‘Fuck,’ said Max on a sigh as Annie picked up the payphone.
‘What?’ she asked, dialling. They were squished into the phone box outside the block of flats, it was raining, and Annie was doing something that Max would never, ever do.
‘We don’t call in the Bill,’ he said, for the third time.
But Annie shook her head. ‘In this case? We do. They can get straight through to passport control at Gatwick and stop her. By the time we get there to do it, she’ll be gone.’
‘Something going on, you and this “Hunter” dickhead?’
‘What?’
‘You heard. You seem very pally with him, is all I’m saying.’
Annie stared at him. ‘Oh sure. I’ve been fucking his brains out, him and Constantine.’
Max looked grim. ‘Not funny.’
‘Am I laughing?’ Annie clamped the receiver to her ear. ‘Yeah, hello? I need to get a message to DCI Hunter, it’s urgent. Is he there?’
Hunter was. Annie relayed the information they’d just received to him, put the phone down and looked at Max.
‘They’ll stop her,’ she said.
‘All right. So now what do we do, genius?’ They extracted themselves from the phone box and as they did so a cyclist zipped up and stopped right beside Annie. No pizzino this time. A slim man, dark glasses, helmet. Could be anyone.
‘What’s this?’ asked Max.
‘Constantine’s been asking for me.’ Annie looked at the cyclist. A thin, fit young man, totally anonymous, speeding through the London streets delivering messages on the order of his masters. ‘I can’t come,’ she said to the man. ‘Not yet. Soon. Tell them.’
The cyclist gave the briefest of nods and shot away, weaving through the traffic; almost instantly, he was out of sight.
They went down the cop shop to see what developed. It was a long, long wait, but eventually Hunter arrived with DS Sandra Duggan, and she was holding on to the arm of a swearing, struggling Caroline. When Caroline saw Annie there, she spat at her feet and surged toward her. ‘You bitch!’ she yelled.
Hunter grabbed the girl’s other arm, and they carted her off into the depths of the nick, kicking and screaming insults at everyone around her.
‘Well, that worked out well,’ said Annie. She turned to Max. ‘Can you get someone down here to pick her up when she comes out? Then have them bring her over to my place, OK? We can have a chat.’