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this small favour he would receive a total of two hundred thousand pounds, tax-free, in a Cayman Islands account.
    The first fifty thousand was already sitting there, enough to enable Selsey to think, I’ve earned more than you this year, old boy, whenever Grantham’s casual arrogance became more than usually irritating. The second instalment would soon follow. For Selsey had just received his first instructions.
    He was ordered to investigate the poisoning of an Indian people-trafficker called Tiger Dey. To help him in this task, he was advised to examine the passenger manifests of an Emirates Airlines flight from London to Dubai, and to check relevant CCTV footage at both Dubai and Heathrow airports. He was also given a contact in the Dubai police, who would provide him with access to the official investigation of Dey’s murder - an investigation that had, unusually, begun while its subject was still, just, alive. Finally, he was supplied with the number of a recently opened account at a Zurich bank, and the name of a former prostitute who would be able to assist in his inquiries.
    Taken together, he was assured, these leads would provide a great deal of information. All he had to do, for now at any rate, was to use this information to arouse Jack Grantham’s interest, and persuade him that Samuel Carver had started killing again. From then on, events would take care of themselves.
    Selsey had assigned a junior agent to do the donkey work. Provided with the passenger list he had quickly spotted the name ‘James Conway Murray’ and recognized it at once as one of Carver’s known aliases. He had the relevant footage pulled from Heathrow Terminal Three’s cameras. As always, the footage was infuriatingly indistinct, but there certainly was a man who answered to Carver’s general description, carefully keeping his face away from any direct exposure to the cameras with a skill that only an experienced professional would possess.
    Selsey asked for any records of further flights by Murray and was rewarded with a BA ticket to San Francisco, leaving three days after the Dubai job. There was no flight yet between Dubai and London - he would have to keep looking for that. Meanwhile Murray had gone to the States. That would be a lead worth following in due course.
    He put in a call to Dubai, beginning the negotiations that would get him the police reports. The local detectives had already concluded that Dey’s killer must have been the Englishman who had sat with him at the Karama Pearl Hotel. They had interviewed Dey’s bodyguards without success: they would not squeal to the police, not even on their boss’s killer. But Selsey’s call made the Dubaians suspect that someone in London knew who the man was. So the deal was obvious: the reports in exchange for the name. Selsey told them he would think about it.
    He also had to start the process of extracting information from the Swiss bank. With any luck the people there would be cooperative: the Swiss were far more open than they used to be. Otherwise he’d have to use more underhand methods. He also needed a way into that refuge where the prostitute was hiding. All that would require resources, and for that he needed Grantham’s approval. It was time to approach his boss … and start lying in his face.
    Jack Grantham sat back in his chair and rubbed his forehead, trying to ease his tension and fatigue. He let out a long slow exhalation, then leaned forward and looked at Selsey standing on the far side of his desk.
    ‘I’m sorry, Bill, but I just don’t buy it. The last I heard, Carver was doing high-end security work. He tells nervous billionaires and politicians how to keep themselves safe. He even does dummy attacks, just to test their protection. The pay’s good. There’s no danger. He doesn’t feel like shit thinking about what he’s done. Why would he want to go back to wet jobs?’
    ‘Maybe he’s strapped for cash. Plenty of people are these days. I