But Tony refused to change the name. Too much Sicilian pride, too much love for the old country. Plus, it was Tony’s band. A good band too. They were offered a recording contract, on the understanding that they’d change the name. No dice. Tony wouldn’t hear of it. They broke up the same day. Joe was eighteen. His big break had come early, only for pride to take a massive Sicilian dump on it. Che sarà. He took his guitar down to the River Aire and threw it in. A few months later he was enrolling at Nottingham University.

Jane Shaw had the bearing of someone who’d been drinking steadily all day without getting drunk. The house stank of cigarette smoke. She looked awful. But there was no choice. He was already running out of time. All that stuff about one-sixty-six? No one else cared about small-time drug dealer Craig Shaw. He’d be allowed to slip through the cracks. It had to be now.

‘Right,’ he said, sitting on the sofa and noting once again how comfortable it was, ‘Craig had a BMW. But we have evidence that he’d been using your car for the last few weeks. Tell me why.’

‘I…’ she said, fumbling for a cigarette. ‘His was broken.’

‘No. Tell me now. He was using your car so that no one would know it was him, right? The people who were threatening him?’

She sighed, nodded.

‘These people, they came here, to this house?’

She nodded again.

‘Describe them.’

‘Two blokes. Heavy, y’know.’

‘How old were they?’

‘One youngish, twenties? The other one was older. Big, they were. Nasty.’

‘What about their hair?’

She thought about it.

‘Short. Shaved. Both of them.’

‘Did they threaten you directly in any way? Or make threats about Craig?’

She took a while.

‘They’d been posting the stuff through the letterbox. And ringing. Said they’d been watching him. Tell him to stop or they’d take care of him.’

‘When was this?’

‘About three weeks ago. Maybe a bit longer.’

‘That was when Craig switched cars?’

‘Yeah. I told him to. I was scared. I didn’t know what…’

‘They said they’d take care of him. Did they make a specific threat to kill anyone? This is important, Jane.’

She took a breath, straining to remember.

‘They’d sort him out for good. That’s what they said.’

He showed her photos of Cullen’s sidekicks. Not surprisingly, Daz and Ranksy both had police records. He’d downloaded the mugshots last night.

As soon as she looked at the phone, tears welled up in her eyes.

‘That’s them. Did they kill him?’

He stood to leave.

‘Ring me if anything else comes to mind. We’ll get ’em, Jane. OK?’

As he got to the door his phone pinged. A text message from Rita:

We have lift-off!

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