Compared to what she'd had in Lincoln, a new-build maisonette just a bus ride from the city centre, it wasn't much. Three rooms and a bathroom on the ground floor, the kitchen no bigger than a cupboard; French windows leading out to the strip of garden she shared with the people upstairs. Whoever had lived there before had had a love affair with red paint; when she woke up in the mornings it vibrated behind her eyes.

Gradually, when her shifts didn't leave her too knackered, she brought the place into line, made it feel more her own. Two lots of undercoat in both bedroom and living room and then a quiet pale green on top. Doing the same to the kitchen would have meant taking down too many shelves and she resorted to covering as much as she could with postcards and old photographs. Those sunflowers in garish reproduction; the village outside Louth where her parents used to live.

Coming in this evening she threw her coat down on the bed, kicked off her shoes, and wandered into the living room, flicking through the TV channels before switching off again. She'd missed the news.

She thought she'd make a cup of tea.

Waiting for the kettle to boil, she phoned the hospital where they'd taken Paul Draper.

'Are you a relative?'

'A colleague. I was with him when…'

'I'm sorry. We can only pass on information to the immediate family.'

What the hell did that mean? Maddy wondered. Did it mean he was still in the middle of some bloody operation? Did it mean he was dead?

She took her tea back into the living room and, without switching on the light, sat, legs curled up beneath her, on the settee she'd bought from an auction room near the Angel.

The look on Graeme Loftus's face came back to her, the scarcely veiled anger in his voice when she'd turned him down; Maurice Repton's fingers hard and quick against her arm. Was there ever a situation, she thought, when men, most men, didn't feel it their right to test the waters, chat the chat, rub up against you like a dog sniffing for a bitch on heat.

Tired, she closed her eyes and when she did so she saw Grant in the converted warehouse, scrambling to his feet.

'Fucking bitch!'

As he moves towards her, his hands… what are his hands doing?… the left one reaching out towards her, fingers spread, the right… where is the right?… is it curving low, low and out of sight, reaching for something perhaps…?

The gun in Mallory's hand fires twice, the barest of intervals between, and when she opens her eyes again, Grant is no more.

The pistol on the floor. A Derringer, no bigger than the span of a man's hand: a weapon that, once upon a time, was only seen in Western movies on rainy Sunday afternoons, emerging from the sleeve of some two-bit gambler caught dealing from a crooked deck.

Now you see it, now you don't.

Maddy shivered.

Her tea was cold.

Setting it down, she glanced towards the French windows and, for an instant, behind the faint reflection of her own face, something moved.

Maddy froze.

Two seconds, maybe four, no more. Swift to her feet, she turned the key in the door, slipped back both bolts and stepped outside. Leaves from next door's fruitless pear tree were sprinkled on the grass. Shrubs and faded flowers in the borders to each side. At the garden end a thick mesh of buddleia, interspersed with holly, stood head high and dark, enough of a breeze to turn the spear-shaped leaves.

Maddy stood quite still.

Other than the sounds of the city shifting about her nothing stirred.

Her heart slowed to a normal beat.

That's all it had been, then, only something moving in the wind.

Back inside, she locked the door, drew the curtains, went carefully to bed.

3

The office of the assistant commissioner in charge of the Specialist Crime Directorate was on the seventh floor: along with a number of other units, S07 came within his overall command. Just about the only things above him, ran the tale, were God and all his angels. Maddy hoped they were on her side.

She gave her name to the civilian clerk in the outer office and declined the invitation to take a seat. When the clerk gave her the once-over she pretended not to notice. Ten minutes she'd spent that morning, polishing the black boots she was wearing with her navy blue trouser suit, bought a year and more ago at M & S and already showing some signs of wear.

A buzzer sounded on the clerk's desk.

'You can go through.'

Maddy knocked, took a breath, and entered. Lean, bespectacled, nicely balding, Assistant Commissioner Harkin smiled from behind his desk. Tie knotted neatly and clipped, he was in shirtsleeves, cuffs turned back. Younger than quite a few of the officers below him, Mallory included, he was not so many years older than Maddy herself.

'Detective Sergeant. Maddy. You'd rather sit or stand?'

'Stand, sir, if that's all right.'

'Of course, whatever you're comfortable with. I'm sure this won't take long.'

The room was airless but not unpleasant, a faint background odour of antiseptic and flowers. Anonymous paintings on the walls. A water carafe and glasses on a narrow table to one side. It reminded Maddy of the lounge at Gatwick Airport, the one time she'd been bumped up to business class.

Harkin tapped papers on his desk. 'You've not been in the unit long.'

'No, sir.'

'Settling down?'

'Yes, sir. I think so.'

'Yesterday,' he said. 'First thing that has to be made clear, the manner in which you acquitted yourself, first rate. Absolutely first rate.' He beamed as though he had been praising himself. 'Everything I've heard, the Detective Superintendent's report – well, you heard him last night, of course, extolling your virtues at great length – it all points to a good job well done. Initiative. Steady head. Guts. Above all, guts. Going up against an armed man. Commendation material, I'd not be surprised.'

'Thank you, sir.'

'Do you no harm when it comes to promotion. None at all. You've taken the inspector's examination, I dare say?'

'Twice, sir.'

'Hmm. Well, qualities will out. Eventually. Your kind of quality. In the field.' He coughed into the back of his hand. 'There'll be an inquiry, of course. Fatal shooting. Officers from another force. Standard procedure.'

'Yes, sir, I understand.'

'And you've no concerns, I take it?'

'Concerns, sir?'

'Regarding the inquiry. Sequence of events and so on.'

'Sir?'

'No doubt in your mind as to how it all played out?'

Maddy could feel the sweat prickling beneath her arms. 'No, sir.'

Harkin nodded and glanced towards the window as if something outside had suddenly claimed his interest. 'Detective Superintendent Mallory's actions, appropriate, you'd say, to the situation?'

'Yes, sir.'

'Good. Excellent.'

Once she'd noticed a slight tic in the assistant commissioner's left eye, Maddy was finding it difficult not to stare; she looked at the floor instead.

'You, personally,' Harkin said. 'Incidents like these, violent death, sometimes takes a little while for them to settle in the mind.'

'Yes, sir, I'm sure.'

'If there's any help you feel that we can offer… a little personal time, maybe. A chat with someone versed in these things, someone professional…'

'A psychiatrist, sir?'

'That sort of thing.'

'I don't think there's any need. Really. I'm fine.'

'Yes, yes. I'm sure you are.' Harkin rearranged papers on his desk. 'If there's nothing else then…'

'DC Draper, sir, I was wondering if there was any news?'

'Ah.' Harkin removed his spectacles and pinched the bridge of his nose between forefinger and thumb. 'A shame about DC Draper. Great shame.'