Superintendent Neil Ormond stared out of the window towards the menacing black rock of the peaks beyond the Penrith skyline. Yesterday the view had been marred by drizzle, but then that was what the Lake District was famous for: its unpredictability. He would have laughed at the irony had he not been so fucking outraged. The fact that the murder of a close friend’s wife could happen on his watch, on his turf, and in broad daylight was beyond infuriating; it was embarrassing, and somebody somewhere was going to pay. It had been a gargantuan mistake to cut the patrolling of the Beacon Estate: the den of iniquity and dross that it had become. Work-shy lowlifes, benefit scroungers and drug addicts filled the lifeless grey concrete towers. None of them deserved the law to fall gracefully in support of those willing to defy it so brazenly.

His heart wasn’t breaking; it had exploded. His anger was written all over his face, and people at HQ had avoided him all day. And well they might. Somebody’s head was about to roll. But first he had to seek permission to shake things up a little on the estate. It only took a visit to the chief constable’s office. She was the first woman to be cast in the role, and it galled Ormond. However, she believed in delegation and didn’t micro-manage, so his division – Serious Crime – was left alone. The only time she’d stepped on his toes was when the press was breathing heavily on them to find a serial killer. It was only to be expected. She liked the camera and enjoyed giving press releases. She’d handled a school shooting back in 2013 and done a fine job of it, naturally commanding in front of the camera.

He argued that inaction might send a strong message to the population of the Beacon Estate that murder was not just acceptable, it was positively encouraged. She gave her blessing for him to go ahead with a series of raids on addresses across the estate, as a joint exercise with the drug squad.

He spent the best part of two hours designing the outline of a manoeuvre with the intention of smoking out the rats. It was time the network of coppers’ narks got a shake-up. He spoke to the transport section leader in Penrith and there were enough vehicles to put together a sufficient number of personnel to go and teach the estate a lesson. Porter might be unhappy about the fact that two women had been killed by thugs intent on owning a part of Britain that had given up, but she would soon realise that her nose for investigating wasn’t required in this situation. What was needed was somebody to make a statement; set an example. It never crossed his mind to inform her of his intentions.