He wouldn’t be doing any more runs for the boss after this. He’d talked with Stuie about setting up a business with the cash he’d stashed away – nice money from the small quantities of drugs he’d pilfered from his boss on each run, too small for him to ever notice. Although this time he’d added substantially to the cargo, and a very nice private deal awaited him. Big proceeds – the biggest ever!

But now he was riddled with doubt. All it needed was one sharp-eyed Customs officer. He tried to shake that thought away. Everything was going to be fine, just as it always had been on each of these trips.

Wasn’t it?

Stuie liked cooking and constantly, proudly, wore his ‘special’ chef’s toque Mickey had bought him for his birthday last year. Mickey had planned to buy a chippy as close to Brighton seafront as he could afford – or in nearby Eastbourne or Worthing, where prices were lower. But with the money he stood to make now, he’d be able to afford something actually on Brighton seafront, where the best earnings were to be made, and he had his eye on a business in a prime location near to the Palace Pier that had just come up for sale. Stuie would work in the kitchen preparing the food and he would be doing the frying and front-of-house. All being well, in a few days he’d have the cash to buy it. He just had to get his load safely through Customs and onto the open road. And then – happy days!

He swallowed, his nerves rattling him again, breathing in the noxious smells of fresh paint and diesel fumes. The boss had patted him on the back a few days ago, before he’d headed to Newhaven, and told him not to worry, all would be fine. ‘If shit happens, just act normal, be yourself. Be calm, take a deep breath, smile. Yep? You’re lucky, so be lucky!’

The 18,000-ton, yellow-and-white ship ploughed on through the stormy, angry swell of the English Channel, nearing the end of its sixty-five-nautical-mile crossing from Dieppe. Ahead, finally, he could now start to make out the port and starboard leading lights of the deep-water channel between the Newhaven Harbour moles, and beyond – spread out along the shore even more faintly – the lights of the town.

A short while later a tannoy announcement requested, ‘Will all drivers please return to your vehicles.’

Starr took a final drag on his cigarette, his fifth or sixth of the voyage, tossed it overboard in a spray of sparks and hurried through a heavy steel door back inside, into the relative warmth, where he made his way down the companionway stairs, following the signs to Car Deck A.