Joe’s usual calm was badly frayed. His knuckles white from being clenched so hard. His eyes, the usual clue as to his mental state, beyond rage. Lost somewhere in that hinterland where repressed anger slides effortlessly sideways into murderous fury. Richard, sitting on the other side of the table from them, looked as if he was about to swallow his own tongue from sheer terror.

Funny the tricks memory plays on you, Eddie might have mused. If every fibre of his intellect hadn’t been working flat out to keep the fear off his face. Joe’s murderous expression playing havoc with his pulse rate and blood pressure. Because whenever Eddie saw that look, he couldn’t help but reflexively recall the 23rd of November 1999.

Late evening on a cold Tuesday. Rain beating against the roof of Joe’s lockup like constant machine gun fire. More than a lockup, really. More like a spacious workshop turned to Joe’s nefarious purposes. Nicknamed, inevitably, the Batcave. With Joe’s matt black 911 parked in the middle as the Batmobile. Eddie’s equally blacked-out Rangie as backup, and for load carrying. A stout dog guard bolted in for live human transport.

The lockup used for storage, for the most part. Stolen goods in the main. Before Joe had inherited his dad’s empire and specialised in drugs and trafficked women. The years when he had cut his teeth by playing gangster games. Sheltered from grown-up competition under the protective umbrella of his dad’s reputation. Big G having put it about that anyone who messed with his son messed with him.

But the Batcave hadn’t just been intended for use as storage. In one corner of the large space, Joe had built what he called the games room. Twenty feet square, and heavily soundproofed. As proven by Joe bringing in a boombox and playing a Motorhead CD at maximum volume inside the room. The Ace of Spades very distantly audible in the lockup. On the street, nada. A games room that might as well have been on the moon. Lacking any drainage, which, they realised soon enough, was a bit of an oversight. One corrected on the next iteration, in the improved premises they moved into after Big G lost his fight with lung cancer.

So not really just a lockup. And the two men Joe and Eddie had entertained that night not really guests either. Middle-aged chancers. The sort of easily biddable mugs found in boozers and bookies around the world. Desperation leaking from every pore, need driving them to acts of foolishness. One of which had ended up with their being brought back to the Batcave. Tied to chairs, bound but not gagged, to emphasise their helplessness.