The man ostentatiously plucked out a note. It was red in colour.

Surely not…

Dave swallowed and wondered if he was seeing things. His heart began to beat a little harder.

The man bent down and dropped the note in Dave’s metal cup, alongside the ten- and twenty-pence pieces. ‘Merry Christmas,’ he said.

Dave stared at it, speechless. It was indeed a fifty-pound note. He picked it up. It was real. Crisp and firm. He wasn’t dreaming. Rarely, if ever, did he get to handle one of these. It was miracle enough when he got given a fiver but this was something else. Merry Christmas indeed.

He looked up, stunned with gratitude, but the couple were now walking away, sauntering across the street. He hadn’t even had the opportunity to say thank you.

He looked back down at the note. What sort of person carried around that kind of cash? The bloke must be properly loaded to give away fifty quid just like that.

Fifty quid. His mind swam with the possibilities. This was a game changer. Now he could pay for a warm bed to sleep in tonight. Or he could buy something decent to drink at last. Maybe a nice whisky like Talisker or Highland Park. Or get himself a big slap-up meal. Hell, he could even go into that restaurant right now and order a big juicy steak.

Fingering the note lovingly, he looked up in teary-eyed gratitude at the couple. They were now immersed once more in conversation. Dave suddenly glanced around vigilantly. Best put the money out of sight before some street person or mugger noticed it and tried to take it from him. He quickly tucked the note inside his grubby coat.

Regarding the couple again, he saw that they had now crossed the road and had come to a halt by a parked car about a hundred metres away. It was an S-Type Jaguar. The classiest one out of all the cars parked there.

At that point, a recollection tugged at Dave’s memory. Something about that particular car, that S-Type Jaguar… But then it passed. What with the cold and the residual alcohol in his system, the neurons in his head were moving too sluggishly to be able to do their job properly.

The couple got into the car. The doors slammed shut.

BANG.

The S-Type Jaguar exploded in a huge fireball.

Dave felt a wave of heat scorch his face.

He blinked in shock as pieces of twisted burning wreckage crashed down on the pavement around him. A lump of smoking flesh landed, plop, right in front of him. It was a human arm attached to a piece of torso. Still fastened to the wrist of the severed body part was the big pricey-looking watch he’d noticed the man wearing just moments earlier.

Dave looked on in horror, his ears ringing in the aftermath of the blast.

At least it wasn’t so cold any more. Quite the opposite.

2

Detective Constable Bailey Morgan unfurled the piece of paper that had just fallen out of the end of the Christmas cracker.