‘All right. We can’t have an open call, then. Keep the police feed running, and text me if there’s a problem.’

‘What are you going to do?’

‘Get some answers, hopefully.’

Beauden was still looking at him. ‘This isn’t like throwing rocks at the Q-train. This is serious shit.’

‘Yeah, tell me about it. You should’ve been there this morning.’

Beauden looked away.

Vincent said, ‘I told you I’m not making you be part of anything. And that’s still the case.’

Beauden licked his lips. Vincent couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen the man appear uncertain. He could ride gunner in a Humvee and shoot insurgents in cities on the other side of the world. But this seemed to be a new frontier.

Beauden said, ‘You take a loaded gun into a house and threaten people, that’s prison time.’

‘I have a feeling they won’t press charges.’

‘Maybe.’

Vincent said, ‘Look, they murdered three people this morning, and I could’ve been number four.’

‘I’m worried there’s still time for your number to come up.’

Vincent said, ‘Hopefully I’m going to walk in, and then walk out again ten minutes later. Just stay back here. They might have cameras.’

He got out and slung the shotgun upright on his shoulder by the strap and walked along the street to where the Navigator was parked. No cars, no pedestrians. The house was a two-storey Spanish-style place with a terracotta roof and orange plaster. An eight-foot concrete wall across the yard, and a cast-iron vehicle gate across the driveway. Another cast-iron section for the pedestrian door.

He put his hands on top of the wall and raised himself up, forearms popping vertical like a gymnast on Russian bars. The place on the left was hosting a party by the sound of it—high-tempo bass coming from inside, the walls dulling it to a cyclic buzz-rattle. He started to jack himself into a crouch on the top of the wall, and that’s when he heard the car: the soft hiss of tyres coming down the street. He thought briefly about dropping back, but a man with a shotgun against a concrete wall was a hard thing to miss. He got both feet on top of the wall, and as he jumped the headlights panned across him—a brief flash as the vehicle passed, shadows stretched and myriad and then gone—and he landed in the yard with a thump, and the tyres hissed on down the road and were silent.

Shit, what sort of goddamned luck was that? Now there wouldn’t be another car for thirty minutes, probably.

Maybe they saw him, maybe they didn’t.