‘Jesus, Rich … you’re not a soldier anymore! You don’t just get away with that, not people like us, not in the civvi world.’

‘I’m not stupid, Glenn.’

‘This isn’t about stupid. I wouldn’t have the first idea how to get away with something like that. You’ve seen the telly, the forensics they do, the resources they have!’

‘It was suicide. He was tied to a chair. I just turned up and pulled the trigger and then I left. Some abandoned building. No one else was there, no one’s been there for a long time.’

‘And you just left him there?’

‘There were instructions. It said I should just leave and this man was going to take it from there, leave it so it looked like a suicide.’

‘This man? What man? Who is this man that you’re suddenly trusting with your life? What’s his name?’

Richard hesitated. His mind flashed with doubt for the first time since he had pulled that trigger. ‘I don’t know his name. I get the impression that you don’t necessarily swap contact details for this sort of thing.’

‘So a stranger just comes out of nowhere and tells you he’s solved a mystery that the police couldn’t solve in eighteen months, then he offers you the chance to shoot a man in a chair. And you take it, just like that. No questions?’

‘They could have solved it, just not in a way that would work in the legal system. This was the only thing left, it was all there, I didn’t have any questions left, trust me. It was all very clear. This man ran my Angela down in cold blood. And when she lay dying on the floor he drove off to save his own skin.’ Richard leaned back, his mind turning to memories, but this time the images in his mind weren’t so pleasant. ‘She was lying on a damp pavement with her arm wrapped round Missy. Angela …’ Richard took a moment; his flush of anger had turned to upset. ‘I know she was conscious when someone finally saw her and stopped. She was even speaking. They had to pull our dead dog out from her grip. Can you imagine what the last minutes of her life were like for her? For my wife?’

‘No,’ Glenn said, his tone resigned, his head shaking.