Fletcher didn’t answer. As Yates turned to see what Fletcher was doing, a .38-calibre bullet exploded into the back of his skull and blew away most of his face.

‘Run it by me again, Spider. From the top.’ Superintendent Hargrove leaned back in his chair as Shepherd told his story for the third time. Hargrove steepled his fingers under his chin and listened. They were in an interview room in Paddington Green police station at the junction of Harrow Road and Edgware Road. Shepherd didn’t know why Hargrove had wanted to interview him at Paddington Green. It was the most secure police station in the country and the place where Special Branch interviewed suspected terrorists. Shepherd didn’t know and didn’t ask.

The story that Shepherd told the superintendent was close to the truth. The best lies always were. The interview room had a tape-recorder with two decks, but it wasn’t switched on. It was an informal debriefing, Hargrove had said, but if it had been that, they could have chatted in a pub or a coffee shop. So Shepherd checked and cross-checked everything he told the superintendent. One slip and he knew the man would pounce.

The story he told was simple. Shepherd had been sitting in his cell. The door had been opened by a man in a ski mask. Then he’d been taken to Carpenter’s cell. The man in the ski mask had knocked Carpenter out and forced Shepherd to carry him. That was pretty much the truth. Shepherd had no choice in that because it would all have been captured on CCTV.

They’d been taken to a van and driven out of the prison. Somewhere on the outskirts of London, Shepherd had been thrown out. Carpenter had gone off with the masked men. End of story. End of lie.

‘Did they have accents?’ asked Hargrove.

‘Irish, maybe.’

‘Maybe?’

‘Everything was staccato. Rushed. It’s hard to pin down an accent when all they say is “Run, run, run.” But if I had to choose, I’d say Irish.’

‘North or south?’

‘I couldn’t say. Hand on heart.’

‘We found a discarded Russian RPG launcher. Fire and throw away.’

‘That was how they got in?’

‘Blew the gate off. It was part of a shipment from Bosnia that Six tracked during the late nineties. Disappeared when it got to Belfast. Red faces all round but no heads rolled.’

‘IRA?’

‘Real IRA. The nutters.’ Hargrove leaned forward. ‘So, why do you think the Real IRA would break into a Cat A prison to break out a drug-dealer and not rescue their own?’

Shepherd pulled a face. ‘Money?’

‘Carpenter paid them? Is that what you think? Terrorists for hire?’

‘Overseas funding is down since September the eleventh. Carpenter’s got millions stashed away.’

‘So he pays politicals to break him out?’

Shepherd didn’t say anything. Hargrove was either being deliberately vague or setting a trap for him.

‘You ever have any dealings with the IRA in your former life?’ asked the superintendent.