‘Yes. I adore you and I love you.’

‘How much?’

He grinned, then held her close and whispered into her ear. ‘I want you inside, naked, then I’ll show you!’

‘That’s the best offer I’ve had all night,’ she whispered back.

She tapped out the numbers. The gate lock clicked and she pushed it open.

They walked through, across the cobbled yard and up to her front door. She unlocked it and they went inside, straight into a scene of utter devastation.

A black tornado hurtled through the mess and launched itself into the air, hitting Cleo in her midriff and almost knocking her over.

‘Down!’ she yelled. ‘Humphrey, down!’

Before Grace had a chance to prepare himself, the dog head-butted him in the balls.

He staggered back, winded.

‘HUMPHREY!’ Cleo yelled at the labrador and border collie-cross.

Humphrey ran back into the devastation that had been the living room and returned with a length of knotted pink rope in his mouth.

Grace, getting his breath back and wincing from the stabbing pain in his groin, stared around the normally immaculate, open-plan room. Potted plants were lying on their sides. Cushions had been dragged off the two red sofas and several were ripped open, spilling foam and feathers everywhere across the polished oak floor. Partially chewed candles lay on their sides. Pages of newspaper were strewn all around, and a copy of Sussex Life magazine lay with its front cover half torn off.

‘BAD BOY!’ Cleo scolded. ‘BAD, BAD BOY!’

The dog wagged his tail.

‘I AM NOT HAPPY WITH YOU! I AM VERY, VERY ANGRY. DO YOU UNDERSTAND?’

The dog continued to wag his tail. Then he jumped up at Cleo once more.

She gripped his face in her hands, knelt and bellowed at him. ‘BAD BOY!’

Grace laughed. He couldn’t help it.

‘Fuck!’ Cleo said. She shook her head. ‘BAD BOY!’

The dog wriggled himself free and launched himself at Grace again. This time the Detective Superintendent was prepared and grabbed his paws. ‘Not pleased with you!’ he said.

The dog wagged his tail, looking as pleased as hell with himself.

‘Oh fuck!’ Cleo said again. ‘Clear this up later. Whisky?’

‘Good plan,’ Grace said, pushing the dog away. It came straight back at him, trying to lick him to death.

Cleo dragged Humphrey out into the backyard by the scruff of his neck and shut the door on him. Then they went into the kitchen. Out in the yard, Humphrey began howling.

‘They need two hours’ exercise a day,’ Cleo said. ‘But not until they are a year old. Otherwise it’s bad for their hips.’

‘And your furniture.’

‘Very funny.’ She chinked ice cubes into two glass tumblers from the dispenser in the front of her fridge, then poured several fingers of Glenfiddich into one and tonic water into the other. ‘I don’t think I should be drinking anything,’ she said. ‘How virtuous is that?’

Grace felt badly in need of a cigarette and checked his pockets, but he remembered he had deliberately not brought any with him. ‘I’m sure the baby won’t mind a wee dram or two. Might as well get him or her used to the stuff at an early age!’

Cleo handed him a tumbler. ‘Cheers, big ears,’ she said.

Grace raised his glass. ‘Here goes, nose.’

‘Up your bum, chum!’ she completed the toast.

He drained his glass. Then they stared at each other. Outside, Humphrey was still howling. Him or her. He hadn’t thought about that. Was it a boy or a girl? He didn’t mind. He would worship that child. Cleo would be a wonderful mother, he knew that, unquestionably. But would he be a good father? Then he followed Cleo’s gaze across at the mess.

‘Want me to clear up?’ he asked.

‘No,’ she said. Then she kissed him very slowly and very sensually on the lips. ‘I’m badly in need of an orgasm. Do you think you might be up for that?’

‘Just one? Could do that with my eyes shut.’

‘Bastard.’

Vlad Cosmescu chewed his gum, his eyes following the ivory ball skittering across the trivets of the roulette wheel. It made a steady rattling sound at first, then clack-clack-clacked as the wheel slowed, followed by sudden silence as it dropped into a slot.

24. Black.

Adjusting his aviator glasses on the bridge of his nose, he stared with a satisfied smile at his stack of £5 chips straddling the line between 23 and 24, then watched the croupier scoop away the losing chips from other numbers and combinations, including several of his own. Shooting his cuff, he glanced at his watch and observed that it was ten past twelve. So far it was not going well; he was down £1,800, close to his self-imposed limit for a night’s outlay. But maybe, with this win on his Tier strategy, his second in two consecutive spins, his luck was turning.

Cosmescu stacked half his winnings with the rest of his remaining chips, then joined in with the other players at the table – the reckless Chinese woman who had been playing all the time he had been there, and several others who had recently arrived – in laying out their new bets. By the time the wheel had been spinning for several seconds and the croupier had called out ‘No more bets’, almost every number was covered in chips.

Cosmescu always used the same two systems. For safety he played the Tier, betting on the numbers which made up a one-third arc of the wheel opposite zero. You would not win a lot with this system, but normally you didn’t lose a lot either. It was a strategy that enabled him to stay at the table for hours, while he worked on refining his own system, which he had been developing patiently over some years. Cosmescu was a very patient man. And he always planned everything with extreme care, which was why the phone call he was about to get would upset him so much.

His system was based on a combination of mathematics and probability. On a European roulette table there were thirty-seven numbers. But Cosmescu knew that the odds against all thirty-seven of those numbers coming up on thirty-seven consecutive spins of the wheel were millions to one against. Some numbers would come up twice, or three, or even four times within a few spins, and sometimes even more than that, while others would not come up at all. His strategy, therefore, was only to bet on numbers, and combinations of numbers, that had already come up, as some of those, for sure, would be coming up again.

Looking at the number 24 again, he pressed his big toe down twice on the pressure pad inside his right boot, then he pressed six times inside his left boot. Later, when he got home, he would download the data from the memory chip in his pocket into his computer.

The system was still a long way from perfect and he continued to lose on plenty of occasions, but the losses were getting smaller, in general, and less frequent. He was sure he was close to cracking it. Then, if he did, he would make his fortune. And then… well, he would not need to be anyone’s hired lackey. Besides, hey, if he didn’t, it all helped to pass the time. He had plenty of that on his hands. Too much.

He lived a lonely life in this city. He worked from his apartment, a big glass and steel place, high up, central, and he kept himself to himself, deliberately not mixing with others. He waited for his orders from his overlord, then, when he carried them out, he would wash some of the cash here in the casino, as instructed. It was a good arrangement. His sef, or boss, needed someone he could trust, someone who was tough enough to do the jobs but would not try to rip him off. And they both spoke the same language.

Two languages, in fact. Romanian and Money.

Vlad Cosmescu had few interests outside money. He never read books or magazines. Occasionally he’d watch an action film on television. He thought the Bourne films were OK, and he liked The Transporter series too, because he identified with Jason Statham’s loner character in those. He watched the occasional sex film too, if he was with one of his girls. And he worked out, two hours a day, in a large gym. But everything else bored him, even eating. Food was simply fuel, so he ate when he needed to, and just sufficient, never more. He had no interest in the taste of food and did not understand the British obsession with cookery shows on television.