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'Cats are independent,' I say. 'He'll be all right.' Although I'm not sure this one will be. He looks like he enjoys the high life, and with his master gone who's going to provide that for him?

Lucas puts the picture down and goes round to his own desk. There's a red light flashing on his phone.

'Messages,' he says, pressing a button.

There are two of them. The first is from a guy called Kevin who wants to know how far Lucas has got in proving his wife's infidelities.

'Too far,' Lucas says to me as we listen. 'She's slept with three men in the past week.'

The other message is from someone calling himself Phil. He says that the Lexus LS 600 Lucas was interested in, registration number Whisky Three Two Three Bravo Charlie Sierra, is registered to a Mr Trevor Blake of 14 Tennyson Way in Bermondsey, a forty-four-year-old married insurance salesman with a nine-year-old son and no criminal record. Lucas writes this down on his notepad and tears off the page.

'That was the car Snowy was following,' he explains. 'The one carrying your Yugoslavs. It looks like they were false plates. Let me get the details on Iain Ferrie, then we'd better leave.'

He goes into a storage room and returns a few seconds later with a thin file under his arm.

'Listen, Lucas,' I tell him, 'you've done enough for me. Just give me the information you've got and I'll take over from here.'

He shakes his head firmly, his jaw set hard. 'No, it's personal for me now. They've killed my friend. All he was doing was his job. They're also trying to kill another of my friends. The thing is, Tyler, I've got a lot of acquaintances, women and men, but I haven't really got many people in this world I genuinely care about. He was one of them. You're another.'

I'm touched, especially after all I've been through today.

'But I don't want you to get in any trouble,' I say. 'At the moment, you haven't done anything wrong. We go too much further down the line and you might end up doing something you regret.'

He drags hard on the cigarette. 'Let me worry about that.'

'It's not going to take the police long to ID Snowy. I sold him the car so I know it's registered in his name. Pretty soon they're going to come knocking on your door.'

'And when they do, I'll answer their questions.'

'They'll know you made calls to him very close to the time he was killed. You're going to have to tell them the truth and give me up. If you come up with a false story they'll be on to you, and I don't want you falling under suspicion on my behalf.'

'And I don't want to be putting you in the firing line either.'

'You're going to have to,' I tell him. 'You've got no choice.'

'That means that you haven't got much time to find out who's behind all of this. You need all the help you can get, so until the cops do turn up, I'm it.'

'Thanks, mate,' I say, feeling genuinely emotional. I take a deep breath and tell myself it's shock, a delayed reaction to all I've been through today. I've never been the most tactile of people. I'm an old-fashioned Englishman who believes that physical contact between men should be limited to a firm handshake. But as Lucas comes past me now I put a hand on his shoulder and pull him into an embrace. It feels weird so I pull back quickly. Lucas looks as shocked as me by this totally unexpected show of affection.

'This is turning into a very strange day,' he says, walking towards the door.

I follow him out, inclined to agree. The clock on the wall says 4.07 and I wonder, with what I think is justifiable apprehension, what the hell this strange day is going to bring next.

21

The first thing that happens is that we drive to Lucas's Islington apartment, or duplex as he prefers to call it, since the living accommodation is actually set over two floors. It's part of a swish glass building that stands out on a street of low-rise, low-cost 1960s houses in the slowly gentrifying area west of the bottom end of the Holloway Road. We deposit his car in the secure underground car park and go inside, pleased to find that there's no ambush or police here either.

'Let's start at the beginning,' Lucas says when we're in his study and he's got his laptop booted up.

We're both drinking coffee, sitting in matching and very comfortable black leather chairs at opposite ends of his enormous glass desk. It's now twenty to five, and I feel a lot better. I've showered and am dressed in a pair of Lucas's Armani jeans and a short-sleeved cotton Hugo Boss shirt. I wanted a pair of his shoes as well but he said his friendship only went so far, so I'm still in my tatty smoke-stained Timberlands.

'Do you still not remember anything at all about last night?' he asks.

'I can't really remember anything about yesterday. I vaguely recall driving to the showroom yesterday morning, but even that I'm not a hundred per cent sure about. I have no recollection of calling you.'

'It's a pity we can't do something to unlock your memory. Obviously, the people who set you up have gone to great trouble to conceal the location where you spent last night. Which means they think your memory might come back, or…'

'Or what?'

'Or it's a place that's familiar to you.'

I shake my head. 'I've never been in that bedroom before.'

'No, but you might have been to the house.'

'I don't think so,' I say. 'The place where I woke up this morning is somewhere north of London. Hertfordshire, maybe the edge of Essex. I don't know anyone who lives there.'

'OK,' he concedes. 'Now I need to take a look at this DVD. See what it shows up.'

He takes the case from his pocket and removes the disc.

'It's really not pleasant,' I warn him.

He lights a cigarette and views me through the smoke. 'I know, and you don't have to stay in here. In fact, it might be better if you didn't. There's no point putting yourself through it all again.'

Lucas is right, and as he inserts the DVD into his laptop I get up and leave the room. I want to remember Leah as she was when we first met: a mischievous, smiling young woman with beautiful doe eyes and a cute upturned nose, not the cold, lifeless corpse she became, nor the bleak, bloody way she met her end.

I take a seat in Lucas's lounge and stare at the blank screen of the giant plasma TV that hangs on an even blanker-looking wall. Lucas's place is a typical bachelor's pad, minimally furnished with most of the money going on the electrical goods. There are no pictures on any of the walls, and the sofa and matching chairs are carefully and immaculately arranged, giving it a showroom feel. It's all undeniably flashy – which makes me conclude that the PI trade pays a lot better than I ever thought – but bland and utterly devoid of character.

While I wait, I force the thoughts of Leah out of my mind and instead go back through the events of the day, trying to come up with some answers. I've been targeted by a gang of violent criminals with whom I have no previous connection. A former soldier, Iain Ferrie, whom I served alongside but hardly knew, had something in a briefcase that these people wanted desperately, but instead of sending one of their own associates to collect it, they decided to use me, going to elaborate lengths, including setting me up for murder, to make sure that I followed their instructions. Ferrie refused to tell me what was in the case but suggested that it was something 'very bad', and his demeanour – extremely tense and agitated – makes me think that he was telling the truth.

What's also true is that the men to whom I delivered the briefcase are determined to hang on to it, and will not hesitate to kill anyone who, like Snowy, gets in their way. They've taken some losses at the brothel, but I suspect there are more of them, and they still have the case. They also believe, it seems, that Ferrie was holding something back from them.