‘Did you fit it through the door?’ she asked.

‘What door?’ John Paul must’ve already spent the hundred she gave him. He was wasted.

‘I take it you’re Kevin the Fucker,’ Mary said.

‘You can call me Kevin.’

His name suited him. Mary handed over four hundred pounds.

‘I’m in the furniture business too,’ said Kevin the Fucker. ‘If you’re ever looking for a sofa, I’m the wholesale guy. Don’t go retail, like to this knob.’

Poor John Paul, he was even despised by the person he paid a hundred pounds a day (if times were good).

As Kevin the Fucker counted the money, John Paul slipped the pen drive into her hand. It was still hot.

‘Thank you,’ said Mary, ‘but I’m okay seating-wise just now.’

Kevin the Fucker winked and jotted his number on a bus ticket. ‘This is my mobile. If you’re texting, just say how many. For example: Hey Kevin, you got any two-seaters? Or: Hi Kevin, I’m looking for a three-seater.’

‘Or: Hello, I would like a four-seater sofa please.’ John Paul added. ‘That’s code for four grams of cocaine.’

Kevin the Fucker rolled his eyes at John Paul the Ned.

‘I don’t need any sofas at the moment,’ she said to Kevin the Fucker. ‘But thanks.’

With the deal closed, John Paul scaled the wall, while his dealer chose to exit via the gate.

I’m gonna have to move. Mary closed the back door to the garden. I’m gonna lose my beautiful home.

In her left hand, Mary clamped the pen drive with plyers. With her right she drilled at the small piece of metal and plastic, shaving at the edges and repositioning until the device settled as dust on her newly holey bread board.

Some dust was on her finger. She wondered how many ruined lives were now stuck to the sweat on the top of her finger. Mary downed a glass of kitchen Sangiovese for courage because there was no time for this kind of thinking.

She put on her hoodie.

She looked for her personal mobile – shite, she’d destroyed her phone. There’d be no ‘Kickass’ playlist in the next scenario. She put her enormous headphones on anyway, to give the impression of kickass.

Mary walked somewhere random (the pond at Maxwell Park) and made an anonymous call to the police with the disposable mobile she’d bought. The husky voice she used totally worked with the trench coat and River Island boots.

‘Hello,’ she croaked when she was finally put through to the Offender Management Unit. ‘This is an anonymous referral from an anonymous source regarding Derek McLaverty. No, I will not. No, I will not tell you who I am. Okay, fuck.’ She hung up and rang 101, the non-emergency 999, and was happy to have reached someone who had no choice but to listen.