At the appointed time, the officers exited their vehicles and carefully clicked the doors shut. They made their way silently twenty yards along the pavement and into the block. Gillard led them furtively up the stairs, but despite his own silent tread he was aware that some of the larger constables didn’t seem to be able to move quietly, each heavy thud accompanied by wheezing. He was staggered at how unfit some serving officers were.

Finally, the gaggle of policemen were squeezed onto the landing. Gillard put his fingers to his lips, and rested his ear to the door of Chivers’ flat.

The heavy breathing and groans were quite distinctive. Gillard found it almost impossible not to laugh. ‘He’s watching porn. I can hear it from here,’ he whispered.

There was a cascade of barely suppressed giggles as the comment was passed from officer to officer. PC Tony Tunnicliffe took the door ram off his shoulder and rested it against his groin, giving some mock thrusts with the four-foot shiny red object against another officer called Craddock, who threatened to punch him by way of retaliation.

‘Shhh!’ Gillard hissed. ‘You’re like a bunch of bloody schoolboys.’ He orchestrated the positions, with Craddock and Tunnicliffe on the ram.

Finally happy, Gillard pounded on the door and bellowed ‘Open up, armed police.’

Tunnicliffe immediately responded with a falsetto cry of ‘Ooh, give it to me big boy!’ He slammed the ram hard into the lock, the door burst open first time, and Gillard raced in. Though the undulating and pistoning flesh on the forty-inch high-definition screen was an arresting sight, the truly unforgettable vision was Nigel Chivers’ balding head wobbling from side to side as he, naked below the waist, ministered to himself. As he turned his face to the intruders he only managed to get two words out before being thrust face and erection down on his own leather settee.

‘Oh fuck.’

Chapter Twenty-three

The previous morning

While his probation officer was waiting for him in Staines, the man now known as Neil Wright sat a few dozen miles away, at a rustic garden table at the Three Feathers pub in Great Missenden with a nearly empty pint of Old Hooky in front of him. It was 11:15 a.m. and the thatched Jacobean tavern, nestled among Buckinghamshire’s Chiltern hills, had only just opened. There were a couple of drinkers at the bar, but no others in the garden. Wright had positioned himself so he couldn’t be seen from the pub and sat with his arms folded and eyes closed to make the most of the sun, which warmed his head and neck. Birds were singing in the trees, and in the distance a motor mower could be heard. The remembrances of summers past stirred in ancient memory, together with more disturbing recollections.