[5th December]

John Proudfoot’s plan to use some former servicemen to observe the comings and goings at Fox’s home for almost a month had paid off in ways he never expected. Not only did the team record the habits of Fox and his son Marcus, but they also photographed the people ‘Fox & Son’ entertained at the weekends.

Those photographs would be useful when the time came to round up the other paedophiles in Fox’s sphere of influence. John knew from a case that he’d only been involved with on the periphery that getting any of those men to testify would be next to impossible. Even if they turned ‘Queens Evidence’, their public lives would be over. The Home Secretary at the time would probably decide to let the men admit to their crimes and then withdraw from public life. Politicians are all about never admitting their mistakes. It is all the fault of someone else, which is why the general public holds them in such contempt.

John wondered if the term ‘spending more time with my family’ was coined around that time. Whatever decision they made, their careers were over, but there was their family to think of in many cases. Their wives/partners and especially children did not need the publicity of a public admittance or trial. The conditions of their retirement from public life included a clause that if they were arrested for even the slightest offence that carried a jail term, then it was game over for them. Their past crimes and, importantly, their signed confession would be used against them in a court of law, and they would be sent down for a long time. As far as John was aware, this ‘Sword of Damocles’ that was hanging over them had been 100% successful. That sword would remain in place until the day that they would pass away.

John was in no doubt as he looked at their photographs that these sex offenders would try to take the same route, but having sixteen different people all seek to spend more time with their family within a few weeks or months would arouse a lot of suspicion in the media. Keeping just half of them secret would be difficult, but there were at least sixteen and probably many more involved, given how long Fox had been holding hostages.

The worst bit for John was that two of them were serving Police Officers. They were part of the ‘top brass’ of the Met Police. He’d worked alongside both of them over the years. Seeing them in the ‘rogues gallery’ hurt John deeply. To him, they had betrayed the force, their oath of office and the public for which they had served for decades.

One thing was certain about the photos. Whilst there was no direct evidence of them abusing a child, one leak of their name after Fox had been arrested would ruin their lives, but could hurt the case. With that in mind, John decided to keep those photos very private. He took them into the city and added them to the contents of his safe deposit box. They would stay there until it was an appropriate time to release them to the world.

Armed with all the data about the comings and goings of the Fox home, John began to plan the details of the next step, where Dido and Chrissy would break into the house when there was no one at home.

While this was very much a crime, John was certain that no one from the CPS would dare charge a victim of Fox with breaking into Fox’s home to obtain photographic evidence of his crimes. Public opinion would be 100% against the CPS when it got out, as it surely would. John would make sure of that himself, even if he was up against a charge of conspiracy to commit a robbery.

They already knew that Marcus Fox worked from home and went missing on Wednesdays. Both Dido and Chrissy confirmed this habit of going AWOL one evening a week, and sometimes, he would not return until the morning. They also confirmed that they would often be given something in their food that would be guaranteed to knock them out for 12-14 hours. Comatose captives can cause no trouble. Both of them had faked swallowing their pills on more than one occasion. That’s how they knew about his variable return times.

Those little details were uppermost in John’s planning. He remembered the first operation he had planned. It all went wrong until a slice of luck meant that he came out of it on top. He never forgot his lack of a ‘Plan B’. His backup for this operation was for Trish to step in as needed.

That Wednesday evening, Dido, Chrissy and Trish were at John’s home, going over the fine details for a visit to Fox’s cellar. Chrissy was very nervous, but Dido knew that Trish would step up and take her place if needed, even if she accidentally left some DNA behind. The presence of Dido’s and Chrissy’s DNA could easily be explained, so John insisted that everyone was fully covered from head to foot. They were not quite wearing crime scene PPE, but something very close to it.

The plan was to break in, get into the cellar and photograph everything before leaving the place just as they’d found it. Nothing physical was to be removed or touched. They would be double-gloved, just like a doctor who might be treating an HIV-positive patient. John was all about minimising the risk to everyone.

Once it was all agreed, John said,

“We are a go for next Wednesday. There will be no moonlight even if the sky is clear.”

[The following Tuesday]

John addressed the three women at his home.
“This is just a run-through of all the kit for tomorrow. This is the time to find out if nothing fits or does not work properly.”

No one objected to the aim of the exercise.

“I think that these will be useful,” said John as he opened a box and brought out three body camera systems.

“Put these on, and when you go inside, we’ll have a definitive recording of what you see. It will also stop that bastard QC from trying to say they you planted evidence.”

