Macdonald zigzagged again, and reached the warehouse wall. The emergency exit was at the mid-point and he ran towards it. From the front of the warehouse he heard a single shotgun blast, a burst of automatic fire, then more shouts. He wondered who had fired. Owen was too much of a pro to shoot at armed police. It was probably the Glaswegian. Macdonald hoped he hadn’t hit anybody and that the police had been firing warning shots. A pump-action shotgun against half a dozen Hecklers was no contest.

Macdonald kicked the metal bar in the middle of the door, which sprang open. An alarm sounded in the distance. The door bounced back and he shouldered his way through.

‘Armed police!’ shouted a Cockney accent. ‘Drop your weapon!’

Macdonald stopped dead and raised his hands in the air. ‘I’m not carrying a weapon, dipshit!’ he shouted, then stood where he was, breathing heavily.

‘Down on the ground, keep your hands where we can see them!’ shouted the officer. He was in his mid-twenties, dressed all in black with a Kevlar vest and a black baseball cap with POLICE written across it in white capital letters. His Heckler was aimed at Macdonald’s chest. Two more armed officers stood behind him, their guns aimed at Macdonald.

‘Can we all just relax here?’ said Macdonald. He took off his ski mask and stared sullenly at the three policemen. ‘Okay now?’ he said. They looked at him grimly.

‘Down on the floor!’ said the oldest of the three, gesturing with his Heckler.

‘Yeah, right,’ said Macdonald. ‘Look, I don’t have time for this.’ He moved to walk by them. The Cockney swore at him, raised his weapon and slammed the butt against the side of the Macdonald’s head. Macdonald went down without a sound.

Macdonald came to lying on his back, staring up at a man in a white mask wearing a dark green anorak, shining a small flashlight into his left eye. Macdonald groaned. He heard the wail of a siren and realised he was in an ambulance. He tried to sit up but the paramedic put a hand in the middle of his chest and pushed him down. ‘Lie still, you’ve had a nasty bang on the head.’

‘He hit me,’ said Macdonald. ‘Why the hell did he hit me?’

‘Because you were resisting arrest, you twat,’ said a Cockney voice.

Macdonald tried to sit up again.

‘Really, sir, I wouldn’t,’ said the paramedic. ‘There’s a good chance of concussion. We’re going to have to give you a scan.’

Macdonald tried to push away the paramedic but his arm wouldn’t move more than a few inches. He looked down. His wrist was handcuffed to the metal bar of the stretcher he was lying on. He tried to raise the other. That was cuffed, too. The cop who’d hit him was sitting next to him, the Heckler cradled in his lap. He had a long face with deep-set eyes and he’d turned the baseball cap round so that the peak was at the back. ‘I should have hit you harder,’ he said.