Back in the Focus, James felt his heart speed up as he started the engine. He didn’t want to stay back too far, but Leon and Daniel’s phones were trackable, so losing sight of the VW wouldn’t be a calamity.

A Fiat coming in blocked James for a bit, then a man with a buggy crossing the street. Leon’s tracker signal seemed to have stopped moving. James guessed it was a traffic light, but after three hundred metres and a left on to a service road he saw the VW parked on a cobbled driveway, leading up to a tatty little mews building. Trey’s thug/driver was just shutting the front door.

As James parked across the street and took a laser microphone out of his surveillance kit, so that he’d be able to listen in, Trey shoved Oli against a chewed-up woodwork bench inside.

‘See this vice?’ Trey shouted, holding Oli’s head right up to it. ‘One lie, one smart word and I’m gonna use that to crush every bone in your hand. Understand?’

The twins watched, breathing a touch of sawdust and looking around at a big table saw, a lathe and a bunch of other woodworking equipment. Rusted paint cans and partially completed window frames gave the impression that nobody had worked here in some time.

‘Where are the laptops?’ Trey demanded.

Oli looked scared, but shrugged like he wasn’t. ‘Sold ’em.’

‘To whom?’

‘That’s for me to know,’ Oli said.

Trey grabbed Oli by the back of his neck, lifted him one-handed and slammed him hard on the workbench. Leon and Daniel couldn’t communicate, but both sized the situation up: Trey’s driver was big, but they both thought he could be taken down if they surprised him. Trey was trickier because of the gun, but he’d have a hard job getting the gun out quickly while he was manhandling Oli.

‘You wanna mess with me, brat?’ Trey roared. ‘I’ll kill you.’

‘If you do, you’ll never find your laptops. And what’ll Uncle say when he finds out that you let a schoolboy steal a key to his print shop and trash the place?’

Trey tightened Oli’s wrist behind his back with one hand, while another grabbed a gas-powered framing stapler from a shelf under the bench.

‘Last chance, Oliver.’

‘What’s on the laptops, Trey?’ Oli teased. ‘What’s Uncle gonna say when he finds out you’ve lost ’em?’

The gas-powered stapler had a cartridge filled with heavy-duty staples, strong enough to drive through the thin board that you might find as the base of a drawer, or backing a kitchen cabinet. When Trey pulled the trigger, there was a little explosion and a 10mm staple shot into the back of Oli’s hand.

‘Tell me now or I’ll crucify you,’ Trey roared.

Oli screamed in pain as Trey lined up the stapler to take another shot.