As she eagerly digested the revelations, Bailey felt a strange sense of satisfaction as the disparate elements of the story began to cohere more fully in her mind.

‘So what the fuck happened with Adrian then?’ growled Shane menacingly.

Marcus cowered fearfully. ‘Well, normally Tiffany would have just done her business with the politician and Mister Snigiss would have filmed it and Tiffany would have got paid and that would have been that. But Tiffany thought she wasn’t making enough money. So she secretly set up her own camera and made her own video, without telling Mister Snigiss. And that was the video she took to Adrian.’

Bailey thought back to the kitten-themed memory stick, understanding now that the MPEG4 file was Tiffany’s own sex tape that she’d saved on there in order to give to Adrian.

‘But somehow Mister Snigiss found out about it,’ continued Marcus. ‘And he wasn’t too pleased, cos I guess if it all got out into the media it would have messed up his plans to secretly control the politician. So that’s why he blew them up.’

Nancy nodded slowly. ‘So let me get this straight. Mister Snigiss blew up Adrian and Tiffany because they were going to sell this sex video to the tabloids. And that would have ruined Mister Snigiss’s plans to have some kind of secret influence over this politician.’

Marcus nodded frantically, desperately eager to assuage them in any way possible.

‘Who is this politician?’ said Stephen.

‘Lewis Ballantyne.’

‘That cunt who’s running for Mayor?’ said Rick, raising his eyebrows in surprise, shooting a glance at Nancy.

Marcus nodded.

‘So where is this sex video?’ said Nancy.

‘Dunno. Got blown up in the bomb probably. Mister Snigiss blew them up on the day that Tiffany was supposed to give Adrian the video. She only agreed to give it to him after she was sure that him and me had got everything sewn up at our end. As soon as I heard they’d got blown up, I left town like a rat up a drainpipe. I knew they’d got blown up cos of the tape and I knew Mister Snigiss would be looking for me next.’

Bailey slyly reflected on what she’d just heard. Little did they know that the memory stick had survived the blast, and little did they know that she herself had viewed its contents.

‘Mister Snigiss?’ Nancy rolled the name contemptuously around her mouth. She looked around at the rest of the gang. ‘Have any of you heard of this Mister Snigiss?’

She was met with shrugs and shakes of the head. Bailey proffered a similar response although inwardly she was just as curious as Nancy, if not more so, to know more about who he really was.

‘Mister Snigiss,’ muttered Nancy. ‘Pfuh! Sounds like the baddie from a panto. What’s his first name?’

‘I dunno!’ squealed Marcus. ‘No one knows his first name. No one knows anything about him and he likes to keep it that way.’