It did not take long for the shock of what had happened to wear off but the adrenaline rush stayed with him. At last, his nemesis had been neutralised and it was down to the man’s own stupidity. He’d been punching above his weight to think that he could easily pull off such a reckless stunt on a country road in the dark. All it had taken was a split second’s loss of focus for him to come unstuck.

With patrols now on the scene both cars were quickly moved to allow traffic to flow and James handed Sullivan’s gun, which he’d placed into an evidence bag, to a uniform.

Forty-five minutes after Sullivan launched his attack, he was in the back of a police van being taken to Kendal.

Unfortunately, that meant James had no choice but to return to the station so that he could make a statement and see that Sullivan was charged with the attempted murder of a police officer. He would spend the night in a cell and be formally interviewed in the morning, by which time a team from the Met would have arrived to question him about the murder he was believed to have committed in London.

When James finally got home just before midnight, he told the surveillance officers in the car across the road that they were no longer needed. They’d suspected as much, having heard what had happened on the road between Kendal and Kirkby Abbey.

‘My thanks to you and the other crews for making us feel safer these past few days,’ he told them.

Annie was waiting up for him, and the first thing he told her was that Andrew Sullivan had been arrested and would be going back to prison for many years.

Her response to this was to break down in tears of relief. But when he then told her how it had come about the shock hit her so hard that she had to rush to the sink and throw up.

‘I can’t believe he was going to shoot you,’ she said afterwards. ‘And right there in the middle of the bloody road.’

‘I got lucky,’ he said, and then told her that Sullivan’s arrest wasn’t the only reason to celebrate.

‘We had a major breakthrough in the case today,’ he said. ‘Not only do we now know what happened to the Batemans. We also know what really happened at Oaktree Farm twenty-four years ago.’

CHAPTER SEVENTY

Tuesday January 2nd

James and Annie eventually went to bed at 2 a.m. but they continued to talk about Andrew Sullivan and William Nash for at least another hour.

Annie dropped off some time later, but James wasn’t able to. His mind was far too active, with so many thoughts and questions demanding his attention.