It was a woman. Silver hair, sharp cheekbones, AC-12’s own former legal counsel. The woman who had shredded more case files than she’d ever filed.

The stream cut to black.

The figure on Papadustream held up a manila folder. On it, a single word: .

“What the hell is a Papadustream?” DS Chloe Bishop asked, leaning over her shoulder with a mug of station-floor coffee.

“I don’t want money,” the voice said. “I want immunity. And I want the real ‘H’ in a cell next to Dot Cottan’s grave. You show up with a uniform within a mile, the stream dies and the folder burns. You come alone, Fleming. You and the wee angry Scot.”

Biggeloe smiled. “I want you to take the credit. Arrest Mullins. He’s your ‘Papadustream.’ He’s the balaclava man. You get your promotion, Fleming. Arnott gets his gun problem erased. And I walk out that door and go back to shredding appeals.”

The rain was the kind that didn't so much fall as hang in the air, soaking through Kate’s jacket to the kevlar beneath. Steve was ten metres to her left, invisible in the shadow of a shipping container. No earpieces. The figure had been clear: one sign of surveillance, the folder burns.