‘What about prison for the rest of your life? Are you scared of that? I mean, are you serious?’

‘I won’t go to prison. It was a suicide. He was sat on a chair, his hand had been in position so long he was completely numb, he didn’t even know I was pushing his finger on the trigger. No one will ever know it was me who finished the job.’

‘Finished the job! Can you hear what you are saying right now? You have lost your mind!’ Glenn hissed.

‘I think I might have just got it back.’ Richard couldn’t stop smiling. He could feel it pulling at the cut on his lip. ‘I’ve had some kicks in the teeth recently, life’s way of telling me I’m washed up and useless. Maybe I’m not quite so useless after all.’

‘Is that what this is about? Because you didn’t get your job back? When you texted me about that you said you were fine with it …’

‘I couldn’t care less about my job. This was about Angela. I got all the answers, I know what happened. He was gloating about it, Glenn. I saw some messages he sent. My Angela was nothing to him, he was only worried about saving his own skin. He got what he deserved and you know what, I am delighted I got to be the one to do it.’

‘What messages? What the hell happened?’

‘It was all there. All the evidence this guy had found out, everything he knew.’

‘Who is this guy that was there?’

Richard tutted. ‘He wasn’t there, but all the paperwork was, printouts of text messages this piece of shit sent after he had run her down. There was a group of them in the car, they all knew about it, they were all talking about it after. They had to get their story straight.’

‘Rich … Jesus! If you had something like that why didn’t you just take it to the police?’

‘Just hand it over and wait for them to do nothing? I did that before, remember? I spent months chasing them. I went knocking on doors where it happened, to find a witness, and every one of those people I spoke to said they hadn’t seen a police officer. That’s a basic, isn’t it? They didn’t care then and they certainly don’t care now. And besides, they were offered the information, they were told everything I was shown. There was an email, it explained how the police turned the information down. Some officers came out to my house and told me to my face that they didn’t have a clue who killed my wife. But they knew all along! They had it right in front of them but it was just too difficult to bother. They did nothing so I did something.’

‘You shot him? You killed a man?’

‘Yes.’