It was time, if they stuck to their routine. Joe’s empire being not much more than one big cash collection scheme. Drugs and prostitutes, both trafficked, bought cheap, then sold as expensively as possible. For cash. And only for cash. Until such time as the government decided to take cash away from the citizenry, Joe would take full advantage of its ubiquity.

Pocketfuls of cash, flowing to collection points around the borough. Subject to spot audits by Joe’s enforcers. And any discrepancy left unexplained – which meant any discrepancy, in practice – got the miscreant a warning. And in Joe’s empire, warnings weren’t meant to be forgotten. They left marks. Scars. And there was never, ever, a second warning. Only examples. Which made for a squeaky-clean system of accounting, at the street end of the pipeline.

Pocketfuls of cash became bags of cash, shipped to the flat on the top floor of the block above him for processing. Tens of thousands of pounds a day. Machine-counted, bundled, re-bagged and collected. Driven away to a secure location, which changed every few weeks at random intervals. Recounted, vacuum-sealed and shipped across the Channel. Converted into gold and then shipped to the Middle East. Becoming clean money. A lot of clean money even at fifty cents on the dollar. A month later half of it would be in one of Joe’s offshore accounts as euros, or dollars, or Swiss francs. But not today. Today Mickey was going to blow the doors right off Joe’s money machine.

It was Steve who’d first told him about the collection routine a couple of months earlier. Having discovered the detail from a snout. And, having reported it to his DI, been told to quietly forget it. His DI being Jason Felgate. He’d recounted the story to Mickey over a quiet pint one afternoon. Still fuming.

‘It’s already known to SCD7, apparently. Which means that it’s over my pay grade. And if any of my dirty footprints get found by Serious and Organised, that’s me doing my last two years in uniform.’

Mickey had noted the information. Confident that Jason was pulling Steve’s pisser. That Serious and Organised Crime were nowhere near to getting on top of the Castagna gang. And wondering why Jason was warning his own detectives off such an obvious opportunity. Coming to the only possible conclusion. His old mate Jase no longer being someone he could trust.

He’d bribed an Amazon delivery van driver to let him ride onto the estate in the back with the parcels. A hundred quid in cash, and no questions asked. Mickey had slipped from the van and into a stairwell whose exit was only a few yards from the Astra. Taken up position with Martin’s MP5SD loaded, the first round chambered. Ready to go.