had taken over running the family business. Dexter was what you might call old school, he kept his house in order. Liked to do things the Kray twins way; Malcolm, on the other hand, not so much. In the 1990s he tried his hand at property development. To all intents and purposes he aimed to take the family business and make it legitimate, so he went into business with a consortium of bankers in order to develop in Docklands. What went wrong? Who can say, but the development never happened, the business didn’t go legitimate, and lots of bankers and developers turned up dead.
“After that, Malcolm Regan pretty much abandoned any plans he had of going straight and instead concentrated on building a reputation as ruthless and sadistic. All those activities that overseas gangs were apparently monopolizing—drugs, prostitution, human trafficking—that the English families had been reluctant to touch, because they were still clinging to those old-school values of family and community, Malcolm Regan embraced them fully.
“And he did a very good job. So good, in fact, that it brought him to the attention of the Chechen Mafia, who wanted to make inroads in this country. Regan joined forces with the Chechens in order to rid themselves of an Irish problem they had. I don’t know which union came first, but it was around then that Regan’s daughter, Karen, married the head of the Chechens’ London operation.”
“Hold on a minute.” Claridge tapped on the laptop and scrolled through a new selection of photos until he chose one of an older man whose face resembled the images of Karen they’d just been looking at. “This is Malcolm Regan,” he said.
Claridge flicked the screen back a couple of images. “The guy I just showed you. Dmitry Kraviz.”
“So Karen was pimped out?” asked Lucy. “An arranged marriage of convenience?”
“Oh no,” said Claridge, “there’s a reason we call her ‘our Karen.’ She has a lot more agency than you give her credit for.”
“She served her apprenticeship,” said Shelley.
Lucy and Claridge both looked at him. “Okay,” said Lucy, “so now I feel like you’re the one with something to tell us.” She glanced at Claridge.
Shelley nodded. “This is the woman.” He turned his attention to Lucy. “The woman who was part of the attempt to kidnap Emma fourteen years ago.”
“Okay,” said Claridge, “I think you’re going to have to clue me in.”
Shelley told him all about the kidnapping attempt. The trip to Waitrose. The Peugeot, the VW Passat—
“Wait a second,” said Claridge. “You broke her arm? Was it a nasty break?”
“It wasn’t under surgical conditions,” said Shelley. “I snapped it across the door. It was practically hanging off. So yeah, it was a bad break.”
“Because Karen has an injured right arm. She has the use of it, but not full functionality, as I understand.”
“That’s definitely her then. I saw it,” confirmed Lucy. “So she was into the crime racket years before she got with the Chechens.”
“Oh yes,” said Claridge. “And as far as we know she’s as active as she ever was in the organization.”
“And part of the organization involves the cams,” said Shelley.
“Exactly.”
“They met again,” said Shelley. Things were making sense to him now. His voice was low. “Karen and Emma. Fourteen years later, they were reunited.”
CHAPTER 46
THREE NIGHTS BEFORE her death, Emma Drake had arrived for work and gone to the office to make herself known and say hello to Jason. After that, she planned to get a hit and then go live.
She liked Jason. The other guy who sat in the office, whatever his name was, Dan, was a bit of a sleazeball. The kind whose eyes were always roaming. Christ knows why; he got to sit in the office where he could look at each of the five rooms, see the girls fully naked and performing to the punters’ hearts’ desires whenever he wanted, and yet he still did that thing with his eyes.
Emma knew why. A power trip. A mind fuck. A way of saying I’m in charge, a way of being a bit of a dickhead, basically.
Jason wasn’t like that. Any sexual interest that Jason had was obscured by a cloud of pungent weed smoke. His eyes didn’t go traveling the way Dan’s did.
Funny, though, Jason had been slightly different with her that night. There had been an edge to him.
“Are you all right, Faye?” he’d asked, except it didn’t feel like a genuine inquiry after her well-being. And there was something about the way he stressed the word “Faye.”
Had