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‘Well, well, well, Toby Manning. What’s this then?’ said Whiteside. ‘Hardly for personal consumption, eh, Tobes?’

Toby had risen to his feet. ‘That’s not mine. I’m looking after it for a friend,’ he said. ‘I want a lawyer. I don’t think you’re allowed-’

Hanlon guessed the rest of the sentence would have been ‘to do this’ but she’d had enough of Toby. With a scythe-like move of her foot, she kicked his legs from underneath him at ankle level so he fell back into his chair. She leaned over as he collapsed, startled, into the welcoming fabric of the armchair, seized a handful of his hair and yanked it hard. His head snapped back on its neck and he was staring upwards at the ceiling. Hanlon’s face, her grey eyes boring into his, appeared menacingly in his line of vision.

‘You listen to me, you cretin,’ she said. ‘You have two options. Cooperate and we won’t prosecute. Don’t cooperate and you go down for dealing coke. Do you understand?’

Toby wanted to say ‘You can’t do this’. But the policewoman was doing this, his hair felt like it might be ripped out at any second, it was very painful and he was very frightened. He badly needed the toilet, he felt his bladder might burst. The coke had been bringing on panic attacks for a while and he was in the middle of one now. Her eyes looked totally insane. He thought his heart might explode, it was galloping so.

He heard the other policeman say, ‘We don’t need a warrant, Toby, because you invited us in and the drugs were in plain sight. I think you’ve got about a hundred grams here, Toby, old chum. Plus your paraphernalia, the scales, the bagged-up gear.’

‘That’s called dealing, Toby,’ said Hanlon. She gave his hair an extra hard tug for emphasis.

‘Help us and you walk, we’ll be out of here,’ said the other one. ‘We’ll even let you keep all your gear. Don’t help and you’re going down. Seven years, Toby. That’s what you’ll probably get.’

‘That would be the going rate,’ agreed Hanlon. The dealer digested this unhappily. Then the policeman went on. ‘Oh, and Toby…’

The policewoman let go of his hair and he sat up straight in the chair and looked nervously at the bearded policeman. ‘All those stories, Toby, you may have heard about prison showers and what happens to innocent young men in them.’ Toby nodded. He swallowed painfully, wary of the mad bitch policewoman who was staring at him with those unnerving eyes. The policeman went on. ‘Well, the thing is, Tobes, they’re all true.’ He smiled as Toby’s mind flooded with horror stories he’d heard about prison or seen in films.

‘I wouldn’t like to be an ex-public schoolboy inside, Tobes. They’ll eat you alive. As the actress said to the bishop.’

‘What do you want me to do?’ he asked in a small voice.

‘Go and get your phone, Toby,’ said the policewoman calmly. ‘I want you to text one of your clients. That will be more or less it.’ She picked up a DVD case from his coffee table and looked at it with distaste. ‘Then you can return to watching Bangkok Thai Anal Babe Whores Three at your leisure.’

Toby stood up and fetched his phone. ‘What do you want me to do?’ he said.

Bingo, thought Whiteside triumphantly.

4

In Finchley, in North London, Kathy Reynolds poured another cup of tea for the woman from the property-letting company. Clarissa Morgan, she thought, was exceptionally helpful. Albion Services had been a real find. Other estate agents, other letting agencies, had proved utterly useless, in some cases worse than useless, when it came to finding a property. The level of incompetence she had encountered was shocking. Kathy was extremely efficient herself at her job and it caused her bewilderment when she came across people manifestly not up to doing theirs. She really didn’t see how hard it could be. They were estate agents, for heaven’s sake, not astrophysicists or surgeons. It was surprising really when they had all the relevant information, knew her price range and her requirements — single mother, one twelve-year-old child — the number of unsuitable properties she’d been offered, everything from penthouses suitable for single, wealthy bachelors to eight-bedroom houses or downright slums. Not so with Clarissa Morgan. Clarissa Morgan was a beacon of ability.

Kathy had known Clarissa would be good, ever since she first saw her bright, intelligent face under her short square-cut fringe of dark hair, and they’d become friends. An observer might have thought that Clarissa and Kathy could be used in some advertising campaign that required two Caucasian women who were physically virtual polar opposites.

Kathy was tall, blonde and slim. She looked, and was, reserved by nature. Time had etched fine lines on her face but she still had an exceptionally good figure, and she was aware that she was still extremely attractive. Peter, her son, had inherited her good looks. He was too young to think about girls but Kathy knew that before he was much older, he’d be in great demand. That wasn’t just a mother’s biased judgement; there was independent verification. Her friends frequently remarked upon it. He was exceptionally handsome.

If Kathy was ethereal, then Clarissa was earthy. She was stocky in build, dark-haired, swarthy. Kathy guessed, correctly, that she had to work hard to keep her weight down and her hair under control. She could, and did, wear bold colours, vivid nail varnish, scarlet lipstick. She wasn’t conventionally pretty, her figure was indifferent, but she’d played the hand she’d been dealt extremely well. Kathy knew that when Clarissa walked into a room or down a street, male heads would turn. She was sexy and she knew it. It was the aura she obviously liked to project. At first sight she wasn’t the kind of person Kathy naturally warmed to. Clarissa looked like the sort of woman who didn’t like women, but now Kathy felt she had misjudged her. Clarissa’s competence and friendliness had thawed her.

Albion, unlike the other agencies, had taken the time to draw up a detailed profile of her and her needs so they could find her the property she wanted, and Clarissa had even taken a keen interest in her twelve-year-old son, Peter, helpfully restricting the search to areas accessible from his school and to properties that fitted her price range. Kathy was immensely proud of Peter and, although she suspected that a healthy interest in your client’s children always made sense from a business point of view, Clarissa’s questions about Peter seemed inspired by genuine affection and concern. She’d even, with Kathy’s permission, put a picture of Kathy and Peter on her phone, in fact several pictures. ‘I like to show potential clients the kind of customers we have on our books,’ she explained. ‘Particularly women on their own. I’m a single woman myself and you can’t be too careful these days who you trust, especially when it comes down to really important things like where you live. Also who you meet. I’m very wary about male clients on their own until I’ve got to know them.’

Clarissa now leant back in her chair and sipped her tea. She’d called round to tell Kathy they were thinking about putting cable into the property and wanted to check that was OK with her. Kathy had hired the flat on a one-year lease while she considered her options. After her husband’s death and the sale of her South London house, she didn’t feel up to the strains of buying a property. It would have taken an energy she didn’t have. She didn’t want to think about anything important for the time being. This particularly went for house-hunting. The endless visiting, the wasted time, the depressing traipsing around other people’s houses, the brief, unwanted snapshots of their lives. Above all, she didn’t want to make any decisions. She looked at Clarissa and thought, when I decide to get a place, I’ll get her to find it for me. She’s someone I can trust.

Today Clarissa was looking Tatler-esque. She was wearing a well-cut jacket and skirt that looked expensive but not off-puttingly so. She had a silver ring with a large red rectangular-cut ruby on the ring finger of her right hand. It matched her lipstick. She asked, ‘So, how is Peter?’ She always asked after his welfare. She was very solicitous. She leant forward as she spoke. She had a husky, slightly emphatic, voice.