Looking up the corridor in the other direction, she saw a blank wall. A dead end. Unless she went through the kitchen, where there were people working, and where there was no guarantee of an exit, the only way out of here was through the restaurant. Either way was going to be supremely risky.

Bailey chewed her lip. Time was of the essence. If she was going to move, she needed to move now, before the waiter returned.

She crept out of the storeroom and sneaked along the corridor, her stockinged feet padding silently on the concrete floor. Stopping at the double doors, she pushed one of them open a fraction and peeked into the restaurant.

Over to her right, she could see the various members of the gang sitting at a long table embarking on a meal, the waiter moving between them serving appetisers from his tray. In any other context it might have resembled a birthday celebration or a group of people from work out for an evening meal. They were chatting and laughing boisterously and clinking beers, as if it was no big deal that just a short distance away on the other side of a wall, they were having a female police officer tortured, murdered and dismembered.

Nancy was sitting at the head of the table. Stephen was sitting to her right, holding court, telling everyone how he’d always suspected that there was something off about Bailey. Shane was laughing loudly. The bald-headed, ginger-bearded thug who she’d punched was sitting among them holding a bloodied napkin to his nose but still smiling all the same.

Bailey watched them as they triumphantly toasted the benefit of having yet one more copper in their pocket, and how things were really looking up for their organisation, and how they’d find a new buyer for the guns, and how lucky they were to have found out about Bailey before the deal went down, and how the information she was going to provide on Mister Snigiss would finally help secure them the requisite justice for Adrian. But Bailey didn’t have time to hang around and listen to them, being concerned with rather more urgent plans of her own.

She peered over to the left, where the exit was. By it was a small alcove containing a coat rack. Seeing the coats hanging there, it occurred to her that at least one of them might contain a mobile phone with which she could call the police to warn Frank. And failing that, one of them might contain car keys, for if she couldn’t call ahead from here, she’d have to get to some location where she could, and fast. The restaurant seemed relatively remote and she didn’t want to bet on the chance of waiting for and waving down a passing car.

She eyed the layout of the restaurant with concern. To reach the exit and the coat rack she would have to cross a large open stretch of floor where she would be fully exposed to view for a distance of at least five metres or so. She would just have to move as stealthily as possible and pray that none of them happened to look in her direction at that particular moment.