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  Storm spoke with an accent that was pure Home Counties. And as Danny desperately wondered what gambit he could come up with next to keep the conversation going, he seized on this. 'You're not from round here then?'

  Another gem from the book of all-time worst chat-up lines, but it didn't seem to bother Storm.

  'I'm not from anywhere, really. My mother was Swedish – she died when I was quite young. My father has always worked abroad – he's always on the move, so I hardly ever see him. Anyway, he sent me to be properly educated at boarding school here in the UK.'

  'So are you going to go to university?' Danny asked.

  Storm laughed.

  'No. I did Textiles and Media Studies at A level. My father would have liked me to have taken more academic subjects and then go to uni. But it's not my thing, and to be honest, I wasn't bright enough.' She smiled. 'Academic stuff is so boring!'

  Danny nodded as he thought back to his own schooldays. He'd done OK at GCSEs but life on the run with Fergus meant he'd never got as far as taking A levels.

  'I came to Manchester about a year ago,' Storm continued. Danny was in luck: she obviously preferred chatting to shifting paper.

  'Why Manchester?'

  'A job. It was supposed to be in fashion. You know – buying.' She shrugged her shoulders. 'Actually I was little more than a glorified sales assistant.'

  Danny was on a roll, ready with his next question. 'So how did you get this job? I can't see you queuing down the Job Centre.'

  Storm smiled into his eyes and perched herself delicately on the corner of the desk.

  'No, I met the twins at a nightclub. We got talking and then I . . . well, I started seeing them?'

  'Them?' said Danny, raising his eyebrows.

  'Mmmm,' said Storm thoughtfully as she gazed out of the window at the city skyline. 'The twins do everything together.'

  She looked back at Danny, whose eyes were bulging.

  'Oh, no,' she said quickly. 'Not that. Well . . . I wouldn't know about that. The three of us are just friends.'

  'Oh,' said Danny. 'But I thought you and—'

  'Everyone does. And I did at first. I thought I was sort of going out with Teddy, because he was the one I first spoke to. Then I thought maybe I'd got it wrong and it was Will who fancied me.'

  'And didn't he?'

  'I don't know. The thing is, I'm not sure if the twins have . . .' She paused for a moment. 'The thing is, they're really possessive about me. They hate it if we're in a club and someone comes on to me.'

  'And you don't mind? Them being so possessive?'

  'Not really. They're like two big brothers. And I like them, I really like them. And I love this job. I get well paid and I don't have to work hard. And I go to all sorts of interesting places.'

  She edged a little closer along the desktop towards Danny. Close enough for him to smell the expensive perfume she was wearing. She was looking at him more closely now; differently, as if she were weighing him up, seeing him for the first time.

  'What about you?' she said softly. 'Will told me that your granddad is some sort of hero and that you've done really brave things as well.'

  Danny shrugged. 'It was just stuff we had to do. I'm not meant to talk about it.'

  Storm smiled another of her dazzling smiles. 'You're modest. I like that. The twins show off a lot – it's not nice. And they've got some real morons working for them.'

  'Yeah, I've noticed.'

  'But you seem—'

  Heavy footsteps sounded on the exterior metal stairway that led up to the office, and Storm quickly slid off the desk and moved back to the filing cabinet.

  The door swung open and a young guy of around twenty walked in. He was thickset and cropheaded. His face was puffy and pale, with dark rings around the eyes, which took on a staring, almost manic look as they settled on Danny.

  'Oh,' said Storm, acknowledging the newcomer, 'you're back at last. Well, you still don't look too good.'

  The young man had obviously been expecting to find Storm alone. He stared at Danny. 'Who's he? What's he doing here?'

  'This is Danny,' said Storm, concentrating a little too hard on the filing to be completely convincing. 'He's working here.'

  'Yeah? Well, no one told me,' he said as he strode over to her. Danny could see that he was standing too close to her for comfort, staring intently at her face.

  Storm edged away. 'You haven't been here,' she said, not looking at him. She turned to Danny. 'Danny, this is Albie; he works for the twins too. But he's been ill.'

  Danny stood up and nodded at Albie. 'All right?'

  Albie ignored him and turned back to Storm. 'I'm all right now. A lot better.' He put his hand on her shoulder. 'I thought we could get a coffee or something, have a talk.'

  Storm shrugged off his hand and grabbed a sheet of paper from the top of the filing cabinet. 'I'm really busy, Albie. I'm sorry. Another time maybe.'

