He closed the call. Not needing to hear his wife intoning the last rites on their marriage to break him any more than he was already broken. Especially not at 130 decibels.

‘She not happy with you then?’

Mickey met Joe’s sour grin with a hard stare. And realised that his trigger finger was a twitch away from plastering the gangster across the car’s interior. The temptation to do just that so strong it was an act of will not to. But he had a better idea. One that would salve his conscience. Handed over the car key.

‘What about the passport?’

‘I’m changing our agreement. Like you were going to kill me and then make an example of my wife and friends no matter what promises you made to make me surrender. Weren’t you? Besides, you’ll have more documents stashed. A man like you always does.’

He watched Joe intently. Not seeing a man whose world had collapsed around him with the denial of his means of escape. Rather one burning for revenge, presented with another obstacle. But surmountable. Already planning the revised means of his escape from justice.

Joe shut the car door. Reached down and started the car. Never taking his dead eyes off Mickey. Seemingly ignoring the machine pistol’s threat as he put the gearbox into drive. Communicating without words.

Then goosed the accelerator, the Rhino surging away down the pothole-pitted road. Mickey reached into his pocket, finding the key fob lookalike Rick had given him earlier. A transmitter frequency keyed to two kilos of explosive and pre-notched heavy gauge copper wire. The Rhino braked to a halt a hundred yards from him. Joe’s voice ringing out in the silence. Edged with the raw fury of the truly humiliated psychopath.

‘I’ll fucking have you, Bale! You, your wife and that photographer bitch! And everyone else you care about! You’re all going to fucking die! Very, very fucking slowly!’

Gunning the engine again. Flooring it, screech of tyres as the engine’s monstrous power momentarily overcame the tyres’ traction.

Mickey raised the fob. Looking at the blinking red light.

‘That’s our agreement cancelled then.’

61

Late afternoon the next day. Mickey, having booked into a hotel to get a few hours’ sleep, woke at one in the afternoon. Still bone-weary. Shaw’s team had extracted at speed, taking Joe’s briefcase and several heavy-duty bags of vacuum-packed currency with them. Dropped Martin and Mickey off at the former’s flat. Where the two men had stood on the pavement, exhausted.

‘They took my guns. All of them, except for the Bren.’

‘Yeah. We used the Bren to create a distraction.’

‘Oh. So that’s my business down the toilet then.’

Mickey shook his head.

‘Your business was down the toilet from the second you let yourself get fooled into meeting Castagna. So there’s bad news and good news.’

‘What’s the good news?’