Leo’s head dropped and he racked his brain for a way out, but none came. The only way to salvage anything was to massage a bit of a story around the truth, and hope for leniency due to his statement. He hadn’t shot the guy. Nor had he rowed him over to the boatyard. He wasn’t about to go down for murder.

But he didn’t want to sell out the man who’d thrown him a lifeline if he could help it. He searched his memory, trying to find a different name, examining all the ones he’d come across over the years in an attempt to protect the person who’d recruited him in the first place. Integrity was something that had been drummed into him in the army, but it had become a joke. Loyalty was another thing entirely. Loyalty meant dying for somebody. He wasn’t sure if he was ready to do that yet, though, and he kept his head in his hands as he searched long and hard for an answer.

‘Give us something, Leo. This is bigger than you. Tell us who hired you to go up to Cumbria to make it look like a burglary.’

So they thought the burglary was part of the rig.

He remembered a drunken conversation he’d had one Sunday afternoon in a pub in Islington, ten minutes from his aunt’s shop. He’d sunk pint after pint, with his old company commander pouring his heart out to him. It had been an odd sensation: his idol and mentor breaking down in such a fashion, reversing the roles of superior and soldier. It had grabbed Leo and galvanised his allegiance. His commander had told him about the hole he’d dug himself into, and how he was terrified of his wife finding out and leaving him, taking the kids, the house and his future. The man had given his entire life to the army, and in return he had ended up with shitty accommodation, a bitter wife and a pension that would barely cover the food bills.

He had asked for Leo’s help, and Leo had readily agreed. It was the steadiest job he’d had in years, and it enabled him to get away from the clutches of his aunt. It also enabled his boss to send his kids to private school, spoil his wife and renovate a crumbling seventeenth-century cottage in Wiltshire, though he still had dead eyes, and a growing layer of fat bubbling around his girth.

A visit to the cottage in Wiltshire popped into Leo’s head. There’d been other men there, one of them a slick dude in a suit. If he could drop the names, it might divert the police for a while; maybe enough time to warn the man who’d been like a father to him.

He looked up. ‘What’s in it for me?’ he asked.