He couldn’t work out how they had found the girl. Bolton had been right enough; of the men there that night, only three others knew exactly where they’d buried her. Bolton had served Locke well over the years, but he’d been making mistakes more and more lately. That mess at the Taylor Fisheries building had been a royal fuck-up. The latest and largest in a procession of fuck-ups. Grandstanding, pure and simple. He thought about Anderson. Dirty or not, they would never let Bolton get away with hurting a copper. If he’d been facing a few years for something minor, Locke was confident he could have bought Bolton’s silence. But faced with life inside, offered the earth to name Locke … no, it had worked out for the best, he told himself. If Bolton had done his job all those years ago, he would have found that fucking hand in the freezer, and none of this would have come to pass.

‘Boss?’ Stenner’s voice snapped him out of his daze. ‘You ready?’

Daniel Stenner had finished winding the thick coil of rope around a wooden post, and winced in pain as he straightened up, reaching a hand out to steady himself on the side of the boat. Locke noticed for the first time since they fled the warehouse that Stenner was clutching his side, grimacing in pain. The dark stain on his blue shirt looked almost purple, blooming up from under his belt.

‘You’re hit,’ he said, and Stenner nodded weakly. ‘Give me that,’ said Locke, keeping his makeshift dressing in place and holding out the hand of his injured arm. Stenner looked blankly for a second, then realised what Locke was after. He pulled the pistol from the waistband of his jeans and handed it over. Locke tucked it into his own belt, gestured Stenner to lead the way onto dry land. Small brown waves slapped at the side of the boat as the wake bounced off the bank and caught up with them, and he put out a hand to steady himself. He heard a rumbling, looked up, realising where they were as a plane swooped down towards London City Airport.

‘Think I need to get myself to a doctor, boss,’ Stenner said quietly as they stepped out onto a jetty not dissimilar from the one they’d left behind less than ten minutes ago.