He decided he was going to have to watch his back.

Fifty-three

I was sitting up in bed, thinking about Jenny Brakspear, when there was a knock on the door and who should step inside but my old friend Dom, holding a box of chocolates in one hand and a Waterstone's book bag in the other. He was dressed in an open-neck shirt and well-cut suit, and his face was lean and tanned. He'd lost weight and it looked like he'd been working out.

I grinned, pleased to see him, but a part of me was also jealous. This was Jenny's boyfriend, the man she'd been with for close to a year, and who'd been living it up in Dubai when she'd needed him most. Unlike me. I'd been there when it mattered.

'Hello mate,' he said with a supportive smile. 'How are you? Brought you a few bits and pieces.' He laid the chocolates and the book bag on the table beside the bed and shook my good hand. His grip was weak. Usually it was tight and confident, but I guess I didn't look like I could handle a firm handshake.

'Thanks, mate, it's appreciated.'

He pulled up a chair and sat down, looking at me with a mixture of sympathy and awe. 'I can't believe what's happened to you. I really can't.'

'The evidence is here.' I gestured at the police guard still outside the room. 'It happened.'

'I heard Maxwell's dead.' I'd introduced Dom to Maxwell a while back because he'd always wanted to meet a real live gangster. Maxwell had told me he thought Dom was an arsehole.

I nodded. 'I saw him die.'

And then it all seemed to hit me in one go, a huge rolling wave of shock: how close I'd come to death, not once but twice; the crystal-clear image of Maxwell's corpse in that muddy grave… For several seconds I couldn't speak.

Dom looked worried and asked me if I was all right.

'Yeah, I'm fine. I just need a moment.' I ran my good hand through my hair, amazed that my body didn't ache more than it did, although I suspect that was the drugs, then took a slug of water. 'I don't know what's happened to me, Dom. It's like I've stepped into some kind of nightmare.'

'I can't believe anyone could get to Maxwell.'

I grunted, remembering the way he'd begged for his life. 'These people are way out of Maxwell's league. They're way out of anyone's league. And the worst thing is, they've still got Jenny.'

'I know,' he said.

'Why would anyone kidnap her? And kill so many people to cover it up? That's what I can't understand.'

'Have the police not given you any ideas why she might have been snatched?'

'Not that they've told me, but I'm out of the loop now. I've asked them to keep me posted, but I'm not holding my breath.'

'What are you going to do now?'

It was a good question. I couldn't go home as my flat was now a crime scene – not that I wanted to go back there anyway. To be honest, I never wanted to go back there again. 'I don't know,' I told him. 'I don't want to stay here any longer, and apparently they're removing my police guard because I'm no longer considered to be in danger, so…' I let the sentence trail off, hoping it would act as a hint.

It did. 'Why don't you come and stay with me for a few days?' he suggested, looking like he meant the offer. 'I took today off. I should be able to get the rest of the week too.'

'Are you sure?' I asked, hoping he was.

'You're my mate, Rob. Course I'm sure.'

I was touched. So much so I felt like shedding a tear, though thankfully I managed to stop myself. Instead I immediately climbed out of bed, desperate to get out of the place. Hospitals aren't much fun at the best of times, but when someone's tried to kill you in one, it acts as a pretty sizeable incentive to leave.

However, what with my somewhat unusual circumstances, coupled with the British penchant for bureaucracy, it didn't prove all that easy. First of all, I had to get permission from Thames Valley Police, who were in charge of guarding me, who had to phone Mike Bolt, who agreed in principle with me leaving but wanted a forwarding address in case he needed to reach me, before the assistant chief constable finally rubber-stamped my request. It was then the turn of the hospital itself to be convinced that I was in a fit state to be released from its care, and for some reason they were even more reluctant to see the back of me than Her Majesty's finest, insisting that I wait for the duty doctor to give me a thorough going-over, even though he was only a third of the way through his rounds. So it was well over an hour before I at last got into Dom's car for the journey back to London, laden down with enough painkillers to knock out a football team.

We didn't speak much. I was still a little shell-shocked by events, and all the drugs I'd had were making me dopey. But when we reached Dom's palatial pad in Wanstead and he cracked open a bottle of Sauvignon Blanc and told me to relax while he cooked a late lunch, I began to perk up. Dom had never been the best cook in the world – takeaways were our main dietary staple when I was living there – but this time he actually put together a half-decent king prawn stir fry, although given the lack of food over the last few days I'd have devoured pretty much anything.

After we'd eaten, we retired to the front room with the wine and talked about what had happened. Dom asked me plenty of questions but he seemed to take particular interest in the actions of the pale murderous Irishman. 'He sounds stone cold,' he commented after I'd told him about the casual murder of Ramon in my bedroom, and I thought I caught just the slightest hint of admiration in his voice. 'Maybe now Maxwell's gone you should consider writing a book about all this. It'd probably sell millions.'

Dom had always bought into the glamour of the criminal underworld, which was why his bookshelves were full of sensational true crime books, and why he'd been so keen to meet Maxwell. His attitude irritated me, but then I'd been seduced in exactly the same way.

'He was an animal,' I said with a conversation-ending finality.

'Shit, I'm sorry mate, I didn't mean it to sound flippant.' He looked genuinely remorseful. 'It's just, you know, I didn't know people like that really existed.'

The drink continued to flow and we moved on to happier subjects. We began to reminisce about the old days: the laughs we'd had in school; the disastrous teenage double date we'd been on with the twin Queen sisters, when Dom made his date Sam cry and mine, Justine, attacked him with her shoe; the disastrous camping holiday to the south of France when the two of us, aged seventeen, got on the wrong train at the Gare du Nord in Paris and ended up spending four rainsoaked days in Belgium… Good times, too long ago now, when the world was a fun and easy place, one in which stone-cold killers had never roamed.

As we laughed and talked, I genuinely forgot my troubles in that soft, comforting embrace of alcohol, but then I remembered that Jenny Brakspear was still out there somewhere, and the thought made me feel guilty.

Seeing the change in my expression, Dom asked me what was wrong, and when I told him, he too grew serious. 'I know how you feel, mate, and if it's any consolation, I feel the same way. But neither of us can beat ourselves up about it, especially you. You did all you could to find her, and now, thanks to you, there are plenty of people out there looking.'

'That doesn't mean they're going to find her, though, does it? Not if she's well enough hidden.'

'You can't think like that, Rob. You've got to be positive. You know with all the technology they've got these days, they can find anybody. Shit, look how easy the Irish guy and his mate found you. One tiny GPS transmitter and they can trace a person down to the nearest metre.'

'I suppose so,' I said, not really sharing his confidence.

He picked up the empty wine bottle from the pine coffee table. 'Shall I crack open another one?'