Kemp doesn’t blink. He looks straight at Lee. ‘That’s why I can’t plead guilty. They can’t know I was selling or they’ll connect me to Maggot. It puts me in the picture.’

‘How will they make that connection?’

‘Because it was Maggot’s gear I sold. Simmo gave it to me.’

‘Jesus Christ,’ Lee mutters.

A silence falls between them, until finally Kemp says, ‘I mean, that’s what they’ll think. I wasn’t confessing. Not for that.’

‘No, I know. Of course not.’

‘Are you going to say I said that too?’

‘I’m not going to tell them anything, Darren.’

‘I know you won’t. I’ll make sure of it.’

This isn’t what Lee wants to hear. None of it is what he wants to hear. Not while he’s driving through the very forest where Maggot was laid to rest. As he tries to take in what he’s heard, they pass more wretched trees. Lee is not a nature person. He doesn’t know half of the trees’ names, and anyway the forest is whipping past too quickly.

‘What have they got on you, Darren, really? For the dealing thing, I mean. Some texts? Let’s stop and have a look. Maybe we’ll be able to explain them away.’

‘It’s WhatsApp messages,’ he says.

‘You’d be better off with a BlackBerry. The police have trouble breaking those.’

‘Do they?’

This is news. ‘See, Darren? I can help you.’ At the same time, he thinks, Christ, it’s your business to know these things, not mine. ‘Where is Simpkin now, anyway?’

‘It’s his week minding the kids.’

‘Father of the year.’

‘You’ve got a mouth, don’t you, Prescott? You’d do better to keep it shut, I would’ve thought. If I was you. Wait, turn here.’

It’s the first time he’s used Lee’s surname. And it’s jarring.

‘Turn, I said!’

‘Okay, I’m turning.’

Kemp presses the knife close. Lee doesn’t believe he’ll actually use the weapon, he just wants to look convincing. Then the blade makes contact, a cool flat presence at Lee’s neck.

‘Fucking Christ!’ he says. ‘You’ve cut me!’ He puts a hand to his neck. ‘I’m bleeding.’

‘Fuck.’

‘Is it bad?’

‘I don’t think so. I don’t know! The blood, it’s on your collar.’

His shirt. That is a shame, he thinks in a disembodied way. Lee is always short of shirts for work. He hates going shopping, stepping into T.M. Lewin where some overzealous teen tries to get him into stripes or a cutaway collar.

‘Okay,’ Kemp says. ‘Stop the car.’

‘What?’

‘I need to get something for your neck. Hands on the wheel where I can see them.’