But when he arrived on their quiet suburban street, there was no one waiting there. Megan, a sales rep in medical supplies, wasn’t even home. The driveway was empty, the street deserted. Even so, he parked on the road in case he’d need a quick getaway.

As he walked warily up his drive, he was numb, intensely aware how vulnerable he was, how vulnerable he’d always been since that foul-mouthed exchange with Frank McCracken. Nothing happened, though – until he reached the front door, where a tiny square of paper had been fastened across the peephole with a glob of Blu Tack.

Fresh sweat running down his spine, O’Grady saw that it was a snippet of newspaper. No ordinary, everyday citizen would have touched it of course; they’d have read it once and then immediately called the police. Not Miles O’Grady. He didn’t have the luxury of being an everyday citizen. He took it down, and after he’d read it once, he read it a second time, and a third, and a fourth. Only then did he turn and walk slowly and heavily back down the drive to his Golf, climb in behind the wheel and drive away, taking the long, meandering route back towards Long Acre.

When he parked, he did so shakily, leaving the vehicle askew against the kerb, fleetingly unconcerned for the first time ever that someone might notice this car and wonder what the heck it was doing here. He crossed the Acre to the garage, opened its side-door and went back down. The light still didn’t come on. But that no longer mattered. And Miles O’Grady was no longer scared of the darkness. If anything, he felt too sick to worry about that.

He shone his phone-light on the wrecked front end of his Jag. He didn’t need to focus hard to see speckles of what looked like clotted blood dotted across the scrunched bodywork, or the threads of torn material dangling from the knots of metal.

‘Good God,’ he breathed.

The slip of newspaper fell from his grasp. It was only a small thing, a clipping from the Breaking column of the Manchester Evening News:

OAP dies in hit and run horror

Greater Manchester Police are appealing for witnesses regarding a fatal hit-and-run accident in Crowley, which occurred just before lunchtime today. Gerald Ormisher (88), of 13 Riverbank View, was knocked down and killed by a speeding vehicle on Oxley Lane, Crowley, at around 10.55am this morning. The vehicle, which has not yet been identified, failed to stop, but Crowley Traffic officers say they are looking for a large silver-grey car, possibly a Jaguar XJ …

Chapter 15