‘Take the weight off. And tell them what you told me. Spare no detail. Just because I think this is a risk worth taking doesn’t mean that we all will.’

At the end of his second telling of the story, occasionally prompted by Shaw, Mickey felt wrung out. Increasingly uncertain as to whether he was wasting his last day of freedom or not. He drained the water and looked around at each of Shaw’s team in turn. Unable to read their closed expressions. At some shared signal all four of them stood. Shaw raised a hand to Mickey.

‘Stay here. We need to make a decision.’

Huddled in the other corner of the unit, they talked for a few minutes before walking back over. Faces still unreadable. Shaw addressed Mickey in a matter-of-fact way. No more animated than if he’d been reading a shopping list.

‘We’re in. Which means we need to go and get some weapons.’

Leaving Mickey reeling with relief. Light-headed as they’d boarded the Discovery and headed out to the west. He listened, from beneath the blindfold, to their sporadic, clipped conversation. Professional talk about the task at hand. Discussion as to the required equipment. The best time to hit the target. Someone using a tablet to surf Google Maps. Approach route, egress route, secondary and tertiary routes in the event that the police made an appearance. And the need for some sort of distraction. Something to keep the police looking the wrong way at the right time.

Sometime around four, Shaw turned off the road. The rougher ride telling Mickey they were on a track of some sort. Up which they’d driven for a few minutes before stopping. Shaw’s team heading off into rolling countryside. Pistols cocked and ready in their shoulder rigs, hidden under outer jackets. Not expecting any problems, but ready for them.

‘Seems like a long way to go to pick up your gear.’

For a moment the terse laugh from the man beside him had confused Mickey. Then Shaw’s dry reply had made him smile.

‘It’s not our equipment.’

‘I see. So just whose gear is it you’ve come all this way to collect?’

The ex-SAS man grinned at him. ‘As I’ve said before, Sergeant Bale, that’s need-to-know stuff. And you don’t need to know. Because what you don’t know can’t hurt us. But I’ll tell you this much. If the people who own the kit we’re going to borrow ever find out it’s been used without their permission, they’re going to be properly pissed. And it doesn’t pay to upset that big a player.’

‘Christ, this is spook-level stuff, isn’t it?’