It took a few moments for her to recognise him from the MMA circuit. His name was Shane Reaper. His nickname in mixed martial arts circles, predictably, was ‘The Grim Reaper’ and she knew he had a large skeleton-themed tattoo on his back depicting just that. Herself an experienced martial arts practitioner, Bailey had caught him in a few YouTube videos when she’d been trying to improve her jiu-jitsu groundwork techniques. His hadaka-jime – rear naked choke – was unparalleled; it was an ideal submission technique to use against more powerful opponents, which is why she, as a woman, was interested in perfecting it. She was faintly surprised to see him here.

Sitting across the room opposite Shane, on her right, was a skinny sallow man wearing a large pair of black wraparound sunglasses which lent him a distinctly insectoid air. He had a tapered face, thin lips, a pinched nose, a widow’s peak and a pronounced Adam’s apple. He tapped gently on the table with long spidery white fingers. When her gaze passed over him, his lips peeled back slightly in a humourless chilling death’s-head smile to reveal a set of brown rotting teeth. She suppressed a shudder of revulsion.

And finally, sitting next to Nancy on her left, was a small, baby-faced man dressed in a checked grey suit and a black polo neck. He had a round face with blubbery lips and a button nose. There was something underdeveloped about his features, to the point where Bailey wondered if he’d suffered from some kind of birth defect. With his tiny hands, he was absently playing with a small bottle of hand sanitiser. He was staring at Bailey, unblinking, much too intensely for her liking, even for a criminal. She got a deeply hostile vibe from him and immediately marked him as a potential problem.

Bailey’s heart was beating hard and her mouth had suddenly gone very dry, making it difficult for her to swallow. Here she was back in the undercover game right in the deep end. These people were top-echelon criminals and she was being subjected to their close perusal. She forced her nerves under control and reminded herself that they couldn’t see through her.

Shane pushed himself to his feet, came up to her and gestured for her to lift her arms so he could pat her down, presumably to check for a wire. His hands glanced professionally up and down her limbs and torso, not lingering any longer than was necessary. He peered in her bag, took out her purse and tossed it to the baby-faced one who began to rummage through her fake credentials. Thank God she’d taken out her warrant card.

Shane nodded wordlessly at the lone chair in the middle of the room. She sat down on it. It felt hard and uncomfortable. He then walked behind her to stand in front of the door with his arms crossed, blocking the room’s only entrance and exit.

Something had changed in the environment and it took her a few moments to notice that the sound of the jackhammer on the building site had faded down to an almost inaudible muted thumping. She realised then that this back room had been deliberately soundproofed, no doubt to guard against possible surveillance. That meant the Molloys probably owned this pub. It also made her horribly aware that if they decided to do something to her here in this room then no one would be able to hear her scream.