'I don't see how I can help.'

'But you know him?'

McMahon sighed and sat back in his seat. 'Yeah, I know him. He's been coming here for a while. Nice bloke, friendly enough. Not the sort to piss people off.'

'When was the last time you saw him?'

He drummed his fingers on the desk. 'Last week some time. I can't remember for sure, but I definitely haven't seen him this week, and I don't think he's been in. I could check for you.'

'No, it's fine. Who does he usually come in with?'

'Various people. The occasional girl, sometimes with a couple of mates. Sometimes alone.' He shrugged. 'I didn't really know any of them.'

Tina reached into her jeans pocket and pulled out a pack of Silk Cut. 'Do you mind if I smoke?' She knew from the way McMahon wasn't settling that he was itching for a cigarette, and from the stale smell in the room it was obvious he usually puffed away in here.

He grinned, and leaned down behind the desk. When his hand re-emerged, it was holding a huge half-full ashtray.

'Didn't realize you were a smoker,' he said. 'Now that it's against the law to have a fag in your own office, I thought I'd best be careful when you came in.'

'That's one law I'm happy to break,' she said, offering him a cigarette.

He took it, and she lit for both of them. A rapport had been struck based on their shared identity as social outcasts, just as Tina had hoped. It was amazing what you could do with a rapport.

'According to his bank statements, Mr Phelan was a big spender, and it didn't look like he was very successful.'

'He wasn't. He'd have a few drinks and he'd start getting reckless. Sometimes it worked – you know, who dares wins and all that – but most of the time it didn't.'

Tina took a drag on her cigarette. 'The thing is, the statements also show that his spending plummeted in the last couple of months, but it sounds like he was still coming here.' She paused. 'Any idea where he might have been getting his money from?'

'We've got credit lines we can extend to valued customers. Pat's a valued customer.'

'But you weren't extending credit to him for two months solid, were you?'

He shook his head. 'No, we weren't. We stopped a few weeks back. He still owes us more than three grand. He asked the other week for more time to pay. He told me he had what he called an alternative means of income. I wasn't happy. I like Pat, but this is business.'

Tina kept her interest in check. 'Did he give you any idea what this alternative means of income was?'

'Nah. He just promised me it was kosher.'

'Was he borrowing money from any other sources, as far as you know?'

This time, McMahon's silence didn't sit naturally. He looked evasive.

'Remember, Mr McMahon, this talk's purely off the record. If you know anything, I can guarantee it won't get back to you.'

McMahon continued to sit there smoking. Tina didn't push things. She waited.

'Look,' he said at last, 'I like Pat. He's a nice bloke. I wouldn't want to think anything bad's happened to him. But if it has, I'd want whoever's involved to suffer. You know what I mean?'

'Sure.'

'This is definitely, definitely off the record, right?'

Tina nodded, realizing something significant was coming.

'Pat doesn't just owe us. He also owes someone you really don't want to be in hock to. Man by the name of Leon Daroyce.'

'I don't know him,' she said, making no attempt to write the name down. Producing a notebook might give this talk an official air and spook him, and she didn't want that. She'd remember the name easy enough.

'He's a loan shark, and a big player round these parts,' McMahon continued. 'I think a few of our punters have used his services, but you've got to be pretty desperate. The rates he charges are high and, like I said, he really ain't a nice bloke.'

'Have you got any idea how much Phelan owes him?'

He shook his head. 'Pat never told me about Daroyce. I just heard rumours. It was one of the reasons I cut the credit lines to him. I was worried we wouldn't get paid.'

Tina was going to have to find out as much as she could about Leon Daroyce and how much Phelan was in the can to him. If Daroyce was such a brutal operator – and with a man like McMahon, clearly no stranger to violence himself, saying it then she was inclined to believe he must be – it was also possible that Pat Phelan had gone to extraordinary lengths to get the money to pay him. Maybe even resorting to the kidnap of his stepdaughter.

'I think that's everything, Mr McMahon,' she said, standing up. 'Thanks for your time, and for being so candid with me.'

He stubbed out his cigarette. 'I'm trusting you, Miss Boyd. If word gets out that I pointed you in Leon Daroyce's direction, things ain't going to look good for me.'

'I keep my word.'

'Yeah,' he said, watching her carefully. 'You look like you do.' He lit another cigarette, blew out some smoke. 'A word of advice. Be careful. Leon Daroyce tends to take things personal.'

Tina opened the door, gave him a cool smile. 'Don't worry about me, Mr McMahon, I'm always careful.'

There was one reason above any other why Tina Boyd was always careful. She attracted trouble. It hadn't always been like that. She'd had a happy middle-class upbringing in the country, the product of two parents who appeared to love each other, and certainly loved her. She'd gone to private school, then to university, studied English and Psychology, did her time on the well-worn backpacking trail. And then, while all her friends took up their office jobs, she'd joined the police. It hadn't been on a whim – well, not entirely anyway. She'd never fancied office work, and she'd always had an inquisitive mind. She was interested in what made people tick. Maybe she should have been a psychiatrist, but somehow she thought she'd learn more about the human condition as a cop. And she had, too, although she wasn't at all sure that it had been a positive development.

For the first few years of her police career things had been remarkably trouble-free. She'd spent two years in uniform – and was one of the few officers in her station who was never assaulted once – before joining Islington CID as a detective constable. As a graduate, she was on the fast track. A senior position looked inevitable, and sooner rather than later.

But then things had started to go wrong. First, she was taken hostage by a suspect she'd been investigating and was hit in the crossfire when he was shot dead by armed CO19 officers. The wound she suffered was comparatively light, and she was back at work within six weeks, to much fanfare and an immediate promotion to detective sergeant. They'd even put her on the cover of one of the issues of Police Review shortly afterwards. It should have made her happy, but she knew she didn't deserve the praise. She'd made a mistake which had got her into the position of being shot in the first place, and it looked like she was being rewarded for that. If she was honest with herself – something that she was constantly – then this was the part of the whole incident that had scarred her the most. Tina was a perfectionist, and when it came down to it she'd been found wanting.

Barely six months later, trouble came calling again, except this time it was with a vengeance. A detective she'd been working with closely was murdered while on a case they were both involved in, followed only weeks later by the apparent suicide of her long-term lover, also a police officer, which turned out to be a murder indirectly related to the same case. Suddenly, from being the next big thing, she'd become tainted by association, the kind of cop everyone wants to avoid in case something should happen to them. Someone had even nicknamed her the Black Widow, and the name had stuck.