You won’t want to hear this, but apart from her hysterics everything else was sweet for me. As far as the bosses were concerned, I’d done good and they were happy to pay out. As usual it wasn’t as much as I was expecting, thanks to BJ and the cut he helped himself to. Anyway, it meant I could get my mum some new clothes for job interviews, like we’d planned, and a woman who lives in the next street—Julie—came in to do her hair. We bought a car, an old green Astra with a red driver’s door, and we were just about to get the kitchen window fixed when the s*** suddenly hit the fan.

It turned out the cops had the briefcase I was meant to have removed from the house the nights I broke in. I still don’t know what was in it, but when BJ came to beat the s*** out of me (he tried, failed) I got that some of the PCs I’ve delivered to in the past were suffering a lot of grief because of it. Actually, without making the connection, I’d already heard about some of the arrests on the news, high-profile stuff if you’re into that sort of world—basically corruption on plenty of levels—so no wonder the PC at the top of my command chain wanted it back.

I couldn’t feel sorry they’d been busted, who in their right mind gives a s*** about minted scumbags who’d pay to have you knifed in a dark alley if it was going to save their skin? But I’ll admit to the proper heebie-jeebies about what was going to happen to me for screwing up. None of the bosses had been pulled in yet. According to BJ they were just the slamsex suppliers, had nothing to do with the insider stuff, but only a tossbag like him would believe that crap.