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best.’
    ‘That’s right, Willy, you cheer me right up.’
    As he walked from the club Willy raised his eyes at the ceiling and Broughton nodded sadly. Patrick Kelly was strung out - and with Kelly that meant he wanted answers, and quick. Broughton wasn’t sure what answers he was willing to give. He would play it by ear for a while.
    Since the death of his daughter Mandy, Patrick had changed. He seemed harder outside, but there was now an inner core of softness to him that in their world spelled certain death. Maybe not physically, but definitely businesswise. Word on the street was that he was finished, over the hill, and that was just from the kinder of his peers.
    Whoever had killed Micky Duggan was after the crown and Broughton hoped they had a head big enough to wear the bastard if and when they finally got it.
    Patrick went home, devastated. Micky could be a handful, true, making more than a few enemies in the course of any average day, but it was part and parcel of him and his life. Someone had once said Micky could start a fight in an empty pub. But why kill him like that? Whoever it was had either hidden in the club or else Micky had let them in. Maybe even arranged to meet them there.
    From what Broughton had said he had left Micky locking up alone the night before. Estelle said she’d come in for a quick fix from him and had found him there in the late morning. The place had been open all night. How they weren’t robbed Patrick didn’t know. Anyone could have walked in. Even the alarm was off.
    The fact Micky had still been dealing was annoying. All of that ducking and diving was supposed to be a thing of the past. How could they front a respectable club when one of the partners was still banging out skag to prostitutes?
    Micky never did have any class, that was part of his rather dubious charm. For charming he could be when the fancy took him. Now he was dead, and there would be an investigation, and Kate would know Patrick was still holding the reins in Soho even though he had led her to believe he no longer had any interests.
    He was so annoyed he could happily have strangled Micky Duggan himself.
    The phone rang and he ignored it. He already knew what the caller was going to tell him and he wasn’t ready to do his big surprised act just yet. He had to sort out what he was going to say to Kate. Because she was going to launch him into outer space when she heard about this.
    Willy came into the room with a pot of coffee and an uneasy smile.
    ‘That was Kate on the blower,’ he said. ‘I told her you were on another call. She’s cancelling dinner this evening. Has to work. Sounds like a terrible case, Pat, child abuse of all things. Life’s a right bastard really, ain’t it, for some people?’
    Patrick nodded, relieved to be putting off the inevitable until later. He cared what Kate thought of him; her opinion really mattered. He could not bear the thought of seeing her face as she realised they had, in effect, been living a lie for the last few years.
    Why did he have to get a capture now, when everything was going so well and they had even talked of marriage? It was so unfair.
    He poured himself some coffee and looked around his beautiful drawing room. Kate’s picture now sat beside that of his dead wife Renée on the mantelpiece of the Louis XV fireplace. Her presence was everywhere in the house. Her perfume lingered in the bathroom. Her clothes hung beside his in the closet. Her make-up and creams thrilled him every time he saw them on the dressing table. He loved her with an ache. After losing Mandy and Renée, the two people closest to him, he knew about love. About making the most of it as and when it happened.
    So many people never learned to do that.
    And he had jeopardised it all for the sake of a few measly grand a night. Money he didn’t really need but couldn’t resist earning. It was his nature.
    As he sipped his coffee, Patrick knew that Kate’s late night was only postponing the