A text pinged in on his encrypted phone.

  Update?

  He thought for some moments before he replied.

  Nothing to report.

  Another text followed.

  Call me.

  The traffic warden was approaching again. Tooth drove off, turned across the traffic and entered the drive of the apartment. He reversed into the visitor’s parking bay he’d used a couple of times before during the past hours. It gave him a clear view of the garage door. Then he dialled the next number in the sequence of burner phones his employer was using.

  Without the formalities of any greeting, Barrey said, ‘While you’re sitting with your thumb up your backside, there’s been a development. Copeland’s dickhead sidekick has been charged and remanded in custody by the magistrates’ court to appear at Lewes Crown Court next Monday.’

  ‘You sure?’

  ‘I have contacts, I told you. I have them everywhere. This one’s a bent prison officer. Ogwang has just arrived there on remand until Monday.’

  ‘Will he get bail?’ Tooth asked.

  ‘He won’t get as far as that hearing, Mr Tooth. As I’ve told you, don’t worry about him. Just do your job and eliminate Copeland before he gets arrested, too, and starts squealing to save his bacon. Understand me?’

  ‘I’m outside the building where he is. I’ve been here since last night.’

  ‘Why the hell are you outside? Why aren’t you inside? Get in there. Eliminate him. Text me when you’ve done it. That’s what I’ve paid you for. Or are you going to screw up again? If so, tell me now and pay me back my money.’

  Barrey ended the call.

  Tooth was sodden with sweat and could hardly keep his eyes open. He needed medication, he knew. Maybe he should be in hospital?

  Not an option.

  Somehow he had to get his act together and finish the job he had come to do. He sat back in his seat, hit the recline button and leaned further back, closing his eyes, gratefully.

  He slept. Dreamed.

  He was back in the calm blue waters of the Turks and Caicos, on his forty-two-foot boat, Long Shot, with its twin Mercedes engines that took him out hunting for his food, with his fishing rods, most days. Yossarian sitting on the prow, long tongue out, the wind riffling his fur, idiotic grin on his face.

  He woke with a start.

  Rain pattered down on the roof of the car. He was freezing cold.

  Still sodden with perspiration.

  The conversation with Steve Barrey vivid in his mind.

  Barrey was right. He wasn’t thinking straight. The goddam snake venom was messing with his brain.

  Why was he outside when he should be in that building, hunting down his quarry? Finding him.

  Then eliminating him.

  This was going to be his last contract and he was as sure as hell not going to fail.

  He didn’t do failure.

  80

  Wednesday 10 October

  Glenn Branson burst into Roy Grace’s office, looking exhilarated. ‘Wow!’ he said.

  ‘Ever heard of knocking on a door?’

  ‘Dunno that film – was it on Netflix?’

  ‘No, it was on Sky!’

  Branson frowned then gave him a dubious, sideways look. ‘I have an update for you from our raid on Withdean Place.’

  Grace instantly switched his focus from the trial documents. ‘Tell me?’

  ‘You are going to like this, boss, seriously. Eight in custody. Enough IT hardware seized to keep Digital Forensics in business for the next decade. Looks like we’ve closed down Brighton’s very own internet scamming call centre. Every single one of them of African origin – Ghana, from what one told me – and they are all on what looks like dodgy documentation – illegal immigrants. And we’ve found the phone that made the call last night that Aiden Gilbert answered – might get some prints off it. But what I think will interest you most is an online conversation Aiden’s Digital Forensics Team found on a computer with a woman in Brighton. You said in the briefing we needed to look for the next victim – or victims – and I think we’ve found a big one.’

  ‘How big?’

  ‘Three hundred grand. Cash. She’s due to hand it over to her lover boy on Friday night.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘I don’t know yet, boss. I’m waiting to hear. But Aiden thinks this is the overall mastermind of the outfit and that he scarpered some time before the raid. He’s confident through what he has on the computer he can monitor any future communications between him and the victim. He’s going through the RIPA formalities of an application to the Home Office. And, now, here’s the golden nugget: Lover Boy is none other than Tunde Oganjimi, AKA Jules de Copeland.’

