Eighteen years back, Mikey had bought his council house, freehold, and been able – after a choice day's work with a wages delivery truck – to buy the property alongside it. Ricky liked Bevin Close. He could have bought the whole cul-de-sac, or a penthouse overlooking the river, or a bloody manor house down in Kent, but Bevin Close suited him. Only what Ricky called the 'fucking idiots' went for penthouses and manor houses. Everything about him was discreet.

Rumour would spread, but rumour was not evidence.

He breezed in next door. Wayne ran past him with Grandfather Percy's present.

He called, 'Happy birthday, Granddad… How you doing, Dad? Hi, Mum, what we got?'

The voice came from the kitchen: 'Your favourite, what else? Lamb and three veg, and then the lemon gateau… Oh, Harry's missus rang – he can't make it.'

'Expect he's out pulling cod up – what a way to earn a living. Poor old Harry.'

He would never let on to his mum, Sharon, that her brother was important to him. Uncle Harry was integral to his network of power and wealth.

They were making good time, more than eight knots.

Against them was a gathering south-westerly, but they would be in an hour after dusk and before the swell came up.

March always brought unpredictable weather and poor fishing, but on board the Annaliese Royal was a good catch, as good as it ever was.

Harry Rogers was in the wheelhouse of the beam trawler, and about as far from his mind as it could get, wiped to extinction, was the thought that he had missed the birthday lunch of his sister's father-in-law.

The family that Sharon had married into was, in his opinion – and he would never have said it to her – a snake's nest… but they owned him. Ricky Capel had him by the balls: any moment he wanted, Ricky Capel could squeeze and twist, and Harry would dance.