‘How did you get through?’ Jock demanded when he saw me.

‘Walked,’ I told him. ‘What’s the crack?’

‘They’re questioning two of the lads now.’

The Central Control Room had a bank of TV monitors ranged high along the front wall, each connected to one of the interrogation rooms. A couple of guys in shirtsleeves were watching them and making notes, exchanging the odd remark.

On one screen was Johnny Pearce, one of our weapons specialists, twenty-eight years old, black-haired and high-complexioned, looking even darker than usual under a couple of days’ stubble. His long eyelashes gave him a deceptively gentle appearance, though in fact he was as hard as they come, and an ace at martial arts. A Scouser, he’d practised kick-boxing ever since he was a kid. He always said he’d needed it to survive in school, fights taking place every day in front of appreciative audiences, and every boy having to look after himself.

Johnny was wearing an open-necked, short-sleeved blue shirt and sitting on an upright wooden chair in the middle of the cell-like room. Facing him across a bare wooden desk sat a detective in a pale grey suit. The camera was looking straight at Johnny from somewhere behind the interrogating officer, whose head and shoulders were visible at the bottom of the screen. Johnny looked tired but calm, and whenever one of the controllers turned up the sound on his channel, his answers sounded perfectly composed.

‘You said you went to school in Worcester?’

‘That’s right.’

‘How come you have a Liverpool accent, then?’

‘Born there. Never lost it.’

‘All right. What was the name of the school again?’

‘Hadlow Comprehensive.’

‘Address?’

‘It’s on Kidderminster Road.’

‘Does it have its own sports fields?’

‘Yes.’

‘Where are they?’

‘Right behind it.’

‘Swimming pool?’

‘I dunno about now, but it didn’t then.’

‘What dates did you say you were there?’

‘Let’s see.’ Johnny paused. ‘I must have gone there in eighty-three, left in ninety-one.’

‘That’s funny.’ The detective’s voice remained level and polite. ‘We’ve checked the records, and they don’t mention anyone called Martin Turner attending between those dates.’

‘Really?’ Johnny raised his eyebrows and looked coolly at the man opposite. ‘You know they had a big fire the year after I left, in the spring? I think a lot of records got burnt.’

‘Well, we’d better check again . . .’

Good on yer, Johnny, I was thinking. Great stuff! I knew his cover story nearly as well as he did, and I could see that he was sticking to it. The home team was probably bluffing: Johnny certainly was, and he seemed sure they were. Since this was Saturday, and in the school holidays, how could they have checked the school records?

‘Good!’ said one of the supervisors in the control room. ‘He’s doing well. I like that.’