'Put your hands up, Nigel.'
The man glared at him. 'My name's not fucking Nigel.'
'Just do what he says, Pete.'
The man raised his hands, glaring venomously at Delaney.
Delaney turned back to the man behind the desk. 'Tell him to stop staring at me, Mickey. I might just wet myself.'
'What the fuck do you want, Delaney?'
'You know what I want.'
'I'm the fucking oracle of Delphi, am I now?'
'No, you're a two-bit slag who has made good on other people's misery for far too long. And now it's time to pay the rent.'
Ryan laughed out loud. 'Do you hear this guy, Pete? He should be on the fucking telly.' His smile died. 'After what happened to Norrell and that prison guard, you should have taken the hint, Delaney. Nobody fucks with me and walks away.'
'That a fact?' Delaney moved the gun forward aiming at his forehead.
'You had the balls, Irishman, you'd have done it already. Your wife was in the wrong place at the wrong time, that's all. If someone hadn't interfered she'd still be alive today, wouldn't she? That's down to you.'
Delaney's finger tightened on the trigger as he put his left hand on his right shoulder. 'You should have killed me when you had the chance.'
'Yeah, well, can't get the staff, isn't that what they say? But I've got a better man on the case now.'
Delaney smiled unimpressed. 'Who, Nigel here?'
'No,' said Mickey Ryan. 'Him.' And pointed behind Delaney.
Delaney couldn't stop himself from turning round as he felt a presence behind him, and reacted unable to conceal the surprise at who he saw.
'Liam?'
'Sorry, Jack.' And his cousin hit Delaney on the side of the head with a narrow leather cosh.
He dropped to the floor like a hanged man with the noose cut.
Jimmy Skinner rang the bell for a third time. There was still no answer. He looked around him then picked up the door ram he had brought with him just in case, and smashed the door open. A Siamese cat screamed at him and went howling and hissing past his legs, nearly knocking him over. He guessed the operation it had had, whatever it was, had been a success.
Inside the maisonette the smell was pretty bad. The cat obviously hadn't been let out for a couple of days. He walked into the lounge and opened the windows. On the mantelpiece there was a photo of a woman. He picked it up and looked at it closely, he could see a slight resemblance to the woman he had seen on the website but he would have never recognised her. The woman in the photo had mousy hair and wore little make-up. She smiled shyly at the camera. No wonder nobody had phoned in after their televised appeals for information about her. In the kitchen the cat's litter tray needed to be cleaned out. Skinner crinkled his nose, picked up a black leather Filofax from the kitchen table and took it back into the lounge.
He flicked through the pages and turned to the diary section. She had kept a list of appointments with clients. One of the names, Paul Archer, jumped out at him, but he couldn't put his finger on why. Seemed he liked rough games and she had refused to see him any more, blacklisted him with her contacts too. He filed the name away. Somebody had a grudge with her, that much was obvious. Another part of the Filofax was day-to-day diary stuff. After half an hour he flicked back to the contacts section; he sighed and closed the Filofax and walked over to a table that had
