I turned away from him, trying to clear my head, and as I did, I started to realize how cold it had got, the wind whipping in off the moors, the sun lost behind streaks of bruised cloud. Somehow, the drop in temperature – the chill in the air – all felt right. I needed to come up with something. I needed a plan.

I needed to head this off.

Suddenly, my phone shattered the silence. I looked down at the display: it was Ewan Tasker calling me back about Mills, about the registration plate I’d given him.

‘Hey, Task.’

‘Raker,’ he said, by way of a response.

There was something in his voice.

‘What’s the matter?’

‘I don’t know. I’ve just had déjà vu, that’s all.’

‘Déjà vu?’ I frowned. ‘What do you mean?’

‘Your guy, Isaac Mills, he’s an ex-cop.’

I quickly processed the information and started making it fit. If he was an ex-cop, that probably meant he was on the payroll at Seiger and Sten as an investigator.

‘Fifteen years in Lancashire Constabulary,’ Task went on. ‘I’ve been into the PNC and he’s got no record, no cautions, no formal warnings or reprimands; there’s nothing pending. No court orders, no driving convictions. His only registered vehicle is the Lexus you gave me the plate for. Like I say, fifteen years in the Lancashire Constab and a pretty good reputation from what I’ve been able to find out. A guy I used to know on a Major Investigation Team down in Lambeth works up in Preston now, and he’s done some asking around for me. He says people remember Mills as a good cop. Professional, hard-working, smart. Could be a bit of a loner sometimes, didn’t socialize much, but then that doesn’t mean anything. I’ve known plenty of cops who socialize. They’re normally the biggest arseholes.’

He paused briefly, obviously reading from some of the notes he’d made.

‘Anyway,’ Task went on, ‘he’s divorced with no kids, and it says down here that he was at Lancashire Constabulary from 1996 to 2011, and spent most of that time working major crime. His current address is in Keighley. You want it?’

‘Yeah, definitely.’

He read it out to me.

‘Oh, and his DOB is the 4th of November 1966,’ Task said.

‘Did your guy say what Mills went on to do after he left the police?’

‘Private sector, apparently.’

‘Any idea what?’

‘My guy didn’t know, but he thought it might have been some sort of security job. You know, advising on surveillance and protection, that sort of thing. A lot of ex-cops go that route: the pay’s better, and you leave most of the stress at the door. But he wasn’t a hundred per cent sure. The day Mills left was the last day any of them ever saw him.’

Surveillance and protection.