The incident had happened years earlier, when four men from their SAS unit had been on a night-time counterterror training surveillance exercise on a council estate. Ben, Wolf and their team-mates had been armed with automatic weapons loaded with live ammunition, for realism. About two in the morning, one of the lads had spotted a gang of teenage delinquents who were trying their luck with every van on the estate, looking for tools they could pinch. As the young crooks worked their way closer and closer, Ben and his SAS comrades hoped they would pass them by, for fear of ruining the exercise. But such hopes had been in vain.

‘I’ll never forget their faces when they opened up the back doors and found themselves staring into four submachine gun muzzles.’ Wolf chuckled. ‘What a slapping we gave those morons.’

‘You ever miss those days?’ Ben asked him.

‘Sometimes,’ Wolf admitted.

‘Should ask to sign back up. They’d have you in a heartbeat.’

‘Hey, I don’t miss it that much.’

At 3.20 the first vehicle rolled into the church car park, the funeral director in his black mini-van. Five minutes later the procession arrived. First in the sombre line was the gleaming hearse with the flower-covered coffin in the back. Behind it was a Bentley with dark windows. Several more cars brought up the rear. The procession parked outside the church. With great solemnity the pall-bearers unloaded the coffin from the hearse and carried it into the church. Then the Bentley’s doors opened and out stepped Tristan Dudley and his weeping wife. Clarissa Dudley was a slender and attractive woman, younger than her husband at around forty, but her terrible grief had aged her twenty years. The couple were escorted by a pair of square-shouldered close protection operatives in black suits and ties. Four more of them were riding in the black Jaguar SUV behind. They parked beside the Bentley and discreetly took their positions while the Dudleys followed the coffin inside the church. The minister came out to meet them, to offer condolences to the grieving mother and shake hands with Tristan Dudley, who was playing his role of stoical suffering to perfection.

Wolf shook his head in disgust. ‘Dudley, you piece of shit. Fucker should get an Oscar for this performance.’

By now the car parks were both full, but everyone was too preoccupied and upset to pay the slightest attention to the grey Skoda. A long line of mourners filtered inside the church doors. A media camera crew who had arrived to grab some sneak footage of the occasion were intercepted by the security team and brusquely turned away. The church doors closed.