Owen pulled back the side door and jumped out. He had stuck a revolver into the belt of his overalls. The rest of the team piled out and rushed over to the warehouse entrance. There was a large loading area with space for three trucks but the metal shutters were down. To the right of the loading bay there was a metal door. The men stood at either side of it, weapons at the ready.

Verity walked up to the door and put his gloved hand on the handle. It was never locked, even at night: there were men working in the warehouse twenty-four hours a day, but only a skeleton staff at night. Four men at most. Two fork-lift truck drivers, a security guard and a warehouseman. Four unarmed men in charge of a warehouse containing the best part of twenty million pounds’ worth of goods. Verity smiled to himself. Like taking candy from a baby.

Verity pulled open the door and rushed in, holding his shotgun high. To the right of the door he saw a small office containing three desks and wall-to-wall shelving filled with cardboard files. A uniformed security officer was sitting at one of the desks, reading a newspaper. Verity levelled his shotgun and motioned with it for him to stand up. Eddie rushed past and pressed the prongs of the stun gun to the guard’s neck and squeezed the trigger. The man went into spasm and slumped to the floor. Eddie dragged him behind the office door. He took a roll of duct tape from his overall pocket and used it to bind the man’s hands and feet as the rest of the gang fanned out, moving through the warehouse. It was about half the size of a football pitch with cartons of cardboard boxes piled high on wooden pallets. Most were marked ‘Fragile’ and came from the Far East. Japan. Korea. Hong Kong.

An orange fork-lift truck reversed round a stack of boxes. Doug ran up to it and jammed his pistol against the neck of the operator, a middle-aged man in white overalls. He grabbed his collar and pulled him off the vehicle, then clubbed him across the head with the gun.

Verity could hear the second fork-lift whining in the distance and pointed in the direction of the sound. Fred and the Glaswegian ran off, their trainers making dull thuds on the concrete floor.

Doug rolled the fork-lift driver on to his front and wound duct tape round his mouth, then bound his arms.

Verity motioned at Macdonald and Owen to start moving through the stacked pallets. They were looking for the warehouseman, weapons at the ready. Macdonald looked at his watch. ‘Plenty of time,’ whispered Verity. ‘Radio’s quiet.’

The second fork-lift truck stopped, and there was a bump as if something soft had hit the ground hard. Then silence.