Delon’s eyes widen below the bill of his baseball cap. ‘You think he would?’

‘Course I don’t, you fucking muppet.’ Philliskirk sucks down the smoke. ‘Personally I’d just settle for the commission. Did you talk to him about the commission, Sammy?’

‘You’ll get your money,’ Severin says.

‘How much do you reckon we’ll get for this one, Sammy?’ Delon says.

Severin looks at the Cayenne. It’s new, barely out of the showroom when they stole it this morning. Eighty, ninety grand of precision German engineering. What’s a quarter of a per cent of that? Two hundred quid between the three of them? Not bad for two minutes’ work, when you include first cloning the key and installing the GPS tracker. He has to hand it to Tiernan: he has a bloody good racket going here. Had he kept away from the luxury car market and stuck with ordinary motors, he might well have stayed under the radar.

But of course he didn’t.

People like Tiernan never do.

Here he is now, sweeping into the yard in his Range Rover. He gets out, spits onto the dirt, then saunters round with his hands in his pockets, nodding appreciatively at the Cayenne. He’s wearing a fetching pink V-neck pullover today. He must be off to the golf club once his business here is concluded, Severin thinks. Eighteen holes with the great and the good, then back to his big house in Darras Hall. Meanwhile the Cayenne will be on its way to the warehouse, then on the back of a low-loader to its new owner, complete with forged paperwork from a similar vehicle exported to Cyprus a month ago, and Delon and Philliskirk will be getting mortal on their commission.

Everybody’s happy.

At least that’s the plan.

‘Never liked Cayennes,’ Tiernan says, smoothing the paintwork with a monogrammed handkerchief. ‘Nice ride for the ladies, but if you’re going to drive a Porsche it’s got to be a Carrera. What do you think, Sammy? Are you a Cayenne or a Carrera man?’

‘I don’t give a shit either way, Mr Tiernan. They’re both way out of my price range.’

‘You could have one if you really wanted.’

‘I’m happy with the car I’ve got,’ Severin says. ‘Do you want me to put this one with the others?’

‘That’s it,’ Vos says in to the comms handset. ‘Let’s go.’

‘What the fuck?’ Philliskirk says.

‘It’s the polis!’ Delon exclaims.

Tiernan says nothing. He just turns and runs.

The others have already seen the Transit van speeding through the gate. Philliskirk is scrambling back towards the Cayenne, where Delon, gripping the wheel, is frantically pumping life back into the ticking engine. There’s a roar and the big SUV is suddenly careering towards the gate, Philliskirk cursing and hanging on to the open door briefly before cartwheeling to the ground in a heap. Up ahead the Transit has screeched to a halt, blocking the exit as it disgorges its cargo of police officers. They fling themselves to the ground as the Cayenne spears into its front end, then skews round on two wheels and smashes against one of the stacks of mangled cars.

Ptolemy and Vos arrive on foot in time to see the topmost layer of cars shear off the stack like boulders from a crumbling cliff face and land with a deafening crash on the bonnet of the Porsche.

Jesus . . . Ptolemy thinks, staring at the scene of carnage in the scrapyard.

A uniform is staggering blindly from side to side towards them, cursing, his face covered in blood. Another is sitting on the floor beside the open rear doors of the Transit, staring stoically at the way his leg is twisted at right angles from his knee. Two others are wrestling a pair of cuffs onto the flailing Philliskirk, who squeals with indignation as his right arm is shoved up between his shoulder blades so the hand almost reaches the nape of his neck.

‘Get your hands off me, you bastards,’ Severin snarls as he is led away to a waiting custody van by two officers.

Vos watches him go impassively. ‘Get to the cabin,’ he says to Ptolemy. ‘I’ll see what’s happened to Tiernan.’

Ptolemy runs through the dust and the noise and the chaos. The cabin door is open. She steps inside, sees a desk with a computer screen and a shelf full of box files, a black metal filing cabinet and a printer, invoices stacked in in-trays, trade books, mechanical manuals, a copy of the Evening Chronicle. Her job is to collect up all the paperwork, seize the computer hard drive, ensure that she has anything that might incriminate Tiernan.

Outside she hears men shouting and the barking of dogs.

*   *   *

Tiernan is running, but he won’t get far. The chain-link perimeter fence is ten feet high and topped with barbed wire.

‘Come on, Dale,’ Vos calls out, using the Christian name he knows Tiernan hates. ‘It’s over. Let’s not fuck about any more than we have to, eh?’

He pauses. Listens. Sighs. Tiernan is clearly intent on dragging this out as long as possible. In the distance Vos can hear the dogs barking. Six months’ undercover work and it has come to this: a squalid game of hide-and-seek.

‘The dogs are coming, Dale,’ he says. ‘There’s no way out of this.’

The scrapyard is a labyrinth of twisted metal, with the huge crusher at its heart. Towering above it are two cranes with claw attachments. Vos pauses beside one of the caterpillar treads, waiting, listening. The noise has receded now; all around is a supernatural calm, as if he is in the eye of a storm.

Suddenly there’s a noise like tearing fabric and before Vos can react a muscular, flat-headed dog explodes from a gap between two cars. It gets to within a foot of his throat before the heavy chain securing it to the axle of one of the cars snaps taut around its neck and jerks the animal in the air. It lands on its back in the dirt but scrabbles to its feet and, eyes bulging white with impotent fury, continues to lunge at Vos.

‘Is this what you’re looking for, sir?’

Vos looks up to see one of the uniform squad sergeants standing nearby with a smirk on his face. Beside him is Tiernan, cuffed and on his knees, his face as furious as the dog’s.

‘Found him hiding under a Datsun,’ the sergeant says. ‘The fat bastard was wedged tight.’

‘That’s what they always say about Datsuns,’ Vos says, gingerly getting to his feet out of range of the dog. ‘No gut room.’

TEN

Father Meagher’s route from the pub to the community centre leads him through the heart of the Benwell council estate. The estate has been his ministry for more than twenty years now, yet still he cannot fathom any logic to its layout. Once, on a visit to the council offices, he saw an aerial photograph and it reminded him of a thumbprint: vaguely concentric but with random whorls, pointless diversions and inexplicable cul-de-sacs. The only constant is the uniformity of the houses, block after block of semi-detached brick squares, each with its postage-stamp garden at the front, each front door with its own concrete porch supported by twin metal uprights. His own house, on the other side of the estate, is exactly the same. He could walk blindfold into any of them and know precisely how many footsteps before the stairs (one), through the front room to the kitchen (another eight), and how many to the back door (three more).

He crosses the street and cuts the corner through a narrow tarmac playing area consisting of a swing-less iron frame and a defaced sign which once read STRICTLY NO BALL GAMES. Now he can see the church a hundred yards ahead: St Joseph’s, squat and modern with long rectangular windows of frosted glass and a truncated steeple made of asphalt panels. Beside it, across a short expanse of wasteland, is the flat-roofed community centre.

Pausing in the foyer to check that no one is looking, he unwraps a half Corona from his breast pocket and puts it to his lips. He hastily removes it as a young woman emerges from one of the internal rooms carrying a toddler. An older boy, maybe eight or nine years old, walks beside her, pushing a baby in a buggy.