A ticking clock in Tom’s head told him that only a few seconds had passed and, as there was no way of telling how long Martin would be out, he had to move fast. In the man’s inside jacket pocket, he found a set of plastic zip-ties. He heaved the big man up and deposited him in through the passenger door, lying him prone over both seats. He jammed the man’s legs into the passenger footwell and zip-tied his hands to the steering wheel as tight as he could manage.

Whoever Martin was, he began to stir slowly, his face pressed into the driver’s seat. A slight groan, no more than a murmur, emitted from him.

Tom continued to search his pockets and produced the warrant card, a small, fat brown leather wallet, and an iPhone. A small, zipped-up leather folded case was in the other jacket pocket. Tom grabbed his bag and put all the items inside apart from the iPhone. The bulge Tom had noted in the small of the man’s back revealed two spare clips for the Sig, which he also threw into the rucksack. He took the iPhone and pressed the home button to reveal the time and a locked screen. It was an iPhone 7 with fingerprint recognition, so Tom leant over and pressed the man’s right thumb against the reader. ‘Try again’ blinked up on the screen. He tried the left thumb and the phone unlocked, revealing minimal apps loaded. He quickly went into the phone’s settings to disable the key lock, but it required a code. Tom scowled. The phone may have elicited contacts and clues that would be useful, but he assumed it would auto-lock after a given period, normally less than a minute.

He checked the phone’s contact list, which was empty. He checked the call history: empty. Emails: empty. SMS history: empty. WhatsApp was installed but, again, was empty.

‘Damn, damn, damn!’ he muttered under his breath. This man was a professional. The deleted calls and messages could probably have been retrieved but only with a forensic download. He engaged airplane mode on the phone, so it couldn’t be remotely wiped, and threw it in his bag.

‘You’ve no idea what you’re doing or who you’re fucking with,’ slurred the man, contempt in his voice, the accent a little stronger now.

‘Well, I hope they’re better than you, sunshine. Look where you are now.’

The man strained his head up and fixed Tom with a defiant stare. ‘You’ll regret this. These people have reach everywhere. There’s nowhere they can’t find you. Give them the card and they’ll leave you alone.’