During the journey she’d talked incessantly, seeming to be telling a lot but actually not disclosing too much. The detective had grown on her and did seem a genuine guy, but what could the police do to help them? This was the Mafia they were dealing with, and once they put a contract out on your life you are beyond protection. She told him they had some information regarding one of the families, but didn’t mention it was stored on a USB stick that was now in a safety deposit box at Victoria station. There were enough people trying to get their hands on that damn thing, and she didn’t want to add to the list. The USB was like the ring in Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings: it changed everyone who came across it. Even Luigi and Roberto – people they had trusted – had turned into scheming deceivers who were quite happy to put the girls’ lives at risk as long as they got what they wanted. She told the inspector that there had been an attempt on their lives, and that both the Scarpones and Viallis seemed to want them dead.
