Barry was making his way along the trackside, under Brook Street pedestrian bridge and on toward Hythe. Anik and Laura were moving in sync with the ARU up ahead, keeping the designated distance—no more, no less. Ridley, on the other hand, was discovering that his brown patent leather brogues were not cut out for muddy terrain—he’d not actually chased anyone in years, and he hadn’t expected to be doing it today. He’d planned to have Barry Cooper handed to him on a plate, after which he’d give up the names of his crew in exchange for a lighter prison sentence. No such luck.

As the dogs dragged the lead ARU at a pace behind Barry, Ridley prayed that he didn’t divert up the embankment at any point and into populated areas. As Laura ran, she just managed to text Jack to give him an update. Jack immediately turned off the A134 and got onto a dirt road running parallel to and above the train tracks. As soon as he heard the police dogs, he pulled over, jumped out and followed the sound of the sniffer dog choking itself with excitement at the end of its own lead. Jack was a good fifteen feet above the tracks on a dirt road and he very quickly realized that there was no way down. The embankment was almost sheer, loosely fenced off with barbed wire tied to staggered fenceposts. He resigned himself. Ridley was probably going to boil over if Jack ended up watching events unfold from above.

Barry was tiring. He kept slipping in the deep layer of small stones that ran along the side of the railway track; each time he stumbled to his hands and knees, he’d take longer to get back up. He could feel the stones through the soles of his sneakers, whereas the dog handlers were wearing boots. The dogs, with no protection for their feet, opted to run higher on the embankment in the wet and muddy grass, the steep gradient being no problem for them.

As Barry ran, he tried to remember what was ahead of him in order to plan an escape. He needed to think of a way to explain the five million pounds on his back, while also thinking of a way to explain his decision to set fire to Mike’s dead body. But he had no answers to anything.

Barry looked down at Mike’s body and watched the blood slowly stop pouring out of the gaping head wound. After a moment, the pain from his broken left forearm hit him and Barry slumped onto the small horsehair sofa. He controlled his instinct to scream, swallowing again and again to stop the sound from coming out.

He scanned the room, desperate to find something he could use as a sling. Using his knife, he managed to cut off Mike’s T-shirt and tie the ends together, before slipping the improvised sling over his head and under the broken bone. He quickly stepped into the back garden to get some fresh air so he didn’t pass out, and to try to straighten out his head. The stars looked amazing above the undulating horizon and Barry was soon in control of the pain and calm in his mind. Although he’d seen and done worse in wartime, the only way to think straight now was to distance himself from the fact that he’d just killed one of his best friends. From this second on, Mikey was just another corpse and Barry knew how they burned.