  Albie moved closer still. Much too close. His face was almost in Storm's as he spoke. 'You can take a break, can't you? You're allowed that. Just come and have a coffee with me.'

  As Storm backed away, Danny took a few steps across the office so that he was immediately behind Albie. 'She told you, she's busy. So leave it.'

  Albie wheeled round with lightning speed, his eyes burning into Danny's. 'What the fuck has it got to do with you!' he yelled.

  Danny took in the clenched fists, the glaring eyes, the beads of perspiration on Albie's forehead. His pulse began to race but his voice was calm. 'Back off,' he said quietly.

  For a few seconds it looked as if Albie was going to leap at Danny. But he didn't. His eyes flicked back to Storm, then he wrenched open the door, went out and slammed it shut behind him, and they heard him clatter down the stairway.

  Danny looked at Storm and raised his eyebrows. 'Nice guy.'

  Storm's lovely face was much paler than usual. Her mouth trembled momentarily then she took a deep breath and smiled gratefully at Danny.

  'He's a creep,' she said. 'And I don't think he's better at all. If anything he's worse than ever. The twins say he's useful but . . . ' She paused, came over and gave Danny a kiss on the cheek.

  'My hero,' she said warmly. 'Thank you.'

  Danny shrugged his shoulders and smiled. 'No problem.' Maybe his chat-up technique wasn't perfect, but Danny reckoned he'd made some progress.

  Fergus and Siddie had concluded their business.

  It was a simple and straightforward deal. In exchange for providing the 'cast-iron' information that the Headingham twins were the makers and suppliers of Meltdown, 'Frankie' was walking away with five thousand pounds in used twenty-pound notes as a down payment. Once Siddie and his boys had moved in and taken over the operation, Frankie was to receive another fifty grand. Cash. Frankie had given Siddie a mobile number, which he would call when everything was sorted.

  That was it. Business done. Frankie had supplied everything Siddie needed to know: a description of the twins, the address of their apartment and details of their regular comings and goings. He couldn't tell him where the drug was being made because he didn't know, but Siddie was more than confident that he could discover that information for himself. He would simply make the twins an offer they couldn't refuse.

  The gang boss had listened in silence as Frankie told him in detail about Teddy and Will Headingham, and when he'd finished, Siddie shook his head in disgust. 'Who'd have thought, eh? These privileged kids, they've got everything. Expensive education, university, the lot. And what do they do with it?'

  He reached into a drawer of the desk and pulled out a wad of notes held together by a thick elastic band. 'They turn to crime, that's what they do. It's not right. Just shows you the way the world is going, eh, Frankie. It's definitely not right.'

  Fergus didn't count the cash that Siddie handed over to him. He knew there was no need.

  They walked back to the front door and Siddie held out his hand; this time, when they shook, Siddie didn't let go at once.

>   'I'm sure you've heard about the way I do business,' he said quietly, staring into Fergus's eyes. This looks like a very lucrative deal for us both. But' – he let the 'but' linger menacingly before continuing – 'if this is a scam, or if you're trying to have me over in any way, then I'll come looking for you, Frankie, or whatever your name is, because frankly, Frankie, I don't give a shit. And when I find you – and I will – then it won't matter what your fucking name is. Because you'll be dead. Capisce?'

  9

  The clock on the dashboard of Lee's Mondeo flickered as it moved on yet another minute to 8.47 p.m.

  Danny sat low in the passenger seat as he pushed forward the on/off switch on the side of the Taser stun gun in his jacket pocket. A Taser would jolt 100,000 watts into a body when jammed against it, and that was enough to instantly drop a small horse.

  Danny had got used to handling various longs and shorts during his training, but the Taser felt heavy and unfamiliar in his hand.

  Drizzle had been falling for the past hour, dampening the road surfaces and the parked vehicles so that they gleamed in the streetlights. It was a light but constant rain, enough to keep most pedestrians off the streets.

  Danny sighed. 'I think she fancies me.'

  'Who?

  'Storm, the blonde bombshell.'

  Lee raised his eyebrows as he thought back to the surveillance photographs he had taken of Storm at the beginning of the operation. He was the one who had come up with the nickname of the 'blonde bombshell'. It fitted her perfectly.

  'And what makes you think that?' said Lee, looking at Danny.

  'I dunno. The way she looks at me. And smiles.'

  'Yeah, I can imagine. But don't get too carried away – you've got a job to do, Danny boy.'

  'I know, and I am. I'm just getting to know her, like my granddad said.'

