‘It was a long time ago, but I still think about her very often. Brooke and me, that was years later. Anyhow, she left me because I walked out on her, the day before the wedding.’

Grace shook her head. ‘Why did you walk out?’

‘Because a friend needed my help,’ he said. ‘Maybe it was stupid of me. But I couldn’t say no. I had to go.’

‘Like you did for Boonzie,’ she said. ‘Taking risks and making sacrifices for friends in need is obviously a strong character trait of yours.’

‘You’re making me sound like a good person.’

‘Aren’t you?’

‘I’m the wrong guy to answer that question.’

She touched his hand, just briefly, and flashed him a smile. ‘Then let me answer it for you. I don’t think you’re too bad a person.’

‘When this is over, you might see me differently. More people are going to get hurt, Grace. I am going to take an active part in that. I don’t like it much, but it’s going to happen. No way to change it. What we were involved in today, that was just the beginning. And we can’t underestimate our enemy’s intention to hurt us, too. They’re going to fight back with everything they’ve got, and they’re not soft people. One way or another, things are set to get ugly.’

Grace’s smile dropped away and she looked at him seriously. ‘I thought we’d been through this. Are you trying to tell me I shouldn’t be with you?’

‘I’m asking you not to make me responsible.’

‘For me?’

‘For what could happen.’

‘I can look after myself,’ she said.

When they’d finished eating they walked back to the car in silence, fuelled up and then resumed their long journey into the night. Sometime after nine p.m., as the motorway cut between the city of Lancaster to the west and the barren moorlands of the Forest of Bowland to the east, the snow dissipated and turned to icy rain. Beyond Preston they switched motorways onto the M61 and their route curved eastwards towards Manchester. As ten p.m. came and went, with less than an hour to go before they hit the Peak District and the old spa town of Buxton, Ben decided it was time to alert Mad Monty to their imminent arrival.

‘You don’t waste time, Major.’

‘I have none to waste. ETA should be around eleven tonight. What’s your address?’

Montgomery gave him a sat nav coordinate for a location close to a village called Harpur Hill, on the edge of Buxton. ‘There’s a disused, flooded quarry known locally as the Blue Lagoon. I’ll be waiting for you. If you get there first, don’t get too close to the water. It’s blue because of caustic chemicals leaching out of the limestone, and as toxic as bleach.’