The second one, the woman, was called ‘Jocasta’, and she was the least familiar to McCracken. She was somewhere in her mid-thirties and clearly of Maˉori or Polynesian origin. Very handsome, but aggressively so; big-framed, with a statuesque build, dark eyes, strong bone structure, lush black hair done up with carved tribal ornaments, and exotic tattoos adorning her hands, neck, chin and cheeks (and presumably the rest of her). Benny outlined her credentials, which were almost as impressive as her looks. Jocasta was a former ‘sergeant-at-arms and a prime shooter’ for the legendary Highway 61 motorcycle gang in Wellington, New Zealand. When someone asked why she was over here in the UK, Benny B replied that it might be a while before she could reconcile with her former ‘bikie’ pals, given that the last time she was Down Under, she’d wiped three of them out in an argument over beer.

The final guest who wore a vaguely loopy grin, was known only as ‘Ramirez’. He was perhaps less eye-catching than the other two, being tall, lean and though ‘rocking the Jesus look’, as McCracken had once heard it described – which meant that he had longish locks, very dark in colour, possibly dyed, and a similarly dark beard and moustache – it was all neat and trimmed, and his hair tied back in a ponytail. Unusually for someone in this particular line of work, he sported no ink, but even so, at this proximity, he gave off an eerie vibe. His smile looked fixed, his eyes hollow and empty – he was like a dead man, a papier-mâché effigy that you might see in Mexico City on Día de Muertos. And in many ways, that was quite apt, because Ramirez had previously been a hired gun who had worked for various Mexican cartels, clocking up a phenomenal score card of victims.

Like Jocasta, Ramirez was now in Europe because it had finally got too hot for him back home, in his case because the DEA was on his tail, alongside several dozen vengeful sicarios.

As contract killers went, McCracken had seen less conspicuous characters. Even dressed as they were today, as though for formal but routine business, he doubted they could walk down a single street in Manchester, either individually or together, without drawing second glances. But then they were only here for the take-down. The groundwork would mostly be done by his and Benny B’s departments, who knew their way around town; the kill-team would come in for the endgame – which would be a kind of relief. These red-headed blaggers weren’t playing; it was going to take heavy firepower and a brutal willingness to use it in order to counteract them.

Once Benny B had completed his introductions, Pentecost took charge again.