It perhaps wasn’t a fool-proof process but it had served the Crew well for over a decade, with nothing ever going wrong. So, on the afternoon of Thursday November 2, there was no reason at all to take any additional precautions. On this particular day, the transportation duty from Whiston to Knutsford fell to Sam Brodie, a Glaswegian ex-paratrooper who’d worked for the Crew since he’d left the army eight years earlier, and Marty Culvin, a Humberside-born former wrestler and one-time organiser of football violence, who’d now graduated to bigger and better things. As always, to maintain an appearance of normality, having collected the cash from the dog-grooming salon, they would drive first to a Crew-owned garage at Lymm, where they would change into smart uniforms and caps (their pistols concealed in armpit holsters), and continue the journey in a van mocked up to look as if it was part of an official delivery service.

Brodie and Culvin were in relaxed mood as they drove the wooded backroads between Lymm and Knutsford – it took longer that way, but it was deemed better than using the main roads – chatting and bantering as always. And being taken completely by surprise when a rusty old truck, a ramshackle thing that could barely support itself on four rickety wheels, came rumbling out of a layby and jammed its brakes on right in front of them.

The delivery van shrieked to an unceremonious halt.

Brodie, the ex-military man, counselled caution. But Culvin, always quicker to lose his temper, leapt out.

A short burst of warning gunshots split the air.

Culvin spun around. A figure had emerged from the hedgerow on the right, wearing a black leather jacket, dark jeans and a vivid scarlet ski mask with holes cut for the eyes. More worrying, than this, he wielded what looked like a sub-machine gun.

Brodie spotted this in the rear-view mirror, but before he could respond, the truck driver had come upon the delivery van’s front-offside. As Brodie tried to shift the van into reverse, his window imploded and a steel muzzle was jammed into his cheek.

Rigid with fear, he rolled his eyes sideways, and was incredulous to see a SIG-Sauer MPX. When he glanced up, an identically clad figure to the first, but slightly taller, leaned in at him.

‘Right hand spread on the wheel,’ the bandit instructed. ‘Where I can see it.’

Brodie’s right hand was already on the wheel, so he kept it there and expanded his fingers.

‘Left hand,’ the bandit said. ‘Take the gun out … very, very slow. Fingertips only … I mean it, mate, you do otherwise, it’s the end of you.’

Brodie had survived two combat tours in Iraq and Afghanistan, so though he counted himself a brutal, mean-spirited kind of guy, he also knew from experience when he was facing a cold-blooded killer.

He complied.

‘That’s it … nice and slow,’ the bandit said. ‘Give it here.’