Eddie pulled up a few doors away from the address. He glanced around to make sure nobody was about, then got out of his Range Rover. ‘Does he live here with anyone?’ he asked Gary.

‘Dunno. The geezer never said.’

Ed grabbed his baseball bat from under the back seat. It was a standing joke between him and the boys that they carried the full baseball kit around with them. They even had catcher’s mitts and a helmet complete with ear flaps. They’d got tugged a good few years back, just before Ed had got put away, and the filth had swallowed the lie that Gary was training to become a professional baseball player. They’d cracked up for days over that one.

‘You knock,’ Eddie ordered Ricky, as he stood to the side of the porch and placed the bat beside the wall.

‘Is Colin in?’ Ricky asked, as a plump, dark-haired bird with big knockers answered the door.

‘No, I think you’ve got the wrong house. My fella’s called John,’ she said.

‘This is definitely the right address,’ Ricky insisted.

The woman shook her head. ‘We’re not from round here, we’re from East London. We only moved here two weeks ago, so maybe you’re looking for the previous tenant.’

Eddie poked his head around the porch door and smiled. The mention of East London had given it away; Colin was obviously using a different Christian name and was now calling himself John. ‘Where is your bloke, out of interest? Can I have a word with him? You never know, he might have a forwarding address for Colin. We need to contact him because his mum has died and it’s her funeral on Friday.’

‘Are you three policemen?’ the woman asked.

‘Yes, love,’ Ed said politely.

‘You’ll find my John in a pub called the Victoria Inn. Spends half his life in there since we moved here, he does. His surname is Griffiths,’ the woman said laughing.

Eddie grinned at the woman, then walked away. ‘Thank you, you’ve been most helpful, and I’ll tell you something else, if I had a pretty woman like you indoors, I wouldn’t be spending all my time in a pub.’

The woman giggled, waved and closed the front door.

Eddie, Gary and Ricky walked back to the Range Rover. They all knew that John Griffiths was actually Colin. The dickhead was even using his own surname.

‘We passed that boozer on the way ’ere, it’s only a couple of minutes down the road. What I suggest is yous two go in and bring the cheeky cunt outside. I’ll wait in the motor and then we’ll take him for a nice little ride.’