  'Listen, Danny,' said Lee, more seriously. 'A word of advice . . .'

  'Yeah, I know: never mix business with pleasure. And I'm not going to.'

  'Good to hear it,' said Lee. 'Start messing with women when you're on a job and it can mess with your head. Women are clever, you know.'

  Danny laughed. 'Oh, so you're the expert on women, are you?'

  'Not me, mate. You should talk to Phil – he's been married three times.'

  'Yeah?'

  Lee nodded. 'Mind you, the last one walked out on him a few years ago, so he obviously hasn't got the hang of it yet, either.'

  'How d'you know all this?'

  'I've spent a lot of time with Phil since you got your cushy office job. You get to chat up the girlfriend, sit in a warm office shuffling the occasional bit of paper, drinking poncy coffee four times a day and we do the routine surveillance stuff. How fair is that?'

  Danny smiled. He was glad to be back at work with Lee. But tonight wasn't routine. Tonight they expected Mr Siddie Richards to pay a visit to the Headingham residence.

  It was a Wednesday, and Wednesday night was one of the few occasions when the Headingham twins were regularly apart. They took it in turns to visit their widowed mother. When they were not off on one of their foreign trips, she liked to see them separately, on alternate weeks, so that she could devote herself to one of her beloved sons on his own.

  Fergus had tipped off Siddie about the weekly outings and he reckoned that the gang leader would pick that Wednesday to make the home-alone twin an offer he dare not refuse.

  Lee peered out through the blurry windscreen, then glanced over at Danny. 'So what you gonna do when this is over?'

  Danny shrugged. 'Dunno. Haven't thought about it much.'

  'You could come in with us, you know, the Security Service. I might even give you a reference. Or maybe you'd prefer to go over to the dark side and do all that army SAS stuff like Phil and your granddad.'

  Danny looked at Lee: he had asked him about his life at MI5, and while Lee hadn't told him much, he got the impression that he loved the work. He started to reply, then glanced up at the street ahead and suddenly broke off to hit the pressel on the Mondeo's gear stick.

  'Stand by! Stand by! That's a grey Jaguar, four up, approaching apartment building. Fergus acknowledge.'

  Fergus's voice came back immediately.

  'Roger, that.'

  'Phil acknowledge.'

  Phil was just as quick with his response.

  'Roger, that.'

  The Jaguar slid to a standstill at the kerbside just past the building as Danny and Lee sank lower into their seats.

  Lee was impressed. 'Well done, mate. I'll give you that reference.'

  Danny didn't even have time to nod his thanks.

  'That's the vehicle static outside the building. Wait . . . wait . . . engine still on, lights on . . . wait . . .'

  For a couple of minutes the Jaguar driver kept the engine running.

  'No change . . . wait . . .'

  Then two doors opened, one front and one rear.

  'Stand by, stand by. That's two possible x-rays out of the car. One fat, one just massive. Both black leather on jeans. No sign of x-ray one. Both foxtrot towards apartment building. Engine and lights still on.'

  Danny swore silently. He knew that his grandfather needed Siddie Richards himself in the apartment. But he also knew that Fergus wouldn't panic. Fergus never panicked. He improvised.

  Danny went back on the net.

  That's two possibles complete in apartment building. What we doing?'

  A moment later Fergus's orders came through:

  'Phil, move in closer to Jag. Lee and Danny, stay where you are. Listen in for more instructions once I find out what's happening. That's me foxtrot to service entrance at back of building.'

  10

  Teddy Headingham hardly knew what hit him. One minute he was enjoying the light supper of scrambled eggs and smoked salmon he had prepared for himself; the next he heard a thunderous crashing from the hallway as the locked front door of the apartment crashed open and then two of the most terrifying men he had ever seen came hurtling towards him.

  There was no time to move, grab his mobile, shout, or even use the knife and fork in his hands as some sort of defence against the attack. He just sat, frozen, as the first man pulled back his right arm and smashed him in his handsome face, sending him crashing back off the chair and onto the carpeted floor.

  Blood spurted from Teddy's busted nose as his uninvited guest straddled his chest and pinned him painfully to the carpet, stopping him from moving. Teddy wasn't thinking about moving anyway; he looked up as Mr Muscles glared into his eyes and breathed on him with foul-smelling tobacco– and booze-tainted breath.

  'Don't move, don't shout, don't say a single fucking word till I tell you! You got that?'

  Teddy just managed to give a terrified nod as he fought to stop himself choking on the blood that was oozing from his split lips into his throat.