  ‘Buddy of our suspect in custody, machete man Kofi Okonjo, and currently our Most Wanted?’

  Grace was quiet for a moment, then said, ‘This means we have the potential victim’s email address and the ability to monitor her continued contact with Copeland. This might give us our best opportunity to catch him, so I don’t want any contact with her at this stage.’

  ‘Understood, boss,’ Branson replied.

  ‘Brilliant, Glenn, very nice work indeed.’

  ‘I’ll update you soonest. You’re in London tomorrow, right?’

  ‘Yes, pre-trial meeting with counsel on the Jodie Bentley case.’

  ‘You missed out on the action today and you might miss out on further action tomorrow, boss.’

  ‘Let me tell you something, matey: arresting suspects is just the beginning, the start of a very long journey. My old mentor, Nick Sloan, who’s just retired, told me something that I’ve never forgotten. He said, “You can tell a good detective – a good one likes being in court.”’

  Branson patted his stomach.

  ‘What’s that meant to mean?’

  ‘A good detective seems to like being in restaurants, too. You’re putting on weight. Cushy married life, too much of Cleo’s home-cooking? Middle-aged spread? Are you still going to be able to fit into your suit for my wedding?’

  ‘Be nice to me, I’m organizing your stag-do – remember that guy who got put in a coffin on his?’

  81

  Wednesday 10 October

  Kofi Okonjo had never been in prison before and he wasn’t much liking the experience so far. He’d travelled in a van from Brighton magistrates’ court with two other men who had been remanded, one an Eastern European and the other an Asian. None of them had spoken.

  On arrival at Lewes Prison he’d been photographed again, face-on and side profiles, then stripped naked and a prison doctor had been called in to supervise an officer in blue gloves probing, roughly, inside his anus. It brought back painful flashbacks of being raped, repeatedly, at the age of ten, by male soldiers of the Revolutionary United Front in Sierra Leone.

  His solicitor had told him he was entitled to wear his own clothes, rather than prison issue, as he had not been convicted of any offence. But when he’d requested them back, he’d been told that all the items of clothing he had been wearing when he had been arrested were being retained as possible evidence. He was handed an ill-fitting grey tracksuit that, although freshly laundered, had clearly been worn many times before, together with a pair of trainers, and told to get dressed.

  His cash, along with his beloved Breitling watch, had been taken from him and he’d signed a receipt for them. He was informed by a prison officer that his cash would be transferred into an account that would be set up for him, and any money he earned from wages doing jobs in the prison or any that was sent to him from family or friends would also go into this account. He would be allowed to spend a certain level a week depending on his earned privileges, and would receive the balance back, along with his watch, when he was released.

  He was feeling humiliated. Burning with anger and resentment. Tunde should have agreed that they killed the gay guy, like they had killed the two women who had been threatening to expose them. Then they would have been fine. Instead of in this hole. At this moment he would happily have shopped his friend, given those cops his name, but he hadn’t because he needed him to be free. Tunde would get him out, somehow, he always did. They’d always looked after each other. They were like brothers. But all the good life was making Tunde soft.

  Twenty-one years ago the soldiers had come into his village. They’d raped his mother and sister in front of him. Then they shot his father and his younger brothers in the head. When they’d finished they told him either he could join their revolutionary army or be shot, too.

  He’d met Tunde in the training camp a few days later. Both of them had been repeatedly abused by soldiers, and they were told that would stop if they proved their bravery. They learned how to shoot AK-47s and how to use machetes to behead enemies or mutilate and disable them by hacking off their arms. When the war ended, it was Tunde, who had close relatives who had fled as refugees to Ghana, who suggested they go there too, to safety.

  It was Tunde’s uncle who got him into school in Accra, and then, a few years later when they were both in their late teens, Tunde was told by a nineteen-year-old cousin, who drove a brand new Range Rover Sport, about Sakawa. Kofi could not believe it, but he saw for his own eyes it was true. Between them they could make vast riches, riches beyond their wildest ever dreams.

