His stint with Merseyside Police had shaped him in many ways. They’d dealt with some of the worst criminals in recent British history. People thought gangs were a modern phenomenon. They knew very little. In Liverpool, in the seventies, without mobile phones, computers or the Internet, gangs ruled the streets with impunity. It was brutal. He’d cut his teeth pursuing people like the Cotton brothers, until he saw – plain as day – that he was banging his head against a brick wall. As with anything in life, it was good to talk, and talking to crims was no different. An agreement; that was what was needed. And that was what was needed now, on the Beacon Estate. But Kelly Porter was on a mission to turn the whole place upside down. Righteous, self-assured pussy was going to be his downfall.

Tombday had been a code word made up by Colin Day and covering a huge operation, beginning with betting and tanning shops in Workington and Liverpool, and ending in recruiting traffickers from Sarajevo. It was only a matter of time until they got caught: they’d simply become too big. But it was Kelly Porter who’d dug them out, like a terrier after a fox: she hadn’t let up until she had the lot of them behind bars, or so she thought. And now he remembered where he’d heard the name Emma Hide before. She was so cosy with Porter, she might as well be up her backside. The young detective had been Porter’s sidekick in London earlier in the year. It made sense: she was a computer whizz. A bright spark in Kelly’s team.

He needed to think clearly, and whistled as he followed his automated caddy. He corrected its trajectory, but for the most part it sensed where he was and adjusted itself. It had cost the best part of a thousand pounds, but it was his treat. Much of the money laundered by Tombday had needed someone to look after it. He reached the treeline and looked for his ball. It was a matter of principle. He could easily have got out a brand-new one and dropped it on the fairway, but he’d only berate himself for it for the rest of the day. He had to find it. Eventually he spotted it, in deep grass underneath a silver birch. He commanded the caddy to halt and decided to play a wedge to get out of the rough.

On the next hole, he realised that it was no use. These damn women had messed up his swing. He couldn’t get his shoulders to relax and the ball kept pinging this way and that. He hit trees, he couldn’t pitch, and he chose the wrong irons. He set the trolley to auto and made his way sulkily back to the clubhouse.