you recognized Frank Brandon. You had been busted by him: he was on the Drug Squad when you were arrested and now here he was again. You were the one to go crazy—you; you panicked and you opened fire.""No, that's not true, I didn't, I never shot him!""Silas, you arc going to go down for murder. You'll not get a few years for dealing this time. You shot a man in cold blood, fired into his face three times. An ex-cop, it's eighteen years at the very least.""No, I swear before God, it wasn't me!""Who was it, then, Silas? Give it up, because we have your pal's statement that you, and you alone, used that Glock pistol; that you were high on crack cocaine. Donny Petrozzo wasn't even fucking there, was he? Was he?""It wasn't me! Jesus Christ! It wasn't me that done him!"Langton sipped from a beaker of water. "Next, I need to ask you about a secondhand car dealer: this man, his name is Stanley Leymore." Langton put down a photo of him. "You see, the reason I know you have been bullshitting me is because the same gun used to kill Frank Brandon"—Langton slapped down the photograph of Frank from his police ID—"also killed Stanley Leymore. Look at him.""I never done that, I never done it."Langton laughed. "Don't be dumb, Silas, you had the fucking gun when you were arrested! In your statement, you said that Donny Petrozzo went out of the room, then fired three more shots into this man as he lay 011 the floor. So did Donny hand the gun back to you whilst you were escaping out of the window? 'Here, Silas, you take the gun'? Or did he, as you say, run off with it? If he ran off with it. how did it get back to you? Unless you also killed Donny Petrozzo? You see how this is building, Silas? You understand what we are going to charge you with?"Silas kept on shaking his head. Langton placed down the photograph of Donny Petrozzo's body, bound in the plastic bin liners. "Donny Petrozzo." Next, he placed down the photograph of Stanley Leymore sitting on the toilet, dead, the bullet through his temple. "Stanley Leymore; same weapon, Silas."Silas's eyes were wide, almost popping out of his head.Lasdy, Langton laid out the picture of Frank Brandon's dead body, facedown in a pool of blood in the squat.Silas started to whimper, sniffing. As the snot trickled down his nostril, he wiped it away with the back of his hand. "Honest to God, 1 never done them.""Honest to God, Silas, you are going to go down for all three. Your pal has given it up: you had the Glock. Out of your skull, you just went crazy and opened fire.""It wasn't me, it wasn't me!" Silas slumped forward, his head on his arms, as he started crying.Langton looked at the tape recorder and gathered up his papers."You can have a five-minute break to talk to your solicitor, Mr. Roach, but when I come back, I suggest you start telling me the truth, because I'm losing patience."Just as Langton pushed back his chair, Silas grabbed at the photograph in front of him."I never done it—not to him or the other blokes, I never done it," he choked.Langton gave a wide, openhanded gesture. "So tell me the truth. What did happen?"Silas covered his face with his hands. "Ah shit, shit! It wasn't fucking me!"It took half an hour for Silas to make a second statement. He and Delroy Planter were working the squat, and had been there for a few hours. Delroy had told him that Donny Petrozzo had been by earlier, and wanted to talk about a big deal. A friend of his had some very high-quality gear, and a lot of it; not heroin or cocaine, but a new drug, much more powerful, and one that Petrozzo knew they could get a lot of money for, from the kind of people that he scored for. Mixed with heroin, it was nicknamed "Polo" in the States. Neither of them had ever heard of it, and Delroy said that until he knew what it was, he wasn't going to mess with it. He also said that the kind of money Petrozzo was talking about was out of his league; he couldn't buy in, but he might be able to distribute, as he had a lot of guys he could bring in.Petrozzo brought a vial of the drugs around for Delroy to test; he told them that he was getting a bit scared and he needed some cash. Silas was unsure how much money had changed hands, but was told that Stanley Leymore had the drugs at his garage. Both Silas and Delroy used Stanley to get their wheels. On the night Frank was murdered, Delroy had expected Donny to turn up; when he didn't, he became very agitated, as he was doing a lot of crack. When they got the knock on the door, Delroyrecognized Frank Brandon as a cop and shot him. When he opened the door, he got scared because there was another man there. He ran back into the room, put the silencer on the gun, and reopened the door, but the man had gone—so he fired three more shots into Frank Brandon. The two of them went out the back window, and drove to Stanley Leymore's garage. Delroy was crazy, and threatened to kill Stanley if he didn't give him the drugs that Petrozzo said he was holding. Stanley refused, so Delroy shot him and, after searching the garage, gave up. They tried to contact Petrozzo, but his mobile was dead and his wife didn't know where he was. The next thing they knew, the pair of them were busted and arrested.