“Pursue. Stop them, hold them, tell anyone you’re police. I’m a minute away at most.” And then Lucas put on speed, traffic blarting at him as he dashed between cars.

“Got you,” said Josef, and then, “Who the fuck—”

A sound like a gunshot.

“Josef?” Lucas pressed, still running. “Speak to me, Joe.”

“Holy shit.” All of Terrence’s keen had just evaporated. “Holy shit.”

“Report, man,” Lucas snapped.

“This big guy, he just…stepped out from behind a van…”

Lucas was in sight of the place now: there was a forecourt of cheery red Post Office vehicles. He caught sight of Terrence first: the man had his gun out, right there in the open, but was backing off. If he were a dog his tail would be well and truly between his legs. A half-dozen pounding steps closer and Lucas saw Josef, or his body: his six feet, four inches were stretched out, utterly motionless.

There was a big man standing over him, wearing a long dark coat that somehow made a shadow of him despite the bright daylight. He had a woollen hat pulled down low to his beetling brows, and he was broader than Josef had been. He was the same clown who’d made such a mess of Billy White’s boys, Lucas was sure of it.

“He just hit him,” Terrence breathed in Lucas’s ear. “He stepped out and straight-armed Joe, right in the chest. I heard his fucking ribs break, man. Nobody can do that.”

Fuck it, Lucas thought. He stepped past Terrence and shot the clown in the chest. The fire alarm was still screeching and the staff of Mount Pleasant were spilling onto the street. The sound of the shot dissolved in the chaos, and Lucas was more worried about failing Rove than attracting the police.

His hand was steady. He hit his target dead centre of that broad torso, slamming the man into the happy red of a postie’s van.

Terrence was running towards the postal centre, past Lucas’s target, but as he tried to dodge the fallen man, he caught an open-handed slap hard enough to actually spin him head over heels.

For a moment Lucas stared at the big man, who was levering himself off the dented van. His dark coat hung open and there was a hole in his grimy T-shirt. Lucas saw something lead grey underneath the gleaming metal circle that was his flattened bullet. A sudden stab of unfairness hit him, because some of that formidable bulk was streamlined body armour.

But as he was trying to sight on the thug’s unprotected face, the man moved shockingly fast for such a bulky figure. He dodged between the vehicles and vanished into the sorting centre without giving Lucas a clear shot.