They burst through the doorway, and she broke right. She took in the room in a series of sweeping glances. The long benches. The big cargo door at the back, partially shrouded in darkness. The staircase off to the left where Gibson now stood by the first step, looking upwards. He motioned her towards him and pointed up the stairs. She ran across to join him and they opted for speed over stealth. Gibson shouted as they raced up the first flight.

‘Police, anyone in the building stay where you are and do not move.’

They reached the doorway on the landing and went through it in the same order they had entered the front door, Gibson leading the charge. Simmons didn’t see the blow that floored him so much as hear the impact, a sickening meaty thump. Whatever had hit him dropped him mid-stride, and he was halfway to the floor so that she almost tripped over him with her momentum. As it was she managed to grab on to the door frame with one hand and keep herself upright, but her leg had become tangled in his as he went down.

She instinctively looked down towards him, her eyes tracing his fall. The black shape started in the periphery and exploded from nothing, like the Big Bang, to fill her vision in a nanosecond. She tried to raise her baton to block it, but seeing Gibson felled like that had short-circuited her reactions and the best she managed was a half-hearted block at chest level. An arm snaked around her neck, clamping a palm against the back of her head and pulling it forwards onto the door frame with such astonishing speed and force that she was powerless to resist. In that final moment, the one thing that registered was surprise, not at being blindsided by her mystery attacker, but that she was calm and felt no fear.

CHAPTER TEN

Porter was about to call it a day when the call came in. He and Styles bolted for the door along with four other detectives who happened to be sitting at desks nearby. With lights and sirens, they made good time and screeched to a halt twenty yards from the Taylor Fisheries building. The first officers to respond had already set up a cordon around the door and a section of the road outside. Porter glanced over to the left, where a young constable stood next to a crumpled form of a man. There was no mistaking him for anything other than deceased. His head was tilted to face Porter, his eyes wide in surprise, in denial right to the end.