The canteen at AB isn’t that bad, despite the strained attempt at festive cheer with tinsel draped around the till and intertwined with the display boxes of chocolate, muesli bars and mini-packets of biscuits. I wasn’t making the same mistake twice – I had tea instead of coffee.

As the Congolese woman behind the till rang up the order I noticed that the tinsel had been strung close enough to the hot food area to allow the occasional strand to dip itself into the perpetual pot of beef stroganoff It’s this kind of attention to food hygiene that explains why the Metropolitan Police loses so many work days to sickness – that and over-exposure to dogs, the elements and members of the public.

Don’t they know there’s an E. coli scare on, I thought.

Then I carefully put my tray down, turned and hared out of the canteen and back up to the outside inquiry office taking the steps three at a time.

Apparently I never did pay for the drinks.

‘We’ve got to go down the tunnels now,’ I said. ‘Before Kevin fucking Nolan manages to kill the lot of them.’

25. Ladbroke Grove

25

Ladbroke Grove

Watching Seawoll in motion was always an education in of itself. Despite the 1970s shouty guv’nor, pickaxe handle, drink you under the table, fuck me, fuck you, old-fashioned copper facade he was, bureaucratically speaking, very light on his feet.

We were going to go in with CO19, the armed wing of the Metropolitan Police, as backup. I know that Nightingale would have preferred to use Caffrey and his merry band of ex-paratroopers, but this was still a Murder Team investigation and Seawoll had old-fashioned views about extra-legal, paramilitary death-squads. Besides, he’d managed to prise a detachment loose by implying that there might be a smidgen of terrorism involved. The drawback to this being that DS Kittredge had to be notified, him being CTC’s officer on the spot.

We all assembled on the west side of Westbourne Park Road which Zach said was the closest sewer access. It was dark and the last dirty remnants of the snow crunched under the weight of our size eleven boots as we decanted from the vehicles.

‘Shit,’ said Stephanopoulos as she skidded on a patch of ice. Seawoll caught her elbow and steadied her. ‘Good thing I didn’t wear the high heels,’ she said.

‘Are you coming down with us, sir?’ I asked Seawoll.

‘Don’t be stupid,’ said Seawoll. ‘I’m far too fucking senior to go down there. It’s strictly constables, sergeants and lunatics. We’ll keep the kettle on for you.’