He glanced at his watch. The meeting was due to begin at nine sharp, and it was about three minutes to. He left the gents and took the stairs two at a time up to the conference room on the top floor of the old mock-Tudor building. Timing was an issue. Banks didn’t want to be the first to arrive, but he didn’t want to be the last, either. As it happened, he ended up somewhere in the middle. Detective Chief Superintendent Gervaise and Assistant Chief Constable McLaughlin stood outside the room, chatting as they waited. Banks could see through the open door that some people were already seated.

“Alan,” said McLaughlin. “New duties not proving too much of a burden, I hope?”

Banks’s promotion to detective superintendent had come through a short while ago—a bloody miracle in this day and age, or so he had been told—and he had spent the last few weeks learning the ropes. “Not at all, sir,” he said. “I had no idea how much I was getting away with before.”

Gervaise and McLaughlin laughed. “Welcome to the real world,” said the latter. “Shall we go in?”

McLaughlin went ahead. Banks turned to Gervaise and whispered, “Any idea what this is about?”

She gave a quick shake of her head. “Very hush-hush,” she said. “Rumor has it that the chief constable himself is going to be here.”

“Not crime stats or more budget cuts, then?”

Gervaise smiled. “Somehow I doubt it.”

The conference room was sparsely furnished, nothing but an oval table, tubular chairs and institutional cream walls. They took their seats around the table, and a few minutes later Chief Constable Frank Sampson—soon, it was whispered, to be Sir Frank Sampson—did indeed arrive. When he was followed shortly by the new police and crime commissioner, Margaret Bingham, Banks knew that something important must be brewing.

But the last person to arrive, a minute or so after everyone else, was the biggest surprise of all.

Dirty Dick Burgess was now some sort of deputy director or special agent at the National Crime Agency. More commonly known as the British FBI, the NCA dealt mostly with organized crime and border security, but it also worked against cyber crime and the sexual exploitation and abuse of children and young people. Burgess flipped Banks a wink before sitting down. Even he was wearing a suit and a crisp white shirt instead of his trademark scuffed leather jacket, though he could have done with a shave and a haircut, and he had forgone the tie completely. Clearly the British FBI didn’t bother dressing up for a visit to the provinces.