‘You won, didn’t you?’ It was a statement of fact more than a question. With that idiot Cloudy gone out of his life, Josh always won. He was king of the gypsy fighters, after all. Looked his opponent square in the face, battled it out like a man.

‘Yeah,’ he said, and went on upstairs to clean up.

It played on Josh’s mind for days afterwards. Knocking someone out in the ring, that was one thing; doing strong-arm stuff on doors in clubs and sorting out bolshy gits in bars, that was OK. But this, blowing somebody’s head off, taking their life, that was something else. He found it hard to sleep, and he was off his food. It surprised him. He was tough as old boots, usually.

‘What’s up with you, Josh?’ Shauna asked him on day three. ‘You’re not right.’

They were having beans on toast at the kitchen table, and baby Connor was in his high chair throwing most of his food on the floor and up the walls. Normally, this amused Josh no end, but today he was uninterested.

Josh put his knife and fork down and looked at Shauna. He had to talk about this to someone, or go mad.

‘I’ve killed someone, Shaun,’ he said.

Shauna stared at him. ‘You what?’

‘I’ve killed someone,’ he repeated.

‘What, in the fight you mean?’

‘There was no fight.’ He felt sick and he looked it, too. He had a gypsy’s natural-born toughness; he was never ill. But when he’d looked at himself in the shaving mirror this morning, he’d hardly recognized his own face.

‘I don’t know what you mean,’ she said, worried.

It all poured out of Josh then. About going to Dave for a job cleaning up the club, but it had amounted to much more than that. He told Shauna about Dave’s relationship with Andrew, and the trouble that was causing, and that the trouble had to stop – or Philippa was going to crucify Dave in the divorce courts and he was going to be ruined.

‘We agreed I’d do the hit,’ said Josh finally, while beside them baby Connor gurgled and played with his dinner. Shauna was still as a statue, listening.

‘He paid you? How much?’

Josh looked up at his wife and saw the ugly glitter in her eyes: money. That was what this meant to her, snatching someone’s life away. It meant a pay cheque.

‘More than I’ve ever made before,’ he said. ‘More than I’ve ever seen.’

‘Josh . . .’

‘It’s upstairs. Under the boards.’