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know.’
    â€˜Right, sir,’ the young man said excitedly. He preferred working on murder cases to shoplifting any time.
    Angel replaced the phone.
    That was an utterly confusing piece of news. It was usually much cheaper cars with less security that were stolen for joy-riding, and then driven to some outrageous place to be torched. He had never heard of a Bentley suffering such treatment.
    â€˜Ahmed,’ Angel began.
    The phone rang again. He picked up the receiver. It was the superintendent.
    â€˜Come down here. Smartly!’ Harker bellowed.
    â€˜Right, sir.’
    The line went dead. He frowned. Must be something urgent. He put the phone down and crossed to the door.
    â€˜Got to go, Ahmed. Better hold off those jobs. But see if you can get that phone number for Edmund Gumme in York.’
    â€˜Right, sir.’
    Angel made his way sharply down the corridor to the superintendent’s office. It sounded urgent. He hoped it wasn’t something time-consuming. He had enough on his plate at that moment.
    He knocked at the door and pushed it open.
    Harker was at his desk. Opposite him were two other men, much younger. One was Sergeant Galbraith of the uniformed branch of Bromersley force who was, of course, known to him. Angel had thought that he was a quiet, thoroughly dependable copper. The other man was in plain clothes; he thought he knew him vaguely.
    â€˜Come in,’ Harker said. ‘Come in. You know DCI Gardiner from the Central Drugs Squad?’
    â€˜Good morning, sir,’ Angel said. He remembered his face. He had met him once at a drugs briefing in Leeds. He now recalled that he was a live wire and seemed to know the drugs business backwards.
    The DCI nodded and smiled politely.
    â€˜Sit down. Sit down,’ Harker said. ‘I really wanted a bigger turn-out than this but everybody else seems to be out of the building or tied up with something.’
    Gardiner coughed.
    Harker’s eyebrows shot up. He glanced at him, wrinkled his nose and said, ‘The DCI has something to say.’
    â€˜Yes. Thank you, sir,’ Gardiner began. ‘It is simply that we have intelligence that a local woman is dealing H locally in a big way. For security reasons, I’ll keep her name and address schtum, but with the super’s permission, I am calling a raid on her house for ten hundred hours. I’d go now, but we’ve got to have time for the dog handler to get here from Nottingham. I have got Wakefield to send an ARV as a precaution; I don’t think she’s armed, but you never can tell. All right?’
    Angel and Galbraith glanced at each other, then nodded.
    â€˜Yes, sir.’
    â€˜I’ll need, minimally, four officers from this station,’ Gardiner continued, ‘including at least two women. Will you organize that, Inspector, and assemble in the duty office at 09.55 hours?’
    Angel wrinkled his nose.
    â€˜Yes, sir.’
    Â 
    Two unmarked police cars came down Edmondson’s Avenue, while the ARV and the dog handler’s van came up it. They had been directed to stop at the red letterbox, which was a useful landmark, being directly opposite number twenty-six.
    The eight police personnel and the dog piled out of the vehicles and ran up Gloria Swithenbank’s garden path. Leading the party were the two men in armoured jackets and helmets from the ARV carrying Heckler and Koch G36C rifles and a battering ram; immediately behind them were DI Angel and WPC Baverstock. They raced past the front window, then round the corner to the back of the house, tried the door, yelled out, ‘Police. We’re coming in,’ and went straight through.
    The armed team charged through the empty kitchen into the tiny front room followed by DI Angel and WPC Baverstock and were surprised to find the householder with her mother, calmly drinking tea and watching television. One armed man raced up to the bathroom to stop the lavatory being used to flush