.

Dale nodded. ‘My job is working with confidential informants. I was Adrian’s handler.’

Bailey regarded him with an added layer of respect. Working with informants was highly sensitive work. You definitely had to be a cut above the average plod to be entrusted with CIs. But it didn’t surprise her that Dale had graduated into this type of work. Even back at Hendon, it had been apparent that he’d possessed that special kind of drive, and as for that slight taint of arrogance he had, she’d witnessed the same thing in other individuals she’d encountered in elite units, and they’d been among some of the best police officers she’d met; it was a form of self-belief that was often crucial to success in the high-stakes world in which both he and she operated.