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time to try to prove otherwise.’
    He started to turn away, a sign that for him the interview was over, and Tina felt a sudden overpowering anger at the thought of that bastard Wise getting away with murder again because no one was competent or far-sighted enough to work out what was happening.
    ‘Bullshit,’ she snapped, her voice louder than she’d been expecting.
    Weale gave her a look that suggested she should be careful what she said, and she took a deep breath, knowing she had to calm down. There was no point pushing things. Weale had made up hismind and he didn’t look like the sort who was going to budge. But she was convinced that Nick Penny had been murdered, and the most likely explanation was that it was over something he’d found out in the past week.
    ‘I’m sorry,’ she said, knowing she had to keep the big DS onside. ‘It’s not been an easy day.’
    He gave her a sympathetic smile. ‘Apology accepted.’
    ‘Did you find his mobile phone?’ she asked him.
    ‘Yes. It was in his trouser pocket.’
    ‘But only the one?’
    Weale looked at her uncertainly. ‘According to his wife, he only owned one mobile phone.’
    Tina shook her head. ‘He had two. The other was an unregistered pay-as-you-go. I bought it for him for when he was making calls to me, or calls relating to his investigation into Wise. I thought it would be a lot more secure that way, and safer for him if the calls couldn’t be traced back to his phone. It was a Motorola K1 fliptop. He used to keep it with him all the time.’
    ‘That wasn’t the one in his pocket.’
    ‘I didn’t think it would be.’ She took out her own mobile. ‘Let me call it now.’ But when she punched in the speed-dial code, an automated message told her it was switched off, and she guessed that it would remain that way for ever.
    ‘It doesn’t change anything,’ said Weale as she put her mobile away. ‘That phone could be anywhere.’
    But as far as Tina was concerned, it changed a lot. ‘Can you do me a favour? If I give you the number of the pay-as-you-go, and the operator, can you get hold of the records for the calls made and received in the past three months and email them to me?’ There had been a time when Tina could have got that information herself but she’d bent the rules too many times in the past fewyears and now there was a much tighter rein on her activities. ‘Please. As a favour.’
    He gave another uncertain look. ‘If anyone finds out—’
    ‘They won’t. I’ll just take a look at them and if there’s anything that really sticks out I’ll get back to you, and you can take it from there. If not, then I’ll shred them and that’ll be that.’
    He thought about it for a couple of seconds, then nodded. ‘All right, but I’m trusting you.’
    ‘I’m a woman of my word,’ Tina said firmly, thinking about a promise she’d made herself a long time ago. That one day she’d sit in court watching as Paul Wise was sent down for the rest of his life. Right now, that moment felt as far away as ever. Yet she was certain that Nick Penny had stumbled on something, and that if she could find out what it was, then once again she’d be back on his tail.

Five
     
    The day it all went wrong for me was 11 August 1989.
    That was the day I killed a man for the first time. His name was Darren Reid and he was a drug-addicted thug with a list of criminal convictions as long as my arm. He’d been holding his common-law wife and their two young children hostage at the terraced house they’d shared in Haringey, armed with a gun and a carving knife. I was part of the armed response team sent there to try to bring the situation to a peaceful conclusion. But, unfortunately, things hadn’t worked out like that. Reid had been off his head on a potent mix of speed, booze and high-strength dope and was waving the gun around erratically. I don’t know if he ever had any intention of hurting his family, but as we crouched behind our squad cars