“He won’t get far with the cells. They are built into the basement,” said Chrissy.

John shook his head.
“All he needs is to cast doubt on just one item, and the jury will downgrade the rest in importance. I’ve seen him in action more times than I care to remember. I know how he operates. Then, if just a couple of jurors start to doubt what they have seen with their own eyes, the result could be that he walks free. The stink from the case would mean he’d lose both his legal and educational careers, but he’d still be a free man and that, ladies, is just not in our plan for him.”

“John is right,” said Trish.
“We have to record everything, but it is imperative that whoever gets into the house, we must not touch anything, even if you are wearing double gloves. That includes rescuing anyone in the cells. Those images will be what it takes to get the cavalry to come galloping over the hill.”

“Put these on. That way, you will be identical”

John handed out three dark blue boiler suits, three black balaclavas and matching latex gloves. Those would go over the other protective gear that they would be wearing. He was leaving nothing to chance, or so he hoped.

“Duct tape your sleeves and the trouser bottoms to your boots, which must be washed before putting them on, gloved or course. We don’t want any DNA in the form of skin cells to be left behind. While both of you were held there, any DNA that you left behind will have aged. The latest analysis tools can show how old DNA is and we don’t want that now do we?”

No one argued against John’s plan. It all made sense. Minimise the risk at all costs.

[The next day.]

Dido and Trish travelled to John’s home in the early afternoon by a non-standard route just in case they were being followed. Dido had taken the Overground from Liverpool Street to White Hart Lane, where John picked her up at the rear entrance to the station, which was well away from the hustle and bustle of Tottenham High Road. Trish was already in the car, having travelled by national rail and then tube to Seven Sisters.

Trish was going along as backup and to keep watch outside just in case Chrissy could not go through with going into the house.

There was a distinct air of nervousness around the kitchen table as the four of them ate dinner. John had seen it before when leading an operation while in the Police, but for the three women, it was a new experience. The state of nervousness even applied to Trish, who, as a serving Police Officer, had never been involved with an operation anything even remotely like this one. Most of her colleagues teased her about not being able to kick in a door when they all knew very well that they had a lovely big red tool for that job. Still, as a relative newbie to the force, she was spared the adrenaline rush that going on an operation gave you. She was nervous for other reasons. If it emerged that she’d gone inside the house, then her career as an officer could be over if it got out. As she got dressed, Trish decided that this was more important than being a lowly Detective in the police.

The three women were soon fully equipped for the operation, including the important night vision goggles that John had managed to procure from somewhere.

“You have two hours. The house is currently dark, so wear the goggles all the time if possible. If there is an occupant of the cell in the cellar who is not sedated, just try to keep them quiet.”

Dido was not looking forward to dealing with a prisoner. She knew that if she had found strange people looking like bad characters from Dr Who in the cellar, she would have been demanding that they release her immediately. Their plan was not to disturb anything. Having to extract an irate child in silence was not something she was looking forward to, even if it would have been what she wanted when she was the captive.

John had come up trumps once the location of ‘the house’ had been verified. The small team of ex-servicemen he’d hired for the job were just pleased to be using the skills that the British taxpayer had paid for them to learn. Any job like this was better for them and most any other conventional job in civvy-street.

Whilst he was not asking them to do anything very illegal, they had the skills to make the search of the house a lot easier for those who were going to go inside, but John had forbidden that. The fewer who knew what was going on in the cellar at this stage, the better.

“Good luck, ladies,” said John as he prepared to drop them off near the target.
“Thanks, John,” said a very nervous Chrissie.

The three women melted into the darkness while they waited for John to get clear. After a couple of minutes, they moved silently off. Their night vision glasses made moving around much easier than without.

Five minutes of walking along a footpath that went close to the target house brought them to their rendezvous point. A figure emerged from the undergrowth to meet them. This was one of the ‘friends of a friend’ that John Proudfoot had enlisted to back up the three women in their operation.

In a voice hardly above a whisper, he said,
“The house is quiet. A young man left the premises in a car about an hour ago. The only light seems to be coming from the cellar. I received a text a few minutes ago that the man is at the house in Stevenage. We are all clear.”

Dido was about to answer him, but stopped herself just in time. She remembered a lecture on the behaviour of suspects in police custody just in time. Stop talking if you even feel as nervous as hell.

“Are you ready?” asked the man who was like them dressed in black.

“We are,” said a slightly nervous Trish.

