‘Not happy at all,’ he said.

‘You’re not the only one,’ Don told him. ‘How do you think I feel? Nice easy job you said. A simple delivery. I mean, someone sticks a gun in my face. I’m not happy either.’

Okay, so it had been his stomach rather than his face, but Don reckoned face would sound better.

‘Time was,’ George muttered, ‘you’d have taken that gun away from him and slapped him about a bit.’

‘Time was,’ Don agreed. It was true, he was getting old. He’d worked for George’s dad for the best part of thirty years. When Albert had died and George had taken over the business, Don had reckoned he’d be put out to pasture. But George had wanted him around, ‘a link to the old days’. Don hadn’t been keen, not that he’d said anything.

And now this.

‘You sure you didn’t recognise him?’ George asked again.

‘He was wearing a mask.’

‘And he was on his own?’

‘As far as I could see.’

‘And there were three of you? Three against one?’

‘Looked to me like he was the only one holding a shooter.’ Don paused. ‘Are you sure we should be discussing this here?’

He meant bugs. George was worried the cops had planted bugs in his office. George scowled at Don’s question, but then thought about it and nodded. ‘Let’s take a walk,’ he said, rising to his feet.

The office was a Portakabin and the Portakabin stood in the middle of a scrapyard. Don was wary. He knew what those words could mean, let’s take a walk. Didn’t always end well for people, the walks they took in this scrapyard, walks they took with Gorgeous George.

Don’s shoulders and arms were tensed as they stepped outdoors. The crane, the one with the big magnet swinging from its arm, had finished work for the day. The compactor sat in silence. In the past, it had crushed its fair share of cars. Sometimes those cars had contained evidence… and sometimes body parts.