‘How much easier? Nine mil to the back of the head easier. Which, when you consider the wide range of alternatives, has to be the better choice. Easier on all of us.’ Eddie stood up. Stretched. ‘Think about it, eh? Right, I’m off to do my rounds.’

‘Wait! There is something else!’

Martin, broken. Ready to spill the rest of what he knew. But Eddie waved a dismissive hand. Genuinely no longer interested. And perhaps a little broken too, on his side of the life and death divide.

‘No, mate. I don’t want to know. Save it for Joe, yeah? Gift-wrap it for him. Perhaps it’ll earn you that bullet. Perhaps he’ll start carving you anyway. ’Cause that’s just the sort of psycho he is.’

He shut the door on the prisoner. Replacing the prisoner’s entreaties with perfect silence. If Hyde started shouting the odds it wasn’t going to go down well with Joe. Who was lying on a camp bed in a room at the other end of the arch. Theoretically far enough from the captive to remain asleep. But Eddie knew just what a light sleeper his boss was. Bringing true meaning to the cliché of sleeping with one eye open.

He walked down the arch to the back wall. Checking that the emergency exit was still tightly closed. Joe’s escape route, in the event of a police raid. The Rhino parked on the semi-derelict estate behind the arches. The growth of a thicket of willow and alder between arches and estate posing a seemingly impenetrable barrier between the two. But Joe, with an eye to any contingency, had long since had a winding, hidden path cut through the dense, compact sliver of urban woodland. A path that was regularly checked and cut back.

And if the filth tried to block his path, Joe would be carrying the assault shotgun waiting by the door. Loaded with solid slug rounds. Eddie knew that nothing and nobody would come between Joe and a clean getaway. Or a blood-spattered getaway, if that was what it took.

54

Deano opened the door to the rooftop cautiously. Knowing it was the thing you didn’t predict that tripped you up, nine times out of ten. Stepped out onto the flat surface with slow, careful steps and looked about him. No sign of security, courting couples or anything else to put a spanner in their works. He turned back to the stairwell where Steve and Den were waiting.

‘All clear.’

The two men emerged from the shadows, Steve laden down by the machine gun’s twenty-five-pound weight. Den carrying the bag containing the ammunition. They moved across the flat expanse to the parapet. Taking in the view over East London from the tenth floor.

‘That’s Castagna’s site, down there.’