Macdonald thanked her and tried them on. There were no laces so he had to shuffle as he walked, but they were better than nothing. He sat down on the bed but the woman jerked her thumb towards corridor. ‘You’re to be interviewed,’ she said.

She escorted him across the reception area. Several uniformed officers stared at him with hard faces. Word must have got round that a cop had been shot. Macdonald looked straight ahead. The sergeant opened a door and gestured for him to go in.

Kelly and O’Connor were already seated at a table with notebooks in front of them. A tape-recording deck with spaces for two tapes stood on a shelf and in the corner of the room above Kelly’s shoulder there was a small CCTV camera.

‘Sit down,’ said O’Connor, pointing at a chair facing the camera.

Macdonald did as he was told. By now the detectives had probably discovered that neither his prints nor his photograph were on file. The DNA profile would take longer.

O’Connor switched on the recording machine and identified himself. He gave the date, looked at his wristwatch and said the time, then looked at his boss. Kelly seemed tired: there were dark patches under his eyes, and the shoulders of his suit were flecked with dandruff. Kelly spoke his name, then sat back to let O’Connor do the talking.

‘So, you’ve had a chance to sleep on it,’ said O’Connor. ‘Are you ready to be a bit more co-operative today?’

‘No comment,’ said Macdonald.

‘You were arrested leaving a warehouse at Gatwick airport late last night,’ said O’Connor. ‘Would you care to tell us what you were doing there?’

Macdonald knew he hadn’t been arrested, he’d been knocked unconscious, but maybe O’Connor was hoping for an argument over the facts that would lead Macdonald to incriminate himself. If that was his intention maybe he wasn’t destined for greater things.

‘No comment,’ he said.

‘At this point I’m asking you if you want to be legally represented,’ said O’Connor. ‘Either by a solicitor of your choosing or by the duty solicitor.’

‘I decline legal representation,’ said Macdonald, folding his arms across his chest.

‘Because?’

‘No comment.’

‘We understand that the raid was planned by Edward Verity.’

‘No comment.’

‘And that you were just a hired hand on the job.’

‘No comment.’

‘We understand that you hit Mr Verity before he could take actions that would have led to the hostages being hurt.’

‘No comment.’

‘If you explained why you did that, it might make things easier for you.’

‘No comment.’

‘We discovered a shotgun in the warehouse, close to the emergency exit you ran out of. Can you confirm that it was yours?’

‘No comment.’

O’Connor reached under the table and brought out an evidence bag containing a pair of leather gloves.

‘We removed this pair of gloves from you in hospital in the early hours of this morning.’ O’Connor read out the serial number on the bag for the benefit of the tape. ‘Can you confirm that you were wearing these gloves?’