‘I don’t think you’ve met Mrs Cynthia Doyle, have you?’ said McGregor with an amused air. She wore a furry lounge suit and was completely made up. Once upon a time, you would have called a woman like that ‘brassy’. Abbott mentally called her that now.

‘I haven’t had the pleasure,’ said Abbott.

The kid was, what, sixteen? A smattering of teenage acne on his forehead, sullen expression, dressed like a walking advertisement for Nike. ‘And this is Finn,’ said McGregor, adding, surely in a spirit of stirring the shitpot, ‘One day all this will be yours, eh, Finn?’

Finn responded by pushing his hands into the pockets of his track pants and sneering. Abbott saw a large expensive watch on a gold bracelet worn loosely, along with several other bits of jewellery. A gold chain around his neck.

‘And may I introduce your father’s newest employee, Owen Flyte. Let me tell you, this is the real deal we got right here. A proper bad man, and don’t you forget it.’

Finn was looking at Abbott. ‘You the SAS man?’

‘Something like that,’ said Abbott.

‘How many you killed, then?’

‘Enough,’ said Abbott.

Finn rolled his eyes apparently dissatisfied with the answer but offering no real reason why.

‘You guys waiting for the boss man?’ asked McGregor. Mrs Doyle curled her lip in response. Finn stayed silent. ‘Well, I don’t suppose you’ll be very long. Just a quick meeting with this one here.’ McGregor jerked a thumb at Abbott. ‘Come on then, Mr Flyte. Let’s get this over and done with so these good people can get back home, eh?’

They trooped up to the office, knocked and went inside, where Abbott was surprised to find that Doyle sat by himself, nursing a bottle of whiskey and a bottle of Coke, fixing himself a drink as they entered, the latest in a fairly long line by the look of things.

‘Well, well,’ he said, sloppily, ‘if it ain’t my new friend Owen Flyte. How you getting on with the work then, Owen, eh? Hours to your liking, are they? Pleased with the holiday cover?’ Before Abbott could reply he had turned his attention to McGregor. ‘How’s he getting on then, Mack?’

‘Oh, aye, he’s doing very well. A valuable addition to the team, I’d say. Putting the fear of God into the natives.’

‘Well, you can’t say fairer than that. That’s what you’re here for, after all.’

‘I thought I was here under orders.’