‘Mike found it on the floor of the car and gave it to me when I turned up there,’ he said. ‘I figured you wouldn’t want the Old Bill to get their hands on it.’

‘Good thinking,’ Slack said.

Mike had only been unconscious for a few minutes after the guy slugged him with the gun. As soon as he came around he called Danny before phoning the police. The car was now being subjected to forensic examination, along with the mechanic’s workshop in Peckham.

In addition four London coppers were being questioned on suspicion of kidnap, causing grievous bodily harm and conspiracy to commit murder.

For Slack it was proof that every dark cloud had a silver lining.

They arrived at Slack’s apartment twenty minutes after leaving the hospital.

‘Don’t bother to come up,’ he told Danny. ‘I’ll be all right. I want you to go home and call the lads. Tell them not to hassle me tonight on pain of death. And arrange a meeting for tomorrow. I’ll answer all their questions then.’

Before Danny drove off, Slack asked him if he’d sent the latest text message.

‘I put it on a timer,’ Danny said. ‘It went out when we were supposed to be having lunch. Just like you wanted.’

It was seven o’clock when he entered his apartment – six hours after he was abducted.

A drum was beating in his head, and he was sore all over. He checked himself in the mirror and saw that he still looked as bad as he felt. His bottom lip was swollen, and there was a large bruise beneath his left eye. His mind flashed back to just before the cops came bursting through the doors of the workshop. Marsden had been threatening to snap his fingers off with an adjustable wrench. And that would have been just the start. God only knew what else the cunt would have done.

So he could hardly complain about a few bruises and a tender gut, especially when the cancer was eating away at his insides anyway.

He stripped off, took a shower, then slipped on his dressing gown. While he was doing this, his phone rang several times and he heard the pings of incoming text messages.

He didn’t bother to find out who had tried to get in touch until he was sitting in front of the telly with a large Scotch and a Cuban cigar.

By now the pain in his head had lulled to a dull, persistent throb, and he was glad he hadn’t stayed at the hospital. At least here he could do what he usually did to relax and think. And there was a lot to think about. Like when to acknowledge that he’d achieved his objective. When to tell Rosa Lopez she could go home. When to take the gun from the safe and use it to put himself out of his misery.