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with a bag of bones,’ he said. ‘The fall-out’s going to be something else.’
    The first victim hit the ground two days after Farrell’s body was found. Joey Scardino’s family had come to Scotland at the end of the 19th century and had made their living from fish and chips and ice cream. But Joey had seen too many films about the Mob and he’d come to London in search of a more edgy living thanfast food. He liked people to call him Joey Scar, and a few sucked up to him enough to do it. I wasn’t one of them. I never dignify those scumbags by using their nicknames.
    Anyway, Joey was just about clever and charming enough to pass as a gangster, but he’d never managed to be in the right place at the right time. He was desperate to be playing by big boys’ rules.
    As part of his bid, he’d been snapping at Farrell’s heels for a long time. He’d seen how much money Farrell was making from people-smuggling and supplying illegal immigrants with false papers. Scardino wanted to carve out a chunk of the action for himself. But every time he’d tried to muscle in on it, Farrell had found a way to slap him down.
    According to Ben, who had been running a low-level snout inside Farrell’s posse, Scardino had paid a load of cash to Farrell after the fire. The word was that the money was payment for the business he’d failed to steal in the past. The only trouble was that Scardino wanted a fast return on what he’d laid out. Unlike Farrell, he didn’t understand that making a modest amount every week for years was smarter thantrying to make big bucks straight out of the starting blocks.
    As we drove to the scene of the murder, Ben told me his snout had said Scardino was already pissing people off, but he did seem surprised that it had gone so far so fast.
    We already knew Scardino hadn’t died a clean or a pretty death. He’d been found by a security guard doing his rounds down the docks in Harwich. A container that should have been shut was standing open. When the guard went to take a look, he saw something that would trash his sleep for a very long time.
    I didn’t have to ask the way. I kept passing grey-faced uniformed officers who pointed behind them, their eyes filled with horror. Splashes of vomit lined the final stages of the route.
    Joey Scardino was naked except for the ropes. He was tied to the far end of the container, his body spread out in a big X facing the wall. There was a bloody gap where his backside should have been. According to the forensics team, someone had literally stuffed an explosive charge inside him then set it off.
    I’ve seen a lot of crime scenes, but I’ve neverseen anything worse than that. Ben reeled away, his hand over his mouth, dry retching sounds coming from his throat.
    Whoever had killed Joey Scardino was sending a message to the world. You think Jack Farrell was scary? Think again . And it was my job to find him and to put him away.
    Lucky me.

CHAPTER TEN
    T HE ONLY ODD THING about Joey Scardino’s death – apart from it being totally disgusting – was that nobody was laying claim to it. The usual routine in murders like this is that the word creeps out. That’s how the Jack Farrells of this world create the fear that lets them exercise power. First the villains get to know. Then it filters down to us through our snouts and our undercover cops. There might not be any proof, but everybody who needs to know gets to know.
    But with Scardino there wasn’t so much as a whisper. The usual suspects were giving each other the hard stare, wondering who had ordered the hit on Scardino. There wasn’t even an obvious motive. Yes, Joey Scardino had bought a slice of Jack Farrell’s action. And yes, his death meant that slice should end up on somebody else’s plate. Most likely the plate of the person who had seen him off. But thatwasn’t what had happened. Oh no, nothing that simple.
    What had happened was that the business had fallen to pieces faster than Patsy Cline. It had