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happy and Ruiz knew it, but this year he has something fresh, something new, something hot off the press.
    ‘Ray Garza’s boy got busted two nights ago after a high speed pursuit. They found eight kilos of cocaine in the boot of his Porsche and a semi-automatic, which he waved around at the coppers. Took a shot.’
    Ruiz ponders the information. Garza’s son - Ray Jnr - how old is he now? Out of school. Nineteen. Twenty tops.
    ‘It’s a commercial quantity,’ says Bones. ‘The kid’s going down.’
    ‘Where is he now?’
    ‘Spent last night in the Scrubs. He’s in court today.’
    Bones continues talking, spinning a story about the Specialist Crime Directorate offering Ray Jnr a deal if he turns on the old man. It’s not going to happen, thinks Ruiz. Junior won’t bite the hand that feeds him - not unless he has bigger ambitions. But it still warms his heart to think of Ray Garza losing sleep over his precious boy.
    Ray Jnr wasn’t even born when his father raped Jane Lanfranchi and chewed open her cheek. Ruiz always thought Garza should have had a daughter. That way he could have worried when she turned sixteen and went out at night. Wondered about where she was and whom she was with. Hopefully, he’s worried sick now.
    ‘What about the Lanfranchi case?’ he asks.
    Bones shrugs.
    ‘Any similar rapes?’
    ‘Nope.’
    ‘Any missing women with links to Garza?’
    ‘Can’t you forget the fucking Lanfranchi case for once?’ says Bones. ‘It’s old news. Ancient bloody history.’
    Ruiz ignores him. ‘Garza likes the wholesome girl-next-door types. Suburban princesses. He thinks they’re hiding their true natures.’
    Bones shakes his head. ‘You’re fucking obsessed. I’d get more sense talking to the wall.’
    ‘And less whisky,’ says Ruiz swallowing the last of his Guinness.
    There’s a moment of friction. Bones wants to tell him to fuck off, but something about Ruiz’s silences has always unnerved him.
    ‘I’m just giving my opinion, Vince. You don’t have to take it,’ he mutters, speaking slowly like he’s talking to a child. ‘There’s a bail hearing today. Police are going to oppose because Ray Jnr took a shot at a copper.’
    ‘He’ll walk.’
    ‘Yeah. Maybe. But it’s going cost Daddy big time.’
    ‘Where’s Garza now?’
    ‘He flew in from Geneva this morning. Smart money says he’s going to be in court. Media haven’t got wind of this yet, but the storm’s coming.’
    Ruiz takes another sip of beer. Maybe today won’t be such an anticlimax after all.

    5
    Sami has called Nadia’s friends, her workmates, and talked to her old neighbours. Nobody has seen her. She hasn’t been at work for three days. Didn’t call in sick. Didn’t hand in notice.
    Next Sami calls the local hospitals and drops in to Brixton police station to lodge a missing persons report.
    The desk sergeant is a doughnut short of being fat and has a torn piece of tissue paper, encrusted with blood, stuck to his neck.
    ‘How long has she been missing?’ he asks.
    ‘Since the weekend.’
    ‘Did you fight with her?’
    ‘No.’
    ‘Who was the last person to see her?’
    ‘I don’t know.’
    ‘What was she wearing?’
    ‘I don’t know.’
    ‘Do you have realistic fears for her safety?’
    ‘I don’t know. Yeah. Maybe.’
    The sergeant presses his right hand into his lower back and grimaces as if relieving himself of lower back pain. ‘Are you sure you even have a sister?’
    Sami has to fill in a form. Tick boxes. Old Bill isn’t going to raise a sweat looking for Nadia. He needs another plan.
    Uncle Harry will know where she is. He promised to keep an eye on Nadia when Sami got put away. He’s not really Sami’s uncle: more of a family friend from the days when Sami’s old man was still alive and running a bookmaking operation out of an upstairs room in Harry’s boozer.
    Going even further back, Harry used to be a professional boxer, whose fighting nickname was ‘Homicide’ on