“Good. Follow me. There is a path to the house that won’t leave a trail over the grass. There is a dew forming, and we don’t want to leave tracks on the grass as they will be there for all to see come daylight.”

“Put these on until you are about to step into the house. Take them off and leave them outside. Then bring them back with you.”

He handed them each a pair of disposable overshoes and a stiff brush.
“We don’t want you leaving muddy prints all over the hallway. That would be a huge giveaway that someone has been in the house.”

No one answered him, but they put the covers over their shoes after helping each other brush off any debris from the soles of their boots.

They silently followed him along a path through a small copse. This was the public footpath that ran along one boundary of the property. He led them to a barbed wire fence. A blanket or something like it had been laid over it just to help the women get over without impaling themselves.

Once they were over the fence and onto the grounds of the house, the man in black led them around the edge to the left until they were near the rear of the building, where he slowed to a stop.

“I’m sure that you can see the path. Stay on it and go around the other side of the house to your left. If you go right, the path turns to gravel, which makes noise, and we don’t want that. Stay off the front drive as it is also covered in gravel.”

He looked at the three women for a second or so before saying,
“I’ll wait here for up to two hours. Beyond that, you will have to make your way back. So good luck and good hunting.”

Dido took a deep breath and took the lead for all of two strides. Then Trish got her brain going and took over.

The smell of old lavender mixed with cat shit was prevalent as they approached the front door. After removing their disposable overshoes, they were ready to go once Dido had the door open.

“Turn your back, Trish,” whispered Dido.

They’d discussed how Trish would handle a bit of ‘Breaking and Entering’. They’d agreed that if she didn’t see the ‘Breaking’ part, she would be happy. It was a minor point, but one where Trish could honestly say that she didn’t see Dido pick the lock.

Dido knelt and pulled out her lockpicking kit. She hoped that the hours of practice that John Proudfoot had made her do with this one purpose in mind would come to fruition.

The lock was pretty old, and using her tools, she determined that it was just a single lever action. The style fitted in with the large 1930’s Oak front door. In less than a minute, it clicked open.

“After you, Chrissy,” said Dido.

Their plan was for Trish to stand watch, but Chrissy didn’t move.
“Chrissy?” whispered Dido.

“Sorry. I just can’t go in… in that place. The smell is just too much for me.”

There was a long moment of silence between the three women.

“I’ll go,” said Trish.
“Chrissy, are you ok standing watch?”

“I… I think so.”

Dido hugged Chrissy before heading into the house, followed by Trish.

“Trish, we need to find the door to the cellar. It can’t be far.”

“There it is,” whispered Trish as she pointed to a door with a combination lock.

The only sound was of a clock ticking gently somewhere in the house. Dido breathed slowly and deeply to slow her heart before tackling the lock on the door to the cellar.

Dido knelt once again and proceeded to open the combination. This lock would deter the casual thief, but for someone who had learned from two master safecrackers, this particular lock type was only rated adequate by her teachers. To Dido, this was the sort of lock that was sold to the general public as a defence against opportunist robbers. Any experienced thief would know how to crack this sort of lock in their sleep. Dido hoped that her teachers had been right.

With her best ear on the lock separated by a paper towel, she twirled the dial left and right. In under three minutes, the lock was opened with an audible click.

Trish had stood back, watching an expert at work. She wondered what more hidden talents Dido had up her sleeve. For someone who had been through what she had, she was showing remarkable control over her emotions. Then she understood the training that John had been giving her for years. Controlling her emotions was commonplace for Dido, and opening a lock like this was just a demonstration of that skill.

Dido took a pen from her jacket and wrote a number on a piece of tape fixed to the back of her left hand. This was the position of the combination lock dial before she had started to crack the code. She would return the dial to the same spot when they left the building. This was just one of the small details that her teachers had insisted that she remember to do when cracking a combination lock. Avoiding or at least delaying detection of the crime was part of the art of robbery. The longer it was before the crime was detected, the greater the chance that the thief could offload the goods at a good price. They were not going to remove anything physical from Fox’s house, just information and images.

Dido led the way down the stairs. For her, the slightly damp smell brought back so many memories, one of which was that they had still not fixed the leaking pipe in the shower cubicle.

At the bottom, there was another door. A slit of light showed under it. Dido drew Trish’s attention to the light. Both of them switched off their night vision goggles and flipped them up before Dido opened the door.