  They enrolled in a Sakawa training school in the city of Tema. Kofi Okonjo had spent most of his schooldays before then bored by lessons. But now he trawled through images on his phone of the things that really excited him. Fancy watches and fast cars were at the top of his list. What he learned at Sakawa school, along with Tunde, enabled him to have all those things.

  In the garage of the house Okonjo rented in Reutlingen, where he lived with his girlfriend, Julia, were parked his Porsche GT3 and his Lamborghini. He was sweet on Julia. Sweet like he’d never been on any woman before. The pretty, undemanding German girl with her fringe of brown hair and her big eyes. They’d met in a subterranean bar in Munich when he and Tunde had gone to see an unknown band playing, and she was now living with him. She was in the house alone with her Burmese cat, Minka, waiting for him to come back home. He texted her whenever he could, even though Tunde would have been mad if he found out – he wasn’t supposed to have any communications that could risk them being traced. But he missed her. Although not as much as he was missing his cars and his watch, of course.

  He had to see her, soon. He hadn’t even got a message to her yet that he was in prison. Screw Tunde’s concerns, he would have to do that.

  Another prison officer, an unsmiling woman, came into the room holding a large bundle wrapped in cellophane, which she handed to him. ‘Mr Okonjo, this is your bed pack and toiletries, which you will find inside. A safety razor, shampoo and soap.’

  ‘What about cigarettes?’ he asked, sullenly. ‘Someone took them from me. I need cigarettes.’

  ‘English prisons are smoke free, except in open prison at present. They’re not available to buy.’

  ‘I need cigarettes.’

  ‘You’ll be having your medical screening shortly. If you need patches, the medical officer will help access them for you and will also give you support to help you stop smoking.’

  ‘Why can’t I just smoke?’

  ‘Because you are in prison. There are a lot of things you can’t do in prison,’ she said tartly.

  She escorted him into a small room where another, more friendly officer sat behind a desk. The woman who had brought him in stood behind him. For the next twenty minutes the officer at the desk patiently asked him a series of questions.

  He remembered Tunde’s warning some while ago. Any question might be a trap. So he did not respond to any of them.

  ‘Mr Okonjo,’ the officer said, without losing his patience or friendliness, ‘I’d just like to explain to you what will happen now that you are here in Lewes Prison. This is the First Night Centre, where all our new residents normally spend their first three days, to get used to the environment. You will then be moved to the remand wing, and one of our long-term residents will be allocated to you to show you the ropes. Do you have any questions?’

  ‘How long I got to be here?’

  ‘Until your trial, unless you are transferred to another prison, for any reason, before then. I’m sure you’ll settle in fine.’ He smiled.

  Ogwang did not smile back.

  Next he was interviewed by a nurse, who went through a checklist of medical conditions, asked him if he had any health problems, allergies, if he was on any medication, as well as asking him if he had ever, at any time of his life, contemplated committing suicide. Again, he refused to answer. The only time he spoke was to request nicotine patches. The nurse gave him some and told him she would put in a request for more to the doctor.

  When his medical screening was over, the unsmiling woman officer escorted him to his cell for the night. It consisted of two bunk beds, and he had to share the cell with the Asian guy who had been in the van with him on the journey from the court. He was lounging on the top bed, watching football on the television. There was a plastic curtain between the bunks and a toilet and washbasin.

  ‘Nice to see you again,’ he said, politely.

  ‘Yeah? I’ll decide that,’ the Asian guy replied. Then he added, ‘You a Tottenham fan?’

  Ogwang shrugged, then brightened a little – football was his big interest. ‘Actually, Manchester United, they’s my team.’

  ‘Cunt,’ his cellmate said.

