Inadvertently, this ruthless professionalism had helped the Crew, because though taking the target out of sight had clearly been a measure designed to prevent passers-by stopping, and either interfering or maybe, if they’d arrived a little later, assisting the casualties, it had also meant the cops hadn’t got there before a Crew clean-up unit had. Both the couriers had had their mobile phones stolen, but there was a radio console inside the van, from which Brodie, hard-ass para to the end, had managed to call for help – after crawling over there with his legs mangled almost to stumps, and heaving himself up into the cab using his arms alone. His heroism wouldn’t go unrewarded; he’d be on a company pension for the rest of his life, but it wouldn’t console him for the loss of his legs, at least one of which had needed to be amputated.

And nothing was going to console Wild Bill Pentecost.

Okay, the Chairman of the Board hadn’t been known as ‘Wild Bill’ since his youth. He’d strictly forbidden his underlings even to think of him in those terms, quietly advising them that his cowboy days were long behind him. But McCracken couldn’t help wondering if they were shortly to see a resumption of all that.

Butchering the Crew’s loyal employees was one thing. But butchering employees and pinching Crew dollars as well? A mark had just been very drastically overstepped.

Pentecost’s cold voice interrupted McCracken’s thoughts.

‘I see a whole range of blank expressions in front of me,’ he said. ‘Like a bunch of schoolboys who’ve been too busy ogling their sexy maths teacher’s arse to listen to her lesson. Like you fellas don’t have a fucking clue what’s going on. Well … I’ll tell you what’s going on. We’ve got some bad boys on the patch. A regular bunch of renegades. And you lot – my eyes and ears in the world – have no clue who they are, or where they are, or where they’ve come from, or when the fuck they’re going to stop, if they ever do.’ He unexpectedly switched his gaze to McCracken. ‘Nothing from you, Frank? I hear your department particularly lost out during this latest blag.’

‘That’s true, Bill,’ McCracken replied simply.

And it was. Until about a month ago, McCracken had been pulling in some scores. At least ninety grand of the one hundred and fifty lost during the recent drop had come from his operation. Pentecost waited for more, but none was forthcoming.

‘So that’s it?’ he finally said. ‘You shrug your shoulders and get on with life? Not three days ago, you told me that you were going to look into this personally.’

McCracken straightened in his chair. ‘I’ll be honest, Bill … I think we’ve gone about this the wrong way.’

There was an even longer pause than previously.