There was only one way out – and that was the way we’d all come in: the front gate. And once I was out, I didn’t want anyone following – wherever I ended up. As for Frank, it looked like he knew where I was, all right – and we both knew that, as far as the British government was concerned, Max McLean didn’t exist. The cavalry wasn’t coming to rescue me: it was coming to ride me down.

I was on my own. As usual.

I brightened the oil lamp a fraction, rechecked the Browning and scanned the room. Doc’s Martini–Henry drew a flat, dark smile over the fireplace. I tucked the pistol into the back of my jeans and took the antique rifle down and turned it over in my hands. The weight was reassuring, an ancient anchor steadying me against the gathering storm. I lowered the cocking lever. The wood might have been scarred, but, like the pistol, the working parts were clean and oiled. Spread out along the mantel a row of Kynoch drawn-brass cartridges rested in the leather pouches of an outstretched bandolier. I slung the wide belt over my bandaged shoulder and extracted one of the monster Victorian bullets. Doc and his obsessions. He’d always taken them too far. I slid the cartridge into the breech, clicked the lever home and slipped the sights to a hundred yards.

By the sound of it they’d been clearing each room downstairs as they went, prepping them with stun grenades. Now the men coming for me fell silent. Most likely they’d discovered Doc’s dead body.

Doc’s dead body. The adrenaline dissipated. In my mind’s eye I saw the old man shot in his chair, and for an instant the world shrunk to the horror of what I had done; had caused. My throat tightened. And then a blast from downstairs brought me back to my senses. I moved to the window. The assault team’s BMWs were drawn up in a semi-circle on the drive. The ambulance that had followed them in had stopped behind them, just in front of the gates that formed the only break in the old boundary wall. The crew were civilians, drafted in at the last moment I supposed, and certainly not briefed on how best to park up. The driver and paramedic crouched behind their ride, nervously looking up and down as the chopper came in, as if watching a game of vertical tennis.