‘I need a piss,’ Nick said as he kicked open the door and got out.

A lot of woodland had been erased for the salvage yard. Just inside was a shipping container turned into an office, and there was a dirt tennis court behind it. A wide dirt track led to a large open area split into a grid by short rows of cars stacked high, like walls. The rows might have denoted an orderliness upheld at the start of trading, but deeper in it was obvious to spot where laziness and space-saving became the order of the day. The ground was littered with fragments of cars, the aisles were no longer ruler straight, and here and there loose cars lurked like the homeless. In places walls of cars had toppled and vehicles had been left overturned and smashed. At the back were crushed vehicles and mountainous metal hills.

The high-definition aerial map Nick had studied had also shown him that the line of trees running up to the compound along the side of the road was thin. Behind, a stream that ran parallel right up to the compound wall, then veered left to follow it. The Watson-Bruce clan had utilised as much ground as they could.

He started to walk across the road, towards the trees. He glanced back to see Bennet climbing out of the car. The detective jerked a thumb towards the bushes on the other side of the road.

‘Don’t play about, Nick. Piss this side.’

Probably not the first time a police officer had heard such a line from a guy planning to make a break for it. He wasn’t about to be surprised today.

‘Stop, Nick. Come on, man.’

Nick was in the trees a second later, just feet from the iron fencing. Eight steps later the trees vanished, so abruptly he almost sailed out into the river. The bank was barely wide enough for him. He stumbled along, water a foot to his left, the sagging corrugated fence a foot to his right. He could clearly hear the raid taking place: police yelling for people to stop, come out, put that down, and their targets bellowing their confusion.

A hundred metres along, by which time his ankles were burning because of the sloped, summer-hardened earth, the fence and the river turned sharply right, and immediately around the corner he found a section of the barrier that had been broken and replaced by wood. And not set properly. One side leaned inwards, creating a V-shape that he was able to step through.