Dido shuddered as she saw the room that had been her world for almost 1500 days. Right in front of them were three cells, just like the ones you see in so many Westerns. Two of them were occupied. Trish’s first instinct was to release them, but Dido put her hand on her friend’s arm to stop her. Two of the cells had been added since her escape. That threw her for a moment or two.

“Remember, look only,” whispered Trish.

Trish’s words brought Dido back to the here and now. Her logical mind kicked back in with a vengeance.

Dido pointed to a video camera that was mounted on the wall above the door. The little red light was not on. It was not working. Dido breathed a sigh of relief. If it had been recording, then their efforts to obtain information would be severely constrained.

Trish nodded her head and pulled her camera out of her jacket. Dido did the same.

For the next few minutes, they moved around the cellar, taking as many photos as they could. Neither of the occupants of the cells moved.

Trish moved close to Dido and whispered.
“It appears that we are in luck. They are sound asleep.”

“Marcus must have slipped them something. It sucks because the crap that he uses leaves you with a huge hangover in the morning.”

Trish refrained from commenting. Seeing just where her friend had been held captive for years made her sick to the stomach. There was only so much that she could take, so she looked around for something else to photograph.

“What’s in there?” she whispered as she pointed to a room off to their right.

“I don’t know. It wasn’t there when I was last here,” said Dido.

“Wanna take a look?” asked Trish.

Dido looked at her watch.
“We have an hour and thirty minutes of our time left, so yeah.”

They’d planned to spend up to an hour inside the house just to make sure that their guide was there when they returned.

“Ok.”

Trish led the way and opened the door. As soon as she saw what was in the room, she let out an audible gasp. Both turned to look at the two females. Neither of them moved.

Dido moved into the room and said two words as her head torch illuminated the wall.
“Fucking hell!”

On the walls were crime scene photos of sex crimes. Dido studied each one in turn while Trish started taking photos. She’d got to the fourth set when she repeated her words a few minutes before.
“Fucking hell,” said Dido again as she pointed to one set of photos.

That second outburst of swearing got Trish’s attention.
“That’s Chrissy’s crime scene. How the fuck did they get them?”

Trish stopped taking photos and looked in detail at the piles of folders on the desks that lined the walls.
“These are copies of the real Police case files. This sucks big time,” said Trish.

“What do we do now?” asked Dido.

“Record everything. I mean every little detail.”

“Gotcha.”

The two women spent almost twenty minutes photographing the contents of the room. Neither of them said a word. The photos made them sick to their stomach. The depravity of the scenes shocked even Dido, who had spent so much time in the cellar. Both of them felt relieved that Chrissy had declined to enter the house. She would have totally freaked out when she saw the images of her crime scene in front of her.

Dido finished first and looked at her watch. She tapped Trish on the arm, waved the watch in front of her face and pointed upwards.

“Ok. Just a couple more, and I’m done.”

Trish took the last of the photos of the documents and the first sheet inside them before carefully replacing them where they’d come from. Then she gave Dido a nod of her head.

Dido followed Trish out of the room, closing the door behind her. At the bottom of the stairs, she turned and blew a kiss to each of the prisoners. It wasn’t much, but it would have to do… for the time being.

She closed the door behind her, and after flipping on her night vision glasses, she went up the stairs behind Trish.

At the top of the stairs, Dido closed the door and locked it again. Her final act was to set the combination dial to the number that she’d written on her hand.

Trish leaned over and whispered into Dido’s ear.
“Best not say a word about the room to Chrissy until John has seen the photos.”

Dido nodded. It made sense.

At the front door, they met up with Chrissy, who gave both of them a hug. Dido broke off to lock the front door and pick up the disposable shoe covers that they had worn to get to the house. After another nod of her head, the trio set off around the back of the house to where the ‘man in black’ was waiting.

The ‘man in black’ was very much a man of few words. All he said was,
“Follow me.”

Dido gave a mental sigh of relief once they’d climbed back over the barbed wire fence.
“Follow the path, and you will get back to the road. I’ll clear up here,” said their guide.

The trio took their time, even if their hearts were racing and followed the path and soon reached the road where Dido took out her phone after removing her night vision glasses. The phone had been kept in an RF-blocking bag since she had left John’s home to avoid tracking. She powered it up and waited until she found the network.

Then, she sent a text to John Proudfoot.
“Running Late.”

That was their code word for ‘come and pick us up’. Then she powered it down and put it back in the bag.

