The one on the left was of average height and broadly built, while the one on the right was equally broad but a little taller. Both wore dark clothing, including black leather jackets, but also scarlet woollen ski-masks with holes cut only for their eyes. Each was armed with what looked distinctly like a sub-machine gun, the two weapons levelled on him.

Strangely, almost as quickly as the shock had hit Lazenby, it subsided.

All along, he’d perhaps expected something like this. It hadn’t seemed terribly probable, not in that safe, average, everyday world that Lazenby’s success had lulled him into believing he still occupied. But there’d still been that constant, nagging doubt, which is why the stuff had been ready to move at a moment’s notice.

‘What … what do you mean, this is yours?’ he stammered, breathing hard from his exertion. He hadn’t yet given up on the idea that a deal could be made. Maybe they were simply testing him here?

‘Just what we say, arsehole,’ the taller one said. ‘The bag.’

As if to emphasise that this wasn’t a joke, the shorter one raised his weapon to chest height and squinted along its barrel. Helpless to do otherwise, Lazenby rocked forward on the balls of his feet, and hurled the heavy sports bag over the two or three yards between them.

The taller one let his firearm swing from a shoulder strap while he hunkered down and tugged the holdall’s zip open. Almost immediately, he glanced up. Lazenby could only see his eyes – which were colourless in the dimness – but he had no doubt there was a smile behind that woollen visage.

‘Good lad,’ came the voice.

The taller one drew something out of his jacket pocket, which, when he unrolled it, turned out to be a black canvas sack. Almost casually, he began cramming the blocks of cash inside it.

‘Seriously?’ Lazenby said as he watched. ‘This is the whole plan? A chicken-feed robbery? I thought you guys were supposed to be businessmen. Have you any idea how much money we could make if we reached some kind of agreement?’

They didn’t bother to reply.

Lazenby’s sweat rapidly cooled in the October night. His thoughts swam like directionless fish. There was still no need for despair. They weren’t for playing ball at present, but that didn’t mean they wouldn’t do in due course. These two were just crude muscle, no doubt; a pair of paid thugs. Making deals didn’t figure in their remit. And that really could not be the end of it. The Crew hadn’t got to the top of the criminal tree by knocking off a bit of bent gear here and there.