With a grunt, he pulled himself to his feet and began to root around in various boxes, pulling them out and peering inside and mumbling to himself, breaking into a slight sweat with the exertion.

‘Not that one… How about this one… No… Let’s have a look up here…’

While he did so, Bailey poked around curiously. The police property storeroom always fascinated her. You never knew quite what you would find in here.

She picked up a plastic bag containing a metallic ball-shaped object. It was heavy, olive green in colour, and about the size of a large kiwi fruit. She held it up with a puzzled frown. ‘What’s this?’

Keith glanced over his shoulder. ‘I believe that is an M67 fragmentation grenade.’

Bailey’s eyes widened. ‘It’s a bomb?!’

‘Basically. Confiscated from some outlaw biker who was on his way to chuck it into the clubhouse of a rival motorcycle gang. Those fellas don’t do things by halves.’

She peered through the bag at it. It had yellow military writing stencilled on it. ‘Are you sure it’s safe to keep it in here?’

‘Yeah, it’s perfectly safe… so long as you don’t pull the pin out.’

‘If you say so,’ she said, gingerly placing the grenade back into its evidence box on the shelf.

Rummaging around in a cardboard box, Keith pulled out a black leather coat and held it up for her inspection. ‘How about Hugo Boss?’

She gave it an appraising gaze. ‘I like it.’

He tossed it to her. She pulled it on. It was a fraction too large. But it felt right. It felt like it fitted this particular cover identity.

‘I think it’s genuine and everything,’ said Keith. ‘Fell off the back of a lorry, apparently.’

Stolen goods recovered from criminals made up a good proportion of the stuff in here. Bailey knew that anything that couldn’t be returned to its original owners would eventually be disposed of at auction.

On a shelf next to her, she noticed a box full of black Oakley Holbrook sunglasses. She pulled out a pair and tried them on. She knew that criminals often wore sunglasses in order to conceal what they were thinking, even if the weather didn’t particularly warrant them, and that was the kind of vibe she wanted to project.

Keith looked at her and nodded in approval. ‘Very stylish.’

She went over to the desk with him and filled out the necessary forms to sign the items out.

He smiled at her when she’d finished. ‘Now these are just a loan, remember?’

9

Sitting opposite Dale in the noisy cocktail bar, sipping her vodka blackcurrant, Bailey frowned as she tried to work out what was different about him since Hendon. There’d been some subtle physical change, but she couldn’t determine exactly what it was. Maybe he’d just grown older.

He was perched on a stool with his elbow resting on the bar sipping a whisky sour. Dressed casually now it was the evening, he was clad in black Levi’s and a slim-fit white shirt which showed off his muscular physique to good effect.