‘Mister Snigiss killed Adrian!’

Bailey’s thoughts churned wildly at what she’d just heard. Marcus’s admission only served to strengthen what she’d been increasingly suspecting all along. Mister Snigiss had been behind the car bomb. Notwithstanding her deep repugnance towards the torture, Bailey couldn’t help but lean in closer to listen to what Marcus had to say next.

Nancy stepped around in front of Marcus, softly stroking the top of Ettie’s head. Marcus looked up at her, a pleading and desperate expression on his face.

‘Who is this Mister Snigiss?’ she asked softly in her husky voice. ‘And why did he kill Adrian?’

Marcus started speaking, the words tumbling out breathlessly.

‘It all started when Adrian met Tiffany at a party—’

‘Tiffany?’ cut in Stephen. ‘You mean that bird who got blown up with him?’

Marcus gulped and nodded. ‘He met her at a party. Just some party y’know. She was there. Lots of fit birds. Top-end brasses. She was one of them. He ended up doing lines with her. You know what Adrian was like. And then—’

‘Get to the fucking point!’ shouted Shane.

‘She was a hooker,’ gasped Marcus. ‘Worked for this high-end outfit run by Mister Snigiss.’

‘So this Mister Snigiss is a pimp?’

Marcus nodded. ‘That’s right. Mister Snigiss runs the whole thing. High-class hookers, that’s what they are. He’s got a whole stable of them.’

Despite her abhorrence at the methods being used to get Marcus to talk, Bailey absorbed his information with mounting excitement, her picture of Mister Snigiss growing clearer by the minute.

‘So why did he kill Adrian?’ said Nancy.

‘These hookers… Mister Snigiss uses them to make blackmail videos. He secretly films the punters. All these rich, powerful blokes. And then he uses the videos to control them. To get influence. That kind of thing.’

Marcus’s words resonated strongly with what Bailey had discovered so far. It seemed very plausible to her now that it was in fact Mister Snigiss – a pimp – who lay at the heart of the blackmail focused on Lewis Ballantyne.

‘So how did Adrian get caught up in all this?’ demanded Rick.

‘Adrian met Tiffany at this party and she told him she’d got this shit-hot video of her and this politician and that she was going to sell it to one of the tabloids and make loads of money. But Adrian was like, no no no, if you do it my way you’ll make even more money. Of course, you know what Adrian was like, he just wanted a piece of the action. But he spun her a line and she bought it.’

‘Stupid little boy,’ growled Nancy. ‘Getting mixed up with cokehead brasses, bringing our family name into disrepute. You should have been keeping a closer eye on him, Ricky.’

Rick ground his teeth angrily at his mother’s reprimand.

‘That’s how I got involved,’ stammered Marcus. ‘I’ve got loads of media contacts, see. Adrian thought he could play them off against each other for the video, like an auction, drive the price up. At least that’s what he told Tiffany. And she went along with it cos she wanted to make as much money as possible.’