Angela slowly stood upright, working through the sharp, needle-like pain in her lower back. She looked toward Julia, hoping for sympathy, but was instead confronted with Julia’s arse in the air as she stretched her own pain away with a Downward Dog yoga pose. As the final two bundles of £50 notes were dropped into a bag, Ester rolled the top of it down, squeezed out all of the air and tied the twisted corners into a knot.

“Right,” Angela said, “let’s load up the van.”

The women picked up the garden waste bags, two by two, and took them outside, while Mike began stacking the bundles of £5 notes and £10 notes into the empty hearth—there had to be somewhere between £1.5 million and two million altogether.

“Imagine it’s just paper.” Angela had returned without Mike noticing. “It’s not legal tender anymore. It’s impossible to cash in, so it’s got to go. The bag on the sofa is yours, Mike.”

“Ange . . .”

Mike wanted to say so much but, in truth, he knew he had nothing to say that she wanted to hear. There was a time when Angela had looked at him like he was her superhero; now there was nothing. She was in charge and he was nothing more than a member of her crew.

“Burn it.” Her words were purposely flat. “Bring Rose Cottage down—lose the coal chute, the money, every trace of us. Dump the Range Rover in the Thames. Take your cut and get on with your life, Mike.”

And she was gone.

Angela knew he would do exactly as she asked, because he had just as much to lose as she did. What she didn’t know was that Mike had asked his army demolition friend, Barry Cooper, to help him destroy Rose Cottage.

Ridley and Prescott walked in step, slightly ahead of Jack, back to their cars. Ridley had his hands clasped in the small of his back and his neatly pressed trousers swayed perfectly with his long strides. Prescott had his hands plunged deep into his pockets, his straight arms pushing his unironed trousers down from his hips and untucking his shirt at the back. He seemed scruffy compared with Ridley, but Jack sensed their mutual respect.

When they got to the cars, the men shook hands.

“Everything’s paused again for now,” Prescott said. “Site’s been made safe, so I’ll get the SOCOs back in to see what we might have missed. And we’ll do the door-to-door again.”

Ridley turned to Jack. “Get Susan and Audrey Withey brought in first thing in the morning, for further questioning,” he said. He put his hand out to Prescott. “I’ll keep you in the picture. There’s approximately twenty-five million in stolen banknotes out there somewhere, and we both deserve to be there when it’s found.”

Angela and Connie sat on the floor in the lounge of Angela’s flat. Angela had one of the bus seats propped on its side between her legs and she was stitching the seam closed. Connie was removing the old foam padding from inside another seat and stuffing it into a bin bag to be thrown away.