He passed a group of teenagers in designer sports wear. One of the boys bumped into him, and he grabbed at the money, paranoid that he was going to be mugged. A look of fear passed across the boy’s face. Jamie was confused. Why did the boy look frightened? He stopped and looked at himself in the side mirror of a parked car. His eyes looked wild; he was gaunt, his cheeks hollow, his lips bruised where he kept biting them. No wonder the teenager had looked so afraid. He must have thought Jamie was a lunatic, or a junkie. Somebody unstable and dangerous: a volcano ready to blow.

Minutes later, he found himself standing on the spot that the man had specified, behind the stadium. There was nobody around; the rain made sure of that. He looked at his watch. Ten to one. He had time for a cigarette.

As he crushed the cigarette out under his boot, he spotted a small girl of about seven or eight coming towards him from the direction of the main road. She was walking straight towards him. But where the hell was the courier? He didn’t want to be pestered by a little kid.

The girl walked right up to him. ‘Neighbour,’ she said. She was tiny, her face pinched and waxen like she’d never really breathed fresh air, like a miniature OAP.

He looked at her, surprised. She held out her hand. ‘Come on,’ she said. ‘I haven’t got all day.’

Jamie reached into his pocket and pulled out the carrier bag containing the bundle of money. All his savings. All his and Kirsty’s savings. He had a sudden glimpse of the absurdity of what he was doing: handing all this money over to a little girl to pass on to two men he had never even met, one of whom might or might not be called Charlie. But what choice did he have? He had to deal with Lucy and Chris. He gritted his teeth in determination. He would not let them win. And this was the only way. The only way.

He gave the girl the money. She ran off, swinging the bag as she went.

Jamie tried to follow her. He wanted to catch sight of the men who would be doing his dirty work, but the girl was too quick. She darted off between two parked cars and ran across the road. A bus went by, obscuring her from view, and when the bus had passed by she had vanished.

Shit.

Oh well, it didn’t matter anyway. In fact, it was probably better that he didn’t know who they were. He didn’t want to know. As long as they did what he paid them for – that was all that mattered.