He held out his right hand. She hesitated a moment and then slipped her hand into his cool firm grip.

Staring at her intently with his bright blue eyes, he cupped his hand slightly to allow his middle finger to curl inwards towards the centre of her palm. He then slowly pushed it out towards her wrist, then drew it back in again, then out again, softly caressing her palm. Inwards. Outwards. Inwards. Outwards. She flushed, her breath turning ragged with arousal. It felt undeniably good…

She suddenly burst out laughing and tugged her hand away. ‘That’s not a Masonic handshake!’

He erupted into snorts of laughter. ‘Okay, officer… I confess!’

She shook her head and rolled her eyes at his waggish behaviour. ‘I think it’s high time you were going.’

He made an attempt to look serious and stood up.

Watching him leave with a smile on her face, she realised that she was rather starting to like him. But at the back of her mind lurked the troublesome awareness that any intimacy that might arise between them would be tempered, if not completely hamstrung, by the torture and the sexual trauma she’d been through. Those hideous experiences were the main reason she hadn’t been in any kind of proper relationship for the past few years, and she’d reached the point where she was wondering if she’d ever be able to have a normal relationship again. Hopefully he’d understand…

21

The hearse crawled slowly past on its way to the church. It was a shiny black vintage Daimler operated by a set of appropriately long-faced undertakers. The coffin, visible through the large rear windows, was topped with lavish floral tributes spelling out ‘Adrian’ on top, ‘brother’ on one side, and ‘son’ on the other.

Although it was a cold January morning, it was bright and fresh and the Romford street was lined with a mixture of people. Whereas some had turned out to pay their respects, many others were present purely out of curiosity.

Passing through the crowd, Bailey made her way in the direction of the Roman Catholic church where the service was being held, the cortège passing by next to her, the hearse trailed closely by a fleet of black limousines.

After her close encounter with the Molloys at her flat, Bailey had wondered what form the next contact from them would take. A few days later she’d found out. It turned out to be an invite to Adrian’s funeral, sent through the post to her, printed on expensive gold-embossed card. It constituted somewhat of a curveball for her as funerals were hardly the most commonplace way of meeting up for business, but then, doing undercover work, she’d learnt to expect the unexpected.

It was now almost a month since Adrian had been blown up. From her experience as a police officer, Bailey knew that the delay in burial was likely due to various complications surrounding the post-mortem procedure and coroner’s inquest that were required in cases of unnatural death such as his, not to mention the inevitable backlogs in the system that always built up over the Christmas period.