‘I imagine you’ve been in this situation before,’ he said, his voice small, quieter now. ‘A man like you, the job you do. You kick enough hornets’ nests, you expect to get stung, right?’ He glanced again at the empty wall, clearly not expecting an answer from me. ‘You’ve developed a tough hide. I mean, you have to. The kind of cases you take on …’ He trailed off. ‘You’ve clearly already gone digging, so you know I used to be a cop, and let me tell you, Raker: people like you, they’re a cop’s worst nightmare.’

I didn’t say anything.

‘Someone with determination,’ he said, ‘someone who can dig around and not worry about getting dirty – worse, someone who can pick up failed cases and unlock them … No police force in the land is going to like that. They’re frightened of you, you know that? And probably with good reason. You make people nervous. It’s a quality.’

I watched him, but he really seemed to mean it.

‘I’m glad you think so,’ I said. ‘Is that why you’ve brought a shotgun with you?’

It came out of nowhere, a movement so fast I barely even registered it, nerves exploding in my face as he jammed the heel of the weapon into my cheek. He used it like a battering ram, pain exploding in the right side of my face, in my eye socket, sparks of the same fire flaring in my ear and jaw. The force of the strike sent the chair rocking back on its legs, the whole thing tilting and then falling; I went with it, slamming against the wooden floorboards, the whole room seeming to pitch. Dazed, I instinctively put a hand up to protect myself from another attack.

But there wasn’t one.

He just stayed where he was.

I shuffled away from him on my hands and feet, like a spider scuttling for the shadows. But again he didn’t move, just watched me, the shotgun back in position.

‘I could kill you here,’ he said, looking from me to the weapon. ‘I could put a hole in your chest the size of a dinner plate, but that’s problematic when you’ve got a journalist sniffing around.’ He meant Connor McCaskell from the Tribune, the man Healy and I had talked about – and been recorded discussing – at the farmhouse. Mills stopped, running a tongue along his teeth, like something sour was in his mouth. ‘If I kill you here, or make you disappear, it means questions, and journalists are like bacteria. Questions are what they feed on. You can try to stop the spread, try to cut off a food source, but they just keep coming. This arsehole looking into you is a case in point.’ He paused and let out a frustrated breath. ‘No, men like you, you need to be brought to heel in other ways.’