The officer with the worn red battering ram slung over his shoulder walked briskly down the garden path.

It didn’t take long.

Two, three steps and he was at the door, hauling the battering ram from his shoulder and swinging it at the lock in one smooth and brutal motion. The door popped open with the rip and splinter of cheap wood and the officer stood to one side as the rest of us charged into the house, screaming as loud as we could – screaming to pour fear into whoever was on the inside, and screaming to hide the fear in our own hearts.

The two armed officers who went in ahead of me suddenly stopped, still shouting behind their Heckler & Koch assault rifles.

Over the shoulders of their body armour I could see a sickly cat at the end of a suburban hall. It arched its back and hissed, full of cancer and contempt.

A door opened at the end of the hall.

We were screaming again.

An old woman in house slippers slowly shuffled across the hall, ignoring all orders to halt. She did not even look our way.

I saw an old-fashioned hearing aid tucked behind her ear, as huge and pink as a wad of chewed bubblegum. She disappeared through a door on the other side of the hall, the old cat rubbing against her legs as it followed her.

We followed her down the hall and through the door.

In the living room the old woman sat on a sofa with an old man, a biscuit held halfway to his mouth. He elbowed her, and at last she registered our presence. The pair of them stared slack-jawed at the assault rifles that were aimed at their faces. The cat spat at us.

‘Mr and Mrs Peck?’ I said. ‘Where’s your son? Where’s Ian?’

Still they didn’t talk.

There was a small kitchen on the other side of the hall.

‘Clear,’ said an armed officer, coming out of it.

Boots thundered on the staircase. I could hear them moving around upstairs, screaming as they went through doors, and then the silence of disappointment and relief.

I went into the kitchen. There was a small garden out the back. Beyond the high garden fence I could see more black Kevlar helmets and rubber goggles, mouths tight with tension, the dull gleam of Heckler & Koch assault rifles.

Mallory came out of the garden and into the kitchen. Whitestone and a uniformed officer were with him. When the uniform took off his helmet I saw it was PC Billy Greene, his pale face slick with sweat and fear, but controlling it well. The boxing was doing him some good.

The shouting had stopped.

‘Nothing,’ I said.

‘Did anyone check the basement?’ Mallory said.

There was a wooden door just outside the kitchen. No lock, paint flaking. I opened it, reached inside and found the switch for the light.