The screens were on, just as they had been during the Sweaty era. The operation was clearly still a going concern. Abbott trod carefully and quietly down the steps into the cellar with the Glock held two-handed. He glanced at the screen, where he could see that the rooms upstairs were currently not being used. No customers, thankfully. In the communal area were three kids; sitting in the bar area on the ground floor were two men playing cards as usual, while behind the bar sat the guy with dreads.

Abbott reported the sitrep back to the van.

‘Do you need support?’

‘Negative,’ said Abbott, ‘I can do this myself.’

He climbed the steps at the other side of the cellar, keeping an eye on the monitor downstairs. The men were still in the same positions. Quietly, Abbott opened the cellar door and stepped out, staying in the shadows. He raised the Glock.

The two men at the card table were first to go. The barman was reaching for his machete, but he looked up. He saw Abbott. He saw the face of the man who put a bullet in him.

***

It wasn’t long before Abbott was leading the three kids out of the front door, then to the van. Some ten minutes after that, they were pulling up outside the flats where the Polish couple lived, and Abbott, having done his best to wipe the camo paint from his face and look as normal as possible, took the kid upstairs.

It was the father who opened the door, perhaps expecting a customer. But when he saw his little boy, he dropped to his knees and took him in an embrace so enveloping Abbott worried that he might do the kid a mischief. At the same time, the husband was calling over a shoulder, and the mother appeared, her eyes going from Abbott to her little boy and in the next moment she joined her husband on his knees, hugging the child, fussing over him, all three of them speaking quickly in Polish.

Abbott wasn’t sure what the kid said, but in the next moment, the father had risen to his feet and seized his hand to shake it. ‘Thank you, thank you,’ he said, tripping over his words, pumping Abbott’s hand. ‘I will never be able to thank you enough.’

And later, when Abbott and his team had dropped the kids off outside a police station, instructing them to go inside and tell their story, and then left to dump the van and take themselves back to the Welcome Break, finally falling exhausted into bed, it was that ‘thank you’ that Abbott thought about just before his eyes closed for the night.

Part Four

PART FOUR

Chapter 43

CHAPTER 43