CLARKE saw something up ahead. Smoke. Still, he continued at the same speed, his Camry purring along at 3000 rpm. He could soon see that the smoke was coming from cars. Two of them. A crash. His eyes darted from the road to the scanner as he flicked through the channels. Nothing. All petty crime, misdemeanours and a boring surveillance operation that hadn’t turned into a raid like he had hoped. He was about to be the first on scene.

He was about a hundred metres away when he knew it was serious. One car, a Nissan SUV, was in the ditch, the other, some crap Korean compact, on the shoulder. A Kia, he confirmed as he got closer. Or what was left of one anyway. He saw the woman when he was about fifty metres away. Bloodied, she was staggering up the bank. As Clarke powered past, she was on the side of the road with her hand out.

Clarke knew he was different. That not stopping to help an injured lady was not normal. Especially when he had medical training. He didn’t know if it was bad wiring that had made him this way or the job. The things he had seen. The things he had done. He didn’t do anything to be cruel intentionally. He just wasn’t interested in anything that wasn’t part of his plan. And he didn’t have time to stop: he had to get his package to Turner at the drop point.

‘ETA twenty minutes,’ Clarke barked into his hand-held radio.

Halim’s death had been a blow. No doubt. It was Halim who was going to pay for the phones. The transaction would have led them to his money. To the cell’s money. To the people with the bombs. But Jax had done exactly the right thing by eliminating him. In fact, he had done outstandingly well: few would have been able to execute an untraceable kill on the spur of the moment and thereby save the entire operation. The kid had serious talent.

Clarke had to stop himself from smiling when he delivered the news to the Director. While Halim’s death was a setback in the Church Bombing case, it was a milestone for Project Mnemonist. Clarke’s plan for Jax was working. Prison had turned him into the killer he had to be. His empathy had been crushed.

‘I’ve instructed him to supply the phones on credit,’ Clarke said. ‘We will get ears on them and then worry about the money trail.’