It ate at him, his failure to track down the culprit. Charlie had already poked around, seen what was going on, but drawn a blank so he’d asked Terry to go over the whole thing again. But still – nothing. Terry arrived home at the gatehouse day after day, wrung out, frustrated, to tell Jill that he’d questioned dockers, talked to their insiders in the port authorities, done everything he damned well could, and still come up with a big fat zero. This was his job, covering Charlie Stone’s back. He’d sworn to do it, right from when they were kids, and he was going to go on doing it while he still had breath left in his body. So to fail in this task was monumental for him. It killed him.

They were sitting at the kitchen table. Dusk was coming down and the lights were on. They were eating stew. Nothing fancy. Terry had never developed a taste for posh food like Charlie. He was telling Jill, not for the first time, how frustrating he found it, that he wanted to track the bastard down who’d done it, shopped them once again, caused them such trouble.

Suddenly Jill put down her knife and fork and looked him dead in the eye.

‘It was me,’ she said.

Terry’s fork was halfway to his mouth. His hand froze, mid-air. He stared at his wife.

‘You what?’ he said, thinking he must have misheard her.

‘I did it from a phone box in town. I told the police that the consignment was coming in and that there would be drugs in it. I did it the first time, too.’

Terry put the fork down. His eyes were fixed on her face. He couldn’t believe what he was hearing. He felt like he’d been gut-punched.

‘For God’s sake, why?’ he managed to get out at last.

Jill picked up her glass and took a long pull of wine. Then she said: ‘Come on, Terry. This business. You don’t like it any more than I do.’

That much was true. He’d known and understood the heavy game on the rob. This was something very different. But for fuck’s sake!

‘You grassed Charlie up?’ he gasped out. ‘You mad, girl?’

‘People die on this stuff he brings in. You know that, don’t you. And we live well on the back of that. We’re dealing in death. It’s wicked. There’s no other word for it. It was playing on my mind. So I . . . I did it.’

That wasn’t the full story – not by a long shot – but it was as much as she could bear to tell him.