It worked.

When Narey pushed her way through the front door, heads whirled in the way they can only when the entire clientele smells a stranger. It wasn’t just that she was a woman, which would have been different enough, it was that she wasn’t one of them. She wasn’t there to soak the afternoon away and she wasn’t one of Bobby Mullen’s people. She might have passed for a lawyer but big Bobby’s smart-suited team were known faces in Laidlaw’s. No, she was police and everyone knew it with one look. It didn’t bother her in the slightest. It was exactly what she expected and wanted.

The bar had a smell all of its own. It was sweat and bleach and the ghosts of a million cigarettes, abandoned hope and beer-stained bravado. The stink was ingrained in the wooden floor and the patched seating. It swam in the air like flies over a corpse.

The faces that turned to her were either gaunt or bloated, patchworks of ash and red, all with eyes narrowed in defiant curiosity. Some looked her up and down, some looked the other way so she couldn’t see their faces. She wasn’t interested in them though, not today. She drifted past them towards the thickset man who was standing, arms folded, behind the bar.

‘Help you?’

The man’s question wasn’t exactly coated in warmth.

‘I’m looking for Bobby Mullen.’

‘Why? Is he lost?’

‘You tell me. Is he in?’

The man wore a few day’s growth on his face and it rose and fell as he shrugged broad shoulders. ‘Dunno. Who’s asking?’

She sighed heavily as if there really wasn’t any need for him to make her take her card out. She went through the motions of pulling it from her pocket and holding it up in front of her. ‘Is he in?’

The man stared back at her to make some point to himself or the crowd before shrugging again. ‘I can go see. What’s it about?’

‘Just tell Mr Mullen that I’d like a word with him. Now.’

The barman made a show of standing obstinately, playing to the audience behind her. She let him have his moment, knowing he’d have to go and talk to his boss. In the end he theatrically shook his head and walked out from behind the bar. A few steps took him to a thickly frosted door leading to a wood-panelled snug in the corner of the pub, the way barred by a shaven-headed hulk in a black-leather jacket. The man stepped aside to let the barman pass and the door quickly closed behind him.

Narey was left standing alone at the bar and turned her back on it. The natives were silently working away at their beer and whisky, nothing more than mouthed whispers passing between them. One chair scraped and a skinny guy in his thirties pushed himself to his feet and strode towards her.

He stood within a couple of feet despite having the rest of the bar to choose from, reeking of beer and stupidity. He leered with a lopsided grin and pushed a hand through a mane of slicked-back dark hair as if convinced it made him look good. She wasn’t sure this guy was the full shilling but he was trouble.

‘Back off,’ she told him, quietly enough that only he could hear. The guy grinned wider and didn’t budge. If he moved an inch closer, she decided, his arm was going to be twisted behind his back and his face put flat to the top of the bar. How his pals would react would be anyone’s guess.

He didn’t move closer, not quite. Instead he did a soft-shoe shuffle from foot to foot, his eyes dancing along with his feet. She could almost see the buzz that was going on in his head and knew she’d have to decide whether to fish through his pockets for dope or pills when she had him held down. The whole pub was waiting on her to make a move. It had to be the right one.

The man continued to shift from side to side, then edged forward and back, then forward again. Right, she was going to have him.

From the corner of the bar, she heard a door open and close, then a voice called out.

‘Elvis. Sit on your arse!’

The barman was standing outside the snug, his eyes on Narey and the shuffling punter. The man turned his head to see who’d shouted at him and, seeing him, quickly scrambled back towards his seat.

The barman gestured her forward with a wave of his head. Without a look to the gallery, she walked towards the snug. The barman opened the door as she got there, ushered her in without a word then quietly closed it again behind her.

Four men were inside, three of them with their backs to her. Holding court at the end of the narrow little room and watching her approach was Bobby Mullen. Even if she hadn’t seen a photograph of him before setting out, she’d have known without any doubt that this was the boss.

He was a big man, broad and heavy, with a plain face and receding red hair and matching beard. He looked like he was born to chop logs or wrestle cattle. His size wouldn’t have been enough to run the operation, not without the brain for it and the backing of his old man and his brother, but it didn’t hurt either. It gave him presence and brooked no kind of argument.

He was weighing her up now, not in any kind of sexual or predatory sense, but clearly wondering what it took for her to come into his lair like this by herself. She thought she saw either grudging admiration or an assessment of madness in his eyes. At least one of those things was probably justified.

‘Give her a seat. In fact, all three of you move.’

The men got out of their chairs without hesitation and moved back towards the far end of the snug where they stood, filling the space in front of the door. They’d given her room to sit and talk with Mullen but they’d also made sure she couldn’t leave.

She thought one of the three, a short, slight man with quick brown eyes, was probably his accountant and right-hand man, John Syme. Word was he was the brains behind the brains and brawn. The other two weren’t familiar but she doubted they were in the snug to sell Bibles.

‘So you’re what? A Detective Inspector? Andy wasn’t sure he’d read your title right.’

‘He did. Detective Inspector Rachel Narey. Major Investigation Team.’

‘Uh huh. Am I supposed to be impressed by that? Major investigation. Into what? I can’t see how it can be anything to do with me.’

‘Perhaps it’s not, Mr Mullen, but I’d like to talk to you to find that out for myself. I’m here about the murder of a woman whose body was found in the city centre two days ago.’

She saw something shift in his eyes, just a momentary hardening, but it was enough to quicken her pulse. How many people had seen that and then suffered as a result? The look passed though and he lifted his eyes above her head, looking at his men and laughing out loud.

‘A murder? Fucksake. Where do they get them these days?’ His eyes switched back to her, cold and hard. ‘Detective Inspector . . .’ He drawled the words out like she was five. ‘Just what the fuck do you think you’re doing coming in here? On your own? Doesn’t strike me as being that much of a good fucking idea in any sense.’

She had to admit he had a point.

‘Mr Mullen, your company provides protection for Saturn Property, is that correct? Specifically, you protect the redevelopment they’re doing on the old Odeon site.’

His eyes didn’t leave her but he said nothing. The look flitted across his gaze again though, stronger this time. She pushed on.

‘You will know that the body of a woman named Jennifer Cairns was found on site. I’m here to ask you some questions about that.’

Still nothing from him except that malevolent stare. Maybe she had to push it further.

‘It doesn’t look like you protected the premises very well.’

She heard a muttered ‘Fucksake’ from behind her along with an angry rush of breath. Mullen looked beyond her to the three men and gave a quick shake of his head. Narey felt she’d just been spared from something but didn’t feel much in the way of gratitude.

‘So tell me, DI Narey, why I shouldn’t have a lawyer present and you shouldn’t have another copper with you. You can’t take witness statements on your own. Why are you here playing Miss Marple all on your lonesome and doing your best to piss me off?’