He glanced down at the gun. ‘I assure you it’s very real, and it is fully loaded. A mark four Webley service revolver. A genuine British army officer’s sidearm. It belonged to my great-grandfather during the Boer War, and has been handed down to me through the generations, along with the ammunition. They may be old but, trust me, they still work. Chambered at .455 inch, this little baby could take your head clean off your shoulders.’

He sounded a bit like Clint Eastwood’s character in the film Dirty Harry—an appropriate title under the circumstances.

‘Give me your phone.’

I had once before underestimated someone with a gun and had walked straight into a .38 slug. The resulting damage to my small intestines had left me at death’s door for several days and consuming only liquefied food for months. I didn’t like to imagine what a .455 would do.

Hence, I threw my phone across onto the floor in front of him. I didn’t worry about breaking it—I was certain he would do that himself anyway—and I didn’t fancy getting too close to the dark circle at the business end of the Webley’s short stubby barrel.

At least that was in my favour. I knew that all handguns were notoriously inaccurate, especially those with short barrels, such as the one facing me, and the old adage about them not being able to hit a barn door at ten paces had not been coined without good reason.

‘Now what?’ I said, doing my best to keep any fear out of my tone. ‘Shall I go?’

‘Not so fast. What do you suggest, Anton?’

‘Shoot ’im, ’arry,’ Valance said in a matter-of-fact way, just as if he was suggesting that Asquith should step on a spider.

‘That really wouldn’t be a very clever move,’ I said as calmly as I could with my heart pumping fast. ‘As I told Anton in the Turkish Baths in Harrogate, I have lodged everything I have on you both with my solicitor, to be handed to the police in the event of anything happening to me. And there’s no way a corpse turning up with a .455 slug embedded in it would be considered by the police to be a suicide, even if you do type a fake suicide note into my phone, as you did with Gary Bremner.’

‘Don’t listen to ’im,’ Valance said. ‘If you let ’im go, ’e’ll go straight to the police. Kill ’im now. I’ll get the boys back to help clear up.’ He tapped his phone twice and then lifted it to his ear.

For some reason I looked down at the wooden floor and my mind began to wander.