  82

  Wednesday 10 October

  Half an hour or so ago a doddery old man with a hearing aid the size of a golf ball, dressed in an overcoat and a tweed hat, emerged from the front door of the apartment building with two equally doddery-looking King Charles spaniels on leashes, and headed off through the falling drizzle in the direction of the seafront.

  Still parked in the visitor’s bay, where no one had bothered him, Tooth waited patiently, munching on a dried-up sandwich he’d bought at the filling station last night. He had no appetite and it tasted horrible, but he needed to eat something. The sickness he was feeling was sapping his strength, and his concentration. He forced himself to swallow. Then another bite. He chewed for some while before he felt he wouldn’t throw up if he swallowed it. The other half of the sandwich he dropped back in the bag.

  Sure enough, the old guy was now returning at an interminably slow, plodding walk, the dogs looking knackered.

  As he reached the front door, Tooth slipped quietly out of the darkness and stood right behind him. Close enough to read the entry code he punched in. Neither dog reacted.

  Tooth stood as the man and his dogs went in, allowing the door to click shut behind him, and watched through the glass as he waited at the lift, then dragged the dogs in. When the doors had shut on them, Tooth punched in the code and walked back into the building, feeling the reassuring weight of his gun in his inside jacket pocket.

  First he went down to the car park, to check on the Kia and make sure he had not somehow been outsmarted. The engine compartment was stone cold. Good. He summoned the lift, entered the tired-feeling car and pressed the button for the fifth floor.

  The doors opened onto a dimly lit corridor with a worn, patterned carpet. There was the faint sound of an opera aria, and a smell of cooking that reminded him of hospitals, which did not help his queasiness. Of course, Copeland could have taken the lift to the fifth floor as a blind, and then walked up or down to another one, but Tooth didn’t think he had given the African any reason to believe he had been followed here last night.

  He went to the end of the corridor, his story prepared, and rang the doorbell of flat 501, standing well clear of the spyhole.

  After a brief wait, the door suddenly opened and he saw a middle-aged woman with long, fair hair in ringlets, in a revealing silk dressing gown, her breasts almost falling out of it, peering at him through glazed eyes.

  ‘Oh,’ she slurred. ‘I thought it was—’ She frowned. ‘Who are you?’

  ‘Sorry,’ he said, slipping hastily away. ‘Wrong flat.’

  He tried the next one, directly across the corridor. It was where the opera was playing. There was no response. He tried again, then knocked. A dog yapped, a high-pitched yip-yip-yip.

  The door opened with a ferocity that startled him. As did the face of the young man with the bleached hair and make-up who was looking at him. The one he had seen some hours earlier picking up the rat-like dog’s poop. The creature came running out, yip-yip-yipping, towards him, and the man knelt to grab its collar. ‘Goliath!’ he said, sternly. ‘Goliath, sit!’

  ‘Sorry,’ Tooth said. ‘Wrong address.’

  ‘Why don’t you get the right one next time?’ the young man said, standing up and slamming the door. It was followed by the rattle of a security chain.

  Tooth was struggling, feeling dreadful and unsteady on his legs. Too many doors, too many flats.

  Steve Barrey’s stinging words rang in his ears.

  Are you going to screw up again?

  He knew he was letting too many people see his face but he had no choice but to persevere. He moved along to 503 and rang the bell. A male voice called out, in a very posh English accent, ‘Hello, who is this?’

  ‘It’s Ricky!’

  ‘Ricky who?’

  ‘Ricky Sharp.’

  ‘Who are you?’

  ‘I may have the wrong flat. Are you James Pusey?’

  ‘Sorry, you must have. Don’t know anyone of that name.’

  He next tried 504. There was no response to his repeated rings on the bell, followed by raps on the door. He clocked the number as a possibility and moved to 505. There was a faint smell of cigarette smoke coming from it. The door opened and the smell instantly became much stronger. He was greeted by a friendly woman in her mid-sixties wearing a grey onesie. The sound of a television was on, loudly, behind her.

  ‘I’m sorry to disturb you,’ he said, feigning a frown. ‘I think I wrote the wrong apartment number down.’