But now, for the first time, he was really worried. A big fly in the ointment.

Lucky Mickey Starr.

Lucky. Why the hell had that fool ever been called Lucky?

The television was on, an episode of Endeavour, one of the few crime dramas Terence Gready bothered to watch, because he liked its accuracy. But tonight, to him, it was all blurred images and noise. The volume up so damned loud. ‘Barbs, can’t you turn it down a little?’ he said to his wife, who was perched on the sofa opposite.

‘I’ve already turned it down once. Any more and I won’t be able to hear it,’ she replied.

He peered at her, fresh out of humour. ‘You need to get your ears tested – maybe you need a hearing aid.’

‘My hearing’s fine,’ she laughed.

Gready had been seething with rage for the past four days and still seethed now. He sat in the living room of his home, his glass of whisky empty, just a few partially melted ice cubes in the bottom rattling in his shaking hand. Scarcely able to believe the greed of the man he’d always paid so well. What a fool. Stuffing the tyres of the Ferrari with drugs. Hadn’t he realized the X-ray would pick them up?

Now Starr was banged up on remand in Lewes Prison, but could he trust him to keep his trap shut? The stupid idiot was looking at around fifteen years, minimum. Would Mickey Starr do anything to lessen his sentence? Gready thought he was loyal, but he couldn’t be sure.

And what if he did squeal?

For the past two decades, Gready had so very carefully covered his tracks, hiding behind the cover of his law firm, never been remotely ostentatious in any way and was ever diligent.

Nicked for drink-driving at 3 a.m. and in urgent need of a solicitor? Terence Gready was your man! He would always obligingly rock up to the custody suite to advise you. Unfailingly polite to police officers, custody sergeants and to his clients, he had earned grudging respect from most police officers, who as a general rule intensely disliked lawyers, especially his grubby kind.