He paused on the corner with Jervis Road. Looked up at the CCTV camera above his head. Frozen, lifeless on its gimbal mount. Still out of action. Just the way Warren liked it. Mickey quietly slipped into a doorway and squatted down. Affecting to fiddle with a bootlace. Peeped round the corner, looking down the pavement. The club opposite Warren Margetson’s pitch would still be nine-tenths empty. Its drinks too expensive while the pubs were open. But Warren was already on duty. As any good dealer would be. A professional, of a sort, Warren. And there was more than one sort of client in his line of business. Some of them dabbling. Some of them hardened recreational users. Some of them functioning addicts. And some just victims. Like Katie.

Mickey got back to his feet and turned away. He walked casually down Jervis Road for a hundred yards, then turned left into Nelson Road. Still strolling, in no rush. The street empty, other than for a single passing car. Flickering screens behind lace curtains told their story. People settling down to a night of delivered takeaway and on-demand. No-one to see a black-clad figure pause for a moment, at the top of the alley that led back to the High Road. He ducked into the shadows, immediately lost in the darkness. The streetlights didn’t illuminate the cut-through, never had.

His heart rate was elevated, he reckoned, but nothing drastic. Just a touch of nerves. On with the balaclava, silk smooth. His face freshly shaved to avoid stubble drag. Then the gloves. Black latex, thick enough to be durable. But still with enough feel for the trigger. And out with the weapon, untouched by his skin at any time since he’d picked it up. A Ruger .22 automatic. Black metal, boxy-framed, but small enough to be hidden in a hand. Its protruding muzzle screw-threaded. Ugly but functional. The suppressor glided down onto the threads with a well-oiled absence of any sound. As recommended by Martin. Which, given his expertise, was good enough for Mickey.

‘It’s not what you might have imagined, I get that. But you’ll thank me when you’re doing the job, I promise you that. Fires .22 sub-sonic ammunition. As quiet as a nun’s fart. All you have to do is put a round into his head from a foot away, right? Physics will do the rest.’

He’d frowned at his old schoolmate, looking hard at the small automatic nestled in its foam-lined case. A twenty-four-hour loan to Martin from a fellow dealer. The intra-library loan of the illegal gun trade. Picked up on his way home from Lambeth Road that afternoon.

‘Physics? Isn’t it all physics?’

Martin had shaken his head. Grinning like the conscienceless fixer that life had made him. Life, and, of course, his Auntie Steph.