*   *   *

With a single movement, Vos vaults through the window. He lands heavily but regains his balance and starts running towards Rafferty. The sound of his shoes is deafening on the concrete and Rafferty half turns, a puzzled look on his face as if he’s just woken up. At that moment Vos crashes into his exposed midriff with all his power, knocking the younger man flying backwards with a roar of pain and surprise.

The two men crash to the floor just a few feet from Alex’s chair. Vos is momentarily on top and although Rafferty is the stronger man, he has enough of an advantage to allow him to dig the point of his elbow into Rafferty’s throat. He can feel Rafferty’s hands clawing at his shoulders, his neck, his face; he feels his own flesh ripping, sees his own blood dripping down onto Rafferty’s contorted face. Yet he feels no pain, just the energy of his own rage channelled through his arm as he bears down on the man who meant to kill his son.

‘Boss!’

You will never take away from me the thing that I love the most. I will kill you myself before I allow that to happen.

‘Boss. That’s enough!’

He stops. Looks down at Rafferty, at the lolling tongue and the bulging eyes. Hears the faint whimper of his fading breath. Suddenly the energy evaporates and he slumps to one side, allowing Ptolemy to rush in and snap the cuffs on Rafferty’s wrists.

Alex.

He crawls across to his son and cradles his head in his hands. The smooth skin is warm, the breathing heavy but regular.

Thank God.

Alex is alive.

TWENTY

Beer-gutted, red-faced and with a fine set of side whiskers, the duty sergeant at Keswick police station could have been dreamed up by some shrewd marketing expert at the Cumbria Tourist Board. There is a reassuringly old-fashioned look about him that puts visitors in mind of the idealized, chocolate box Lake District of Beatrix Potter and William Wordsworth. Every year thousands of holidaymakers flock to the Lakeland town to walk in the hills, camp by the shores of Derwentwater, sail on the lake or just wander round in the tea rooms and gift shops – and, if he was so inclined, the sergeant could make more than a few quid on the side posing for photographs with the tourists.

Except the sergeant hates tourists. Tourists clog up his narrow roads like silt. They leave their chip wrappers in his hedgerows. They get pissed up and have fights in his pubs.

In other words they cause him grief.

Like the bloody idiot in the holding cell right now. The one who walked in off the street not half an hour ago demanding to be locked up. Spouting all sorts of nonsense about being in fear of his life. Unshaven, dishevelled, stinking of drink, looking like he hadn’t slept for a week.

Of course the sergeant had been civil at first. He’d politely informed the gentleman that it was not Cumbria Police policy to go around locking up members of the public for no reason. At which point the man had picked up a chair in the waiting room and thrown it with all his might against the reinforced glass screen erected around the reception desk.

Once he was in the cell, the man had become noticeably calmer, as if a great weight had been lifted from his shoulders. He’d pulled out a business card from his wallet, scribbled a name and number on it, and asked if it would be possible for the sergeant to contact that person on his behalf. And the sergeant could not help but be intrigued.

Now he is in the back room, tapping the number into the telephone on his desk.

‘This is Sergeant Stamper from Keswick station,’ he says when his call is answered by a switchboard operator. ‘Could you put me through to a Detective Chief Inspector Vos, please?’

‘I don’t think life as a fugitive suits you, Al,’ Vos says.

Al Blaylock has been transported ninety miles from Keswick in the back of a Cumbria Police patrol car and is now sitting nursing a mug of Northumbria Police coffee in an interview room at West End station. Even though he has combed his hair he looks like shit.

‘ “Fugitive” suggests I have done something illegal,’ he says primly. ‘I assure you I haven’t.’

‘Well let’s not argue over semantics. Where have you been?’

‘My soon-to-be ex-mother-in-law has a caravan on the shore at Ullswater. I thought it would be a pleasant enough place to spend some time, but that was before the rain. Have you read about the rain in Cumbria, Vos? About the floods that washed everything away? It was fucking biblical. I spent two nights trapped in a village hall with the rest of the refugees before I could get to Keswick.’

Vos cannot help but laugh.

‘I’m pleased you think it’s funny,’ says Blaylock. ‘I most certainly don’t.’

‘OK. So what’s going on? Why the moonlight flit to the Lake District? I’ve been worried about you.’

Blaylock regards him through bloodshot eyes. ‘If you’ve been worried about me, then I think you know precisely what’s been going on.’

‘Are we talking about Jack’s Turkish friend?’

‘Of course we are.’

‘So tell me all about it, Al. I’m all ears.’

Blaylock takes a deliberate sip of coffee and winces as the scalding, bitter brew sluices his tastebuds. ‘I assume you know about the Manchester connection by now,’ he says.

‘I know about Wayne Heddon. I know that Jack was the middleman in the negotiations to turn Newcastle into Heroin Central. And I assumed that you knew all about it, because I know Jack needed help to tie his own shoelaces.’

Blaylock shrugs. ‘The fact is Jack was never a practical man. He enjoyed the glory but never considered the possible consequences.’

‘He was out of his depth, you mean.’

‘I counselled against getting involved in the deal.’

‘You counselled against it? That sounds rather grand, Al.’

Blaylock waves away the insult. Now he is safely in custody he has recovered much of his poise. All he needs, Vos thinks, is a shave, shower, a good night’s sleep and one of his £1,500 suits and he’ll be the Al Blaylock of old.

‘After Jack died, they approached me to act as middleman. I refused. A bunch of psychopaths from Manchester doing a drug deal with a bunch of psychopaths from Amsterdam? That was never going to have a happy ending. And so it proved.’

‘Okan Gul was murdered, you mean.’

Blaylock nods wistfully. ‘I quite liked Okan; he seemed very professional. But Wayne Heddon was a loose cannon.’

‘Either way, when I told you about Gul you panicked,’ Vos says. ‘You thought the deal had gone bad, that the Manchester mob had killed Gul, and that you were next for the chop.’

‘Wouldn’t you? You saw what those animals did to the Turk. You saw what message they were trying to send. It was a declaration of war – and in war there are always casualties.’

Vos smiles at him. ‘Well, it’s nice to have you back, Al. For a while I was seriously worried about you.’

‘I’ve told you all I know,’ Blaylock says. ‘All I ask in return is some police protection until this matter is sorted. You’re right, Vos – I’m not the fugitive type.’

‘We can certainly arrange that. I know for a fact that Greater Manchester Police Drug Squad will be very keen to keep you safe. Any information you can give them about Wayne Heddon would be gratefully received.’

The lawyer looks up from his scalding coffee. ‘Greater Manchester Police?’ he says suspiciously.

‘Yes, they’ve had an eye on your operation for several months. I can see you’re surprised, Al. It was news to me as well.’

‘I’m not going to fucking Manchester,’ Blaylock says.

‘I’m afraid officers from Greater Manchester CID are already on their way to pick you up.’

‘Aren’t you going to tell him?’ Mhaire Anderson says.

‘No,’ Vos says. ‘I’ll leave that to Maguire. Although it would be nice to see his face when he finds out who really killed Okan Gul.’