The Pedlar

Ron (Aaron) Spencer has been charged with the murder of his wife Alison in Southampton, but the police case is really flimsy and the evidence entirely circumstantial, while his defence council, Montague Pryce-Wilcox, says he's going to lose the case. Unfortunately he mentions this to Sir George Compton, an enigmatic Home Office civil servant with ties to Special Branch, the Anti-Terrorist Branch and very probably to MI 5, and who is quiety interested in other activities of Pryce-Wilcox.

Sir George sets his 'consultants' – Derek Welch, His Swedish girlfriend and hacker extraordinaire, Ike, and undercover policeman Paul Davis - investigating this potential miscarriage of justice, hoping that their hacking and digging will turn up what he really wants to know – who is 'peddling' influence and trying to get close friends of Vladmir Putin quite quite legally into parliament and even the government.

Paul has no trouble proving the police timetable hopelessly wrong but manages to have a serious run-in with some of those Russians and three times narrowly escapes potentially fatal tight spots – just as well, because the 'consultants' are entirely disposable and deniable – that's why Sir George uses them!.