‘What d’you fuckin’ want?’

‘Mr Peckham?’

‘If I am?’

‘If you are, you’ve got immunity in the Williamson matter. Signed and sealed.’

‘Says who?’

‘I’ve got the papers.’

‘You’ve also got a fuckin’ gun.’

‘I’ll put it back in the car if you like. Just read this.’

He held out his hand. The dog growled. I tossed the envelope to him. He caught it. The dog looked at me as if I’d denied it a bone. Peckham opened the envelope and scanned the several sheets of paper inside.

‘Looks OK,’ he grunted.

‘It’s the best offer you’re going to get. Phone Sackville now. He’ll see you right.’

He nodded and stuffed the papers into the front pocket of his overall. ‘Would you have shot the dog?’

‘Maybe,’ I said. ‘What’s its name?’

‘Fenech.’

Peckham gave the dog’s fur a last scratch and turned his back on both of us. I drove to the nearest shopping centre and bought the biggest tin of dog food I could find. Back outside the junk yard, I opened the tin with my Swiss army knife and used the blade to loosen the contents. Fenech was rampant again. I stood at a safe distance and shot the contents of the tin in its direction. The mess of meat and gristle and cereal hit the ground and Fenech buried his muzzle in it as if he was trying to burrow through it to China.

I drove back to the city feeling that I’d handled the situation reasonably well. Crude but effective. Hire Hardy for results. It was a non-paying job. I owed Cy Sackville more money that I’d ever be able to pay off, but there was some satisfaction in reducing the debt fractionally. As I drove I thought about the Lamberte matter. There were a few questions: how did Verity Lamberte come to know so much about her estranged husband’s movements? What other slants were there on the damaged marriage? What exactly had she meant by ‘lovers, real and imagined’? How serious was Patrick Lamberte’s drug problem? Did it put him in touch with suppliers of arms and ammunition?