It wasn’t long before she started snoring so he didn’t have to pretend to be asleep. He was able to lie there on his back with his eyes wide open, his mind wrestling with a growing anxiety.

He was still awake an hour later when a chilling sound reached him from downstairs – the sound of the front door being smashed in.

He knew instinctively what was happening before the shouting started. It was a police raid and they were sure to be mob-handed.

He heard their boots pounding up the stairs and he felt the floor shudder.

Then the landing light went on and there was another crash as the door to one of the other rooms was rammed open.

‘Armed police,’ a voice called out. ‘Stay where you are.’

But Terry was already on the move, throwing off the duvet and leaping off the bed.

As he fumbled for the lamp switch the bedroom door was flung open and Amy screamed.

Terry, naked and disoriented, spun round so fast that he lost his balance and lurched towards a police officer in full body armour who was standing in the doorway. The officer reacted by discharging two bullets in quick succession from his Glock 17 pistol.

Both shells slammed into Terry’s chest and he was thrown onto the floor.

The last thing he heard was Amy screaming, but he died not knowing that she was in the throes of a painful miscarriage induced by shock.

The police officer, a man with three years’ experience in the firearms unit, would later tell an investigation that he thought the suspect was attacking him.

The inquiry would also hear that the raid was one of a number that took place that night on the homes of individuals known to be involved in organised crime.

In Terry’s house the team found a quantity of Class A drugs, a sawn-off shotgun and a total of ten thousand pounds in cash.

They also found a collection of documents and magazines pertaining to a wedding that would now never take place.

PART ONE

1

Laura

Two months later

The man in the dock had already been convicted and this afternoon he was going to be sentenced.

That was why I’d come along on what was supposed to be a rare day off. I wanted to see the bastard’s face when the judge told him how many years he’d have to spend behind bars.

My colleagues and I were hoping for a long, long stretch. If he got less than twenty we’d be disappointed. With any luck he’d die in prison, and since he was in his mid-fifties there was every chance he would.