‘How many more of them are in there?’ he asked. ‘Are they armed?’

‘Two inside, but they are not conscious,’ Irena said. ‘I gave them drug, but they may wake soon. And him.’ She nodded toward Scotty, who was still lying motionless.

‘Are you sure?’ Ogden asked her. ‘There’s definitely no one else?’

‘Just Frankie and Viktorya,’ Irena said. ‘But they are innocent.’

Ogden nodded and crouch-ran over to Strachan. She’d cuffed Karel’s wrists by then, and had secured his ankles with cable ties, so she left him where he was and crept behind Ogden as he made his way to the kitchen door.

Still cowering in the corner, Frank held up his hands when he saw the Taser Ogden was aiming at him.

‘Any more in here?’ Ogden asked.

‘Only him,’ Frank nodded toward Gaz. ‘And the other one’s on the other side of the table. There’s a young girl upstairs,’ he added. ‘But she’s not part of this.’

Ogden nodded and waved for Strachan to enter.

She gazed down at Gaz and signalled for Ogden to tie him up before edging round the table to deal with the other one.

‘Holy fuck!’ she gasped, her eyes widening when she saw the blood and the hole in the man’s back. ‘This one’s had it, mate.’

Epilogue

Evan’s mates from work, the pub, and school, all stopped to shake Frank’s hand as they filed out of the crematorium.

‘So sorry, mate.’

‘He was a good lad, we’re gonna miss him.’

‘I can’t believe this, Mr Peters; I just can’t get my head around it . . . Why him? He never hurt a fly.’

‘If there’s anything you need, give us a shout, yeah?’

Thanking them all, one by one, Frank put his arm around Jo’s shoulders when she started sobbing.

‘Come on, love, it’ll be over soon,’ he said, kissing her head. ‘Give it a few more minutes, then we can go home.’

Sniffing back the tears, Jo raised her chin and shook her head.

‘I’m going to take Marie back to theirs,’ she said, glancing over at her sister-in-law, who was staring down at the mountain of flowers with a bereft look on her face. ‘I should never have told her about Evan and Irena. Now that’s the last memory she’s got of him, and he wouldn’t have wanted that. He was really happy that they’d sorted their differences out after all that nonsense, and he told me she’d been making a massive effort, so she didn’t deserve me telling her that. I’ve been such a horrible bitch to her.’

‘We all say things in anger,’ Frank consoled her. ‘But, yeah, go on . . . take her home. I’ll see you back at mine later. Unless you’d rather go to your place?’