All it had needed for that money to become his was one piece of luck. And that had come in the form of Mickey Starr’s love for his brother, Stuie.

When Gready had told him to find someone to ‘rough Stuie up a little’, as a warning to Mickey not to attempt to grass him up for a sentence reduction, Fox had seen his chance. All he needed to do was find a couple of thugs from his client base and offer them a massive financial incentive to kill Stuie, while making it look like a roughing-up gone too far.

He tapped on his keyboard, entering a serial number, followed by the password for one of Terence Gready’s accounts – at a bank in the Cayman Islands.

$750,578.02 on deposit.

All his now.

Luck had smiled on him. Not that luck was chance, it was something you worked at. Like his golf pro once told him after holing-in-one at a pro-am tournament, ‘Nick, I find the harder I practise, the luckier I get!’

That was kind of how he felt right now. Subtly feeding the information to Mickey Starr that it had been Terence Gready who had ordered Stuie’s death had done the trick. Producing a better result than he could have imagined!

Shame about the kid brother, but shit happened.

He smiled, cynically.

He was now rich. Properly rich. Beyond what would once have been his wildest dreams. All he needed to do, publicly, was to continue playing the long game. Be just like Terence Gready had always been, Mr Respectable. Just until everything died down. And then, a quickie divorce and vamoose! Off shore and out of sight. With his new girlfriend – well, not so new, three years and counting – not that Marion, his wife, suspected a thing.

His reveries were interrupted by a knock on his door, and his loyal secretary entered.

‘Sorry to interrupt you, Nick. There are two police officers – detectives – asking if they could have a word with you?’

‘Police – where from?’

‘I believe they are from Sussex.’

‘Show them in,’ he said, confidently.

A stocky, suited man in his mid-fifties with a shaven head and a smart tie entered his office, holding out a sheet of paper in one hand and his warrant card in the other. He was followed by a tall, equally sharp-suited younger man.

‘Acting Detective Inspector Norman Potting and Detective Sergeant Jack Alexander from Surrey and Sussex Major Crime Team,’ he announced. ‘You are Nicholas Fox?’

‘I am,’ he said, pleasantly. ‘How can I help you, officers?’

‘Nicholas Gordon Fox, I have a warrant for your arrest on the charge of conspiracy to commit murder.’

Fox stared at them in sudden, utter panic, bewildered. What the hell was going on? For an instant, he wondered if he should make a dash for it. But Alexander, behind the DI, was blocking the doorway. ‘Arrest?’ he said, instead. ‘What do you mean?’

Potting started to caution him.