A little over seven minutes later, a car approached. It flashed its lights as it drew near.
The three women piled into the back, and all three breathed a huge sigh of relief.
No one said anything. Their adrenaline levels were far too high for anything other than gibberish to come out of their mouths.

Once they were back at John’s home, he poured each one of the three a large scotch. Trish downed it in one, but Chrissy settled for a beer. Dido headed for the kitchen and put the kettle on. John’s special blend of green tea was her drink of choice. She wanted to keep a clear head while she tried to process what they’d found.

John was very patient. He knew from the body language of Trish and Dido that they’d found a lot of evidence. He guessed that it was hard for them to process at the moment. They’d give it up in their own good time.

Dido returned to the others with two large mugs of tea. She handed one to John before saying,
“We found a lot more than we bargained for. There is some serious shit going on in that house.”

“I agree,” said Trish.
“There has to be a major leak inside the NCA.”

“Ok, stop right there. Take me through what happened from the time that you got to the front door. Just verbally. Then we can look at the photos,” said John in an attempt to stop the floodgates of information from overwhelming him.”

Over the next hour, Trish and Dido described in excruciating detail what they had found. They didn’t leave out anything. Chrissy sat and listened with her eyes closed. Her knuckles went white when Trish described the case files for the attack on Chrissy. Dido took Crissy’s hand and tried to comfort her.

John stayed silent throughout their description. He listened intently and made a few notes on a legal pad. His years of policing had taught him to show lots of patience when letting people speak. Even the smallest bit of information could lead to solving the crime.

When they’d finished, he still didn’t say anything, but instead, he consulted his notes.

His first words were,
“And you recorded this on camera?”

“We did. Do you want to see them?”

“Not at the moment. What I want you to do is write it all down as if you were making a statement. Trish, I know that this might be difficult for you, so if you don’t want to do it, I will understand.”

“John, I will gladly do it. What I saw tonight goes way beyond what I expected, and the people responsible for this have to be brought to justice. If doing so means that I lose my job, then so be it.”

John smiled.
“Good for you.”

Then he added,
“Before you start, make four copies of your photos. Dido, do you know where my computer is? Use it and upload them all to your private cloud, just in case. We have to be prepared to tell this story more than once in the next 24 or 36 hours.”

Dido left the room to start the copying.
“What can I do?” asked Chrissie.

“Go to bed, and don’t feel bad for not going into the house. It was always a risk, and we had Trish as backup, just in case. Your rehab is still ongoing. Try to get some sleep, as we will have a busy day tomorrow.”

“Thanks, John.”

A few minutes later, Chrissie went upstairs to bed. John closed the door behind her, but didn’t talk about his plans for later that day. He wanted their statements down first, while it was fresh in their minds. Besides, he needed to think carefully about who he contacted. The revelations about the photos and copies of police records troubled him greatly. There was at least one co-conspirator deep inside the fledgling National Crime Agency. This was just about the last thing that they needed. He had to start at the top and call in most of the favours that he was owed by those still in the Police and Home Office.

Dawn was breaking by the time their tasks for the night were completed. John decided to let them rest until the evening. Dido and Trish would have to skip their two lectures that day. What they had done was more important.

After sending the girls to bed, John made a phone call.

“Charles… John Proudfoot.”

“Retirement is very stimulating.”

“Not quite a social call. Is your lord and master playing Golf as usual on Saturday morning?”

“He is? Is it by any chance in my neck of the woods?”

“Walton Heath? I know where it is.”
John mentally groaned. Another trip to the other side of London on the M-25. He hated that road.

“I need to have half an hour with him after his round.”

“No, Charles. This is very, very top secret. At the moment, it is for his eyes only.”

“All I will say is that I have definitive proof that there is a major leak inside Operation Chesil”

“Thanks, Charles. I don‘t have to say it, but this is very sensitive in both time and content.”

John hung up the phone and stared out the window. In the gloom, he could see the eyes of a fox hunting in the undergrowth. This was one fox that he didn’t mind having on his property.

John travelled to Walton Heath Golf Club on Saturday morning with a troubled mind. The photographs in his bag could cause a lot of people to get very nervous. While that was right ethically, there was a nagging thought that it might come back to haunt him.

He found his target in the club bar, drinking an orange juice.

“Terry, nice to see you again,” said John.

“And you. I got your message and the need for this to be on the QT. Why don’t we go for a little walk around the practice range?”

John waited for Terry March, the current head of the Met Police Internal Affairs department, AC-12, to finish his juice.

