‘Of the two, I suppose you might say that my husband was the more entrepreneurial, the one who liked to use his head while Raymond Doyle was content to rely on his fists. The dynamic was that Charles was the brains, Raymond the brawn. Charles opened a bookmaker’s. Not long after that, he opened another one. Any problems with landlords, or rival bookies or non-paying customers, then Ray Doyle would sort them on Charles’s behalf. It was partly – and I do mean partly – thanks to Ray Doyle and the culture of fear that he created that Charles was able to establish a foothold in business. He went on to open casinos and theme parks. Anything with a game at its heart, Charles loved it. What drove him was a love of the game. He was a sports fanatic. A fiercely competitive card player. Any family gathering would be an opportunity for a game. It went to bone deep with him. He had no time for computer games or role-playing. He liked games with a fixed outcome. And like many games players, he enjoyed gambling on that outcome. After his death I fully expected him to spring a surprise, and I fully expected that surprise to be a game of some kind.’

‘Not much of a surprise.’

‘Very perceptive of you, Alex, no. And possibly that is why he went to such great lengths to ensure that we were indeed surprised.’

‘And were you surprised?’

‘We were surprised. Charles has decreed that the control of his company shall go to the winner of a very specific game.’

‘What did he have in mind?’ asked Abbott, wanting her to cut to the chase.

‘What he had in mind was a fight to the death.’

Abbott barked a laugh. ‘You have got to be fucking kidding me.’ And yet even as he had that thought he realised that it all fitted like a glove – the picture he was building of those people – the picture of them being that they were the biggest bunch of sick twists that ever lived.

‘I’m not.’

‘What? You all get in a ring and duke it out, do you?’

‘Not quite. It’s a little more sophisticated than that.’

‘In a way that somehow involves me?’

‘Yes, because my husband, devious though he may have been, did not literally expect his nearest and dearest to fight it out to the death. Or perhaps he considered the idea and decided against it for whatever reason. His plan was that we should each choose a proxy. Presumably this is exactly what the other competitors – my family members – are doing right now. In this regard, my associate, Mr Kilgore, organised for me an ex-special forces operative by the name of Owen Flyte. When Doyle was in touch to say that you were – how shall we say? – disrupting things in Derby, it was Mr Kilgore’s idea that we should set a little test for Owen Flyte.’