‘Solomon and Wilson’s camper,’ Mills said. ‘It was why we never put it back on the driveway. It was why we took it that night and sent it to the crusher. By the end of the evening, it was full of nine people’s DNA – full of ours too – and not only that: we figured, if the camper van was the only vehicle missing, it would point the finger of suspicion at Solomon and Wilson.’

It was so simple.

‘And no one put up a fight?’

Mills looked down at his gun. ‘We went there in masks, we were armed, we were shouting and screaming at them the whole time, putting weapons to their heads and telling them we’d blow their brains out if they did anything stupid …’ He sniffed, glanced at me. ‘They were just ordinary people. Four of them were pensioners and one of them was barely even an adult. They were terrified. Vale tied them up, gagged them and took them out two at a time to the camper van, then he drove them back up to the main road, dumped them in the van and returned. Four times he did that, and then the fifth time he took Patrick. And do you know what I did? I just stood there in the kitchen throughout all of it, pointing my gun at these people I knew weren’t ever coming home again, and tried not to hear them begging.’

The emotion played out in his eyes.

‘Why didn’t you stop Vale?’ I asked.

‘And then what?’ he fired back, anger flashing in his face now. ‘I’d taken over three hundred grand from him already, sorting out all these little problems for him: when people asked too many questions, or started sniffing around, or he just decided that he didn’t like someone, there I was to shut them down: this anonymous voice at the end of an untraceable line, waving some past indiscretion in front of them that would land them in deep shit. That’s what I was. That’s all I did for him. I dug into lives, found these ruinous things – and I used them to help Vale maintain his lie.’

‘You were scared of him,’ I said.

He looked at me like I was insane: ‘Of course I was fucking scared of him. He was a monster, and I was in debt to him. If I walked away, he’d ruin me or kill me. He told me he kept a hidden record of everything I did, so even if I made a move, there was all this shit on me, just waiting to be found, even after he was six feet under the ground. I’d taken all that cash from him, I’d kept silent, I’d destroyed lives. There was no escape.’ Except, perhaps, through someone else, which was why he’d left the key for me.