Once they were outside, Terry said,
“I won’t belittle you by asking if what you are going to tell me is important. You were never a person who grandstanded anything. You were all about facts, and I have to assume that this… whatever it is, is no different. Am I correct?”

“Yes, Terry, you are correct.”

“The message I received said something about Operation Chesil. Firstly, how do you know about it? As far as I know, we have not released the name to the media.”

“I know about it because I know one of the victims. Is that good enough?”

Terry smiled.
“That is good enough. The message said something about leaks in the team?”

“I did. Take a look at these photos here. For the moment, this is just a heads up.”

“What do you mean ‘heads up’?”

“If everything goes well with something else, there will be an arrest that will blow the media up into a frenzy within a week or so. I can’t say what this is all related to, but when the balloon goes up, it will make sense. What I’m asking is for you to have a team ready to hit the ground running, so that those involved won’t have much time to cover their tracks.”

“Ok, I think I understand. What have you got to show me?”

Terry went through the photos slowly. With each one, the shake of his head got more noticeable.

“Where did you get these? I’m assuming that whoever took them was not a Police Officer?’’

“Correct,” said John, hoping that this lie did not come back to haunt him.

“These are all Crime Scene photos from Operation Chesil or Police copies. The stamps on the rear of them lead me to believe that they are original prints produced by the Forensics people. The photos of the evidence were taken at a private house well outside the Met Police area. I can’t say where, but I can say that those who occupy the house where these were taken are not Met Police or CPS. These documents should not be there, as I’m sure that you would agree. I said that I knew a victim of this gang. Well, some of those photos are of her crime scene.”

Terry looked at the photos again.

“I want to emphasise the fact that what my people found were not just haphazard photographic copies of case evidence but proper evidential copies. The sheer number of documents means that this has been going on for some time. There is evidence from the case that involved the victim that I know. The head of Operation Chesil knows that I am helping that person with their rehab after the attack. As far as I know, they do not know about this leak.”

“And you want me to investigate the leaks once this mysterious arrest has happened?”

“I do. I know that it is not the best situation, but the people involved with the crimes that Chesil are investigating are not only sexually defiling women but going even further and destroying their lives, erasing their very existence. Talk about a double whammy… These people have taken sexual deprivation to a whole new level.”

“I wasn’t up to speed on the operation until I got your message. I tend to agree with you about their level of depravity, and to see that someone on the team is leaking this sort of information sickens me to the core. What we don’t know is if the person with all this data is part of the gang defiling these women.”

“I tend to think that they aren’t, but… we don’t know at this stage.”

Terry handed the photos back to John.
“Keep these. I have enough information to start to think about a team to investigate, but I am worried about this mysterious arrest. Are you sure about having the evidence to make an arrest?”

“I am, but as I said, the person involved is a VIP and has a lot of connections, which is why I won’t say anything else. When the arrest happens, I’ll give you a heads-up, and then you will understand why I don’t want to say more at the moment. My next task is to make sure that the arrest is watertight from a legal point of view, given their VIP status.”

“I understand.”

Terry stopped and looked at his watch.
“I need to be back in Westminster in an hour. Thanks for bringing all this to my attention.”

John knew that he was running out of time.

“Terry, there is a former home secretary who now sits in the Lords who owes me a big favour. If you do nothing, then I’ll call in that favour. I don’t want to have to do this, but at the moment, I don’t know who to trust.”

Terry smiled at John.
“I would not expect anything else from you, John. You never put a foot forward unless you have a plan B and C in reserve. I won’t do anything formally until I get your heads up, but I will brief a couple of my senior team members about the operation just so that they can clear their workload in a couple of weeks. We do that sort of thing all the time, so no one will raise an eyebrow.”

“If all this pans out, Terry, I’ll let you thrash me at golf.”

Terry laughed.
“That would be like taking sweets from a child, but I look forward to it.”

John drove home feeling apprehensive about what he’d done. While he was clear in his mind that it had to be done, he wasn’t 100% sure that he could trust Terry, even though his job was to put crooked cops behind bars. There was a risk with everything.

Every time he felt that they were making progress, new obstacles appeared out of nowhere to thwart them. The presence of that evidence in a property occupied by a prominent barrister who was known for his robust defence of the worst criminals in the land sickened him. That evidence, even if not used at trial, could be tainted.

As his journey around the M25 ground to a halt just after Junction 15, the words that crossed his mind were ‘life sucks’.