A tiny smirk flickered across Rick’s face. Was that respect in his eyes? He scratched his chin for a few moments, the sound of his fingers scraping on his stubble clearly audible in the quiet room.

‘Seven fifty,’ he said presently. ‘And that’s my final offer.’

It was still expensive, but for Bailey’s purposes it was an acceptable price. Anyhow, if this operation went to plan, it wasn’t like he was ever going to be seeing any of that cash.

Bailey gave a curt nod, sealing her agreement to the deal.

‘Okay,’ said Rick. ‘We’ll be in touch.’

Still watching her sullenly, the baby-faced one held out her purse containing her fake credentials. She took it from him, sensing that this was a signal that the meeting was now over and she was free to leave.

She stood up and cast her gaze around their faces one last time, letting it linger for a fraction of a second on Nancy Molloy, and then she turned and left the room.

17

The doner kebab rotated slowly on the skewer in front of the red glowing grill, the reconstituted brown meat dripping fat onto the pan below, while a balding Middle Eastern man in an apron intermittently carved slices off it with a large knife.

Bailey eyed the greasy hunk of meat distastefully through the window of the kebab shop as she stood by the poky door just adjacent, waiting for Frank to admit her.

Undercover operations were never actually run from inside a police station. If a criminal saw you go in or out, then you were in deep trouble, and they had been known to stake out police stations for that very purpose. Bailey didn’t know how well the Molloys ran surveillance, but she wasn’t taking any chances. So from now on all meetings with Frank and Dale were taking place in a temporary autonomous HQ specially designated for this operation. It had been set up in an empty flat situated above a kebab shop close to her new apartment.

Technically, it was only five minutes’ walk away, had she followed a conventional route. However, to ensure that she wasn’t being followed by the Molloys, she always took a slightly more circuitous route via the nearby Westfield Centre, a huge shopping complex in the middle of Stratford.

It was the ideal place in which to detect a potential tail, and to lose them if necessary. By covertly observing reflections in shop windows, doubling back along shop aisles and up and down the escalators, Bailey was able to check that she wasn’t being followed by anyone. Only once she was satisfied that she was clean would she then emerge from a discreet side exit and proceed to the HQ. It usually added an extra ten to fifteen minutes to her journey but the hassle was worth it given the dangers associated with the alternative.

The door clicked open. Glancing over her shoulder furtively one last time to check for any tails, Bailey entered into the hallway, closed the door behind her and made her way up a narrow, dingy stairwell. Ascending the stairs, it occurred to her, not for the first time, that Frank seemed to have a habit of picking particularly grim places to serve as undercover HQs.