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’em.’ As if realising his fare might be the customer of a ‘tart’, he began backtracking. ‘Not that there’s anything wrong with that, of course. I mean, we all like a bit of fun outside the home, don’t we . . . ?’
    Mac slumped back. What was happening to him? Had he really been about to brandish his gun at a cab driver? Steal his cab and drive off?
    He caught the other man looking at him again in the mirror. Suddenly the driver’s gaze shifted lower. Mac had forgotten he was still holding the Luger. Their gazes caught in the mirror again.
    Silence.
    Then the cabbie smacked his lips together and said, ‘You’re not lighting up in the back there, are you son?’ The older man’s eyes lowered back to the road.
    Smoking? Smoking indeed . . . ‘No, I’ve got filthy habits, but that isn’t one of them.’ Mac pushed his piece back into its hiding place.
    ‘ Next, it’s traffic news! ’ The cabbie’s radio became louder; pre-set to increase for traffic alerts. Mac realised he’d completely lost track of the journey and they were closing in on his destination. His fingers were white, as if he were still gripping the handle of the Luger.
    ‘ M25 . . . Hangar Lane Gyratory . . . M4 into town . . . and we’ve got a police incident in Bayswater, where a number of roads are closed . . . ’
    ‘You had a lucky break there, mate,’ the cabbie cut over the radio. ‘That was your road – another five minutes and you might have been trapped behind that tape they put up. Who needs that?’
    Mac said nothing, only speaking again when he got the cab to drop him a couple of streets away from his destination. He got out and paid. As he disappeared, a newsreader on the radio announced in the background:
    ‘ Police are appealing for witnesses after a murder in a Bayswater hotel last night . . .’
     
    Mac strode onto a run-down street in Brixton, South London. Among the betting shops, pawnbrokers and cheap loan operators stood an old-fashioned English butcher’s. And next to that stood a blank door leading to offices above the butcher’s. The door was reinforced, painted grey and would have needed a SWAT team with all its hardware to kick it in. Mac checked the door and then the entry phone. No name. No indication of a profession, just a number. Six. For a brief moment, Mac’s finger hovered over the buzzer before he let it drop again. Ringing upstairs wasn’t going to get him anywhere, and he knew it.
    Instead he walked slowly down the street to see if there was access to the rear of the buildings. On the other side of the butcher’s was a wooden gate that led to the rear where the bins that stored the waste were kept. It was a sound gate but easily climbable. Mac looked down the street in both directions but he knew this wasn’t the kind of road where a man scaling a gate was going to attract much attention and, even if it did, he didn’t care. He jumped up and grabbed the top with his fingers, kicking and scraping his way up the wooden panels. With a heave of his upper body and flick of his legs, he dropped down to the other side. Wiped the resin and creosote from his hands, made sure his Luger was easily accessible and then walked to the rear of the building.
    The back door was open and he could hear music inside but there was no one around. He looked upwards. A net curtain flapped in the wind from an open sash window on the top floor. Next to that, a rusty Victorian drainpipe. Mac shook the pipe. It rattled and a small dusting of dislodged mortar carried on the wind from where the green metal pins held it loosely to the wall. After a quick look around, Mac reached up, dug his fingers behind the pipe, gripped it between his knees and began to carefully climb it, monkey style. Before he’d gone a few feet, the pins began to come away and the pipe swung and swayed.
    He was still low enough to drop back down, but he didn’t even consider it. He went on with patient speed and careful