Something about the stillness of them not quite right though, thinking back. The absence of anything even close to panic and the hands thrust deep into pockets, like nobody was in any rush. The way they seemed to be waiting for him.

All so bloody obvious, in hindsight.

He’d thought he could tell what they were looking for. He’d glimpsed something in their flat, wide eyes and guessed that maybe they knew how he earned his living, that they thought there might be stuff lying around the place.

‘If it’s drugs you’re after, you’re being stupid,’ he’d shouted. ‘I don’t keep anything like that at home.’ He’d taken a step towards them, moved into the dim, greenish light to make sure they got a good look at him.

The digital clock on the pristine chrome cooker said 02:37.

‘Come on, just piss off and I’ll go back to bed and we’ll pretend this never happened, fair enough?’

He’d seen the hint of a smile then, the pale face of the taller one framed by the dark hood. Caught the glance and the nod from the shorter of the two and been shocked to see the tight, sharp features of a girl. A slash of cheekbone and full lips and something glinting on the side of her nose.

They were just a couple of junkies, for Christ’s sake.

Chancers.

He’d decided he could take them, could give it a damn good go at any rate, so he’d yelled and rushed, trying to take them by surprise, to get one or both of them off balance. His pricey Japanese knives in their smooth wooden block were too far away, so, lunging, he reached for the wine bottle he’d emptied only a few hours before. A hand fastened hard around his wrist. The boy leaned forward and pulled him close, training shoes squeaking against the floor tiles as weight was adjusted and purchase gained. There was warm breath on his face and he struggled to turn his head, just in time to see the girl’s hand emerging from the pocket of her hoodie; small white fingers wrapped around a handle.

Chipped, black fingernails.

Not a knife, something else…

Her arm stretched – arcing almost lazily towards him – and he braced himself for the punch, the slap, the scratch. Instead he felt the crack of voltage and the kick of it that dropped him hard on to the floor. Above the sound of his own screaming he heard one of them say, ‘Behave yourself and we’re not going to hurt you.’

His muscles were still cramping from the shock as the hand pressed the damp rag hard across his face and there was no choice but to suck in the darkness.

And what was that, twenty-four hours ago? Thirty-six?

There’s no way to keep an accurate track of time in a room without any windows. He’s slept, but he’s been given sedatives of some kind, so it’s impossible to say how long for. It’s no better than guesswork really, based on how often they bring food or the rise and fall in pitch of distant traffic hum. How many times one of them brandishes the Taser while the other unlocks the handcuffs so he can piss into a plastic bucket.

It’s a basement room of some kind, he’s pretty sure about that. There’s a damp smell rising up from the grubby carpet and the walls are grey painted brick. There are a couple of ratty chairs and a chest of drawers in one corner but most of the space is taken up by the single bed he’s spreadeagled on top of; Flexi-cuffs fastening wrists and ankles to the metal rails at either end.

He’s been on his own most of the time. He’s not even sure that there’s a lock of any kind on the door. Not that it matters, because it’s not like he’s going anywhere and one or other of them sticks a head into the room every so often. He’s not quite sure what they’re checking on, but he’s grateful for it all the same.

It seems important to them that he’s not actually dead or anything.

There was gaffer tape across his mouth to begin with, but the boy took it off and now whenever they bring in the fish and chips or the tea and toast or whatever it is, he tries talking to them.

What am I doing here?

Listen, you’ve got the wrong bloke, I swear.

Who the hell do you think I am … ?

Neither of them says anything, except once when the boy shook his head like he was getting sick of it and told him to shut up. Actually, asked him to shut up and didn’t put the tape back either, which he certainly could have done.

They’ve never been less than polite.

It’s usually one or other that pops in, except when there are trays or buckets to carry, so he can tell that something’s up when they come waltzing in together and sit side by side in the ratty chairs for a while.

‘What’s going on?’ he asks.

The boy’s fingers are drumming against his knees. He stares at the girl, but even though she’s very much aware she’s being stared at, it takes a while before she looks back at him. The boy widens his eyes, nods and eventually the girl takes her hand from the pocket of her hoodie.

He raises his head from the bed, straining to see, and this time there’s no mistaking what she’s holding in her small white fingers.

He knows perfectly well what a scalpel looks like.

The girl stands up and swallows. She takes a breath. It’s as though she’s trying really hard to look serious. To be taken seriously.

‘Now,’ she says. ‘Now, we’re going to hurt you…’

THE FIRST DAY

WITH A WORD, WITH A LOOK

ONE

You want the good news or the bad news?

That’s what Detective Chief Inspector Russell Brigstocke had said to him back then. Eating his biscuits and trying his patience. Sitting cheerfully on the edge of his bed in that hospital as though they were just old mates chewing the fat. Like Thorne hadn’t almost bled to death a few days earlier, like what he laughably called his career wasn’t hanging in the balance.

Delivering the verdict.

Good news. Bad news…

Now, six weeks on, Tom Thorne glanced at his rear-view mirror and saw the huge metal doors sliding shut behind him as he drove into the prison’s vehicle compound. Pulling into the parking space that had been reserved for them, he glanced across at Dave Holland in the passenger seat. He saw the apprehension on the sergeant’s face. He knew it was etched there on his own too, because he could feel it twisting in his gut, sharper suddenly than the lingering pain from the gunshot wound, which had all but faded into the background.

Like a scream rising above a long, low moan.

Wasn’t it usually some kind of a joke? That whole good news/bad news routine?

The good news: You’re going to be famous!

The bad news: They’re naming a disease after you.

Whichever way round, it was normally a joke…

The bad news: They found your blood all over the crime scene!

The good news: Your cholesterol’s down.

Thorne killed the engine of the seven-seat Ford Galaxy and looked up at the prison. Walls and wire and a sky the colour of wet pavement. This place was certainly nothing to laugh about at stupid o’clock on a Monday morning in the first week of November. There was nothing even remotely funny about the reason they were here.

‘He wants you to take him,’ Brigstocke had said.

Back in that hospital room, six weeks earlier. The pain a damn sight fresher then. A hot blade in Thorne’s side when he’d sat up straight in his wheelchair.

‘Me?’

‘Yeah, it has to be you. That’s one of his conditions.’

‘He’s got conditions?’

Brigstocke had jammed what was left of a biscuit into his mouth, spat crumbs on to the blanket when he’d answered. ‘It’s… complicated.’

A few minutes before that, Brigstocke had announced that, despite conduct during an investigation that could easily have seen Thorne removed from the Job altogether, if not facing prosecution, he was being recalled to the Murder Squad. Miraculously, his demotion to uniform was being overturned and, after four miserable months working in south London, he would be heading back to God’s side of the river again. He would remain an inspector, but once again it would be preceded by the one-word job description he had been struggling to live without.