Shane groaned in pain and then vomited onto the floor, the splash onto the concrete making someone retch behind Jack. Shane slumped forward, his neck straining in the noose, his feet just staying on the chair, taking his weight, so that he was being twirled in an arc before he was able to straighten himself.

Jack got up, ready to rush forward, not prepared to watch any more, but Mike turned back to him and swung the bat at his thigh.

Jack screamed in agony. He went to the floor and almost passed out with the pain.

‘Get another chair, and some more rope,’ Don shouted. There were the sounds of movement. Hands lifted Jack under his arms and hoisted him to his feet.

Jack shouted out when his foot hit the floor, but still he was dragged forward. As he opened his eyes, Jack saw another chair, just a foot away from Shane’s. Jack looked up and saw that another rope had been hooked over a beam, so that a noose hung down. He tried to struggle, but the pain was excruciating every time he moved his leg and so he couldn’t resist when he was lifted onto the chair.

Jack tried to move his head so that they couldn’t put the noose over it, but someone gave his hair a yank. His yelp was quietened by the coarseness of the rope as it went tight around his neck, a slip knot at the back jamming tight.

Sweat gathered around the rope, and Jack struggled to swallow. His arms were still pulled back, but he felt something go around them. More rope. His hands were bound now. He couldn’t pull off the noose. Images rushed through his brain. Laura. Bobby. His parents. Dolby. He saw a front page headline: Local Reporter Dead.

Jack’s leg was sending sharp jabs of pain through his body, making him sag, but every time he dipped, just looking for a way of taking the weight off it, the rope carved into his neck a little more, so that he had to force himself to stand.

‘So this is it?’ Jack said, grimacing, gasping. ‘You’re going to kill us both? For what? Finding out? Is that all it takes?’

Don grabbed the bat back from Mike Corley and stepped towards Jack. He swung the bat in a lazy arc. Jack braced himself for another blow, unable to defend himself this time. But there was no pain, no hard strike with the bat. When Jack opened his eyes, Don was smirking.

‘No,’ Don said, his voice low. ‘I’m not going to kill you both. You’re going to do it.’

‘I don’t understand.’ Jack said, confused.

Don pointed towards Shane. ‘If I kick his chair away, I’ll kick your chair too. He is revenge. You’re just expedient, because I’m not having a witness.’ Then he raised his eyebrows. ‘But there is another way.’

Jack swallowed, it was more difficult than before. He tried bravado. ‘Enlighten me,’ he said.

Don prodded Shane, who looked like he was fighting to stay conscious, with the tip of the baseball bat. ‘You kick his chair away and you survive.’

‘Explain. I don’t understand.’

‘It’s quite simple. The easiest way to protect yourself is to make your enemy your ally. Take this monster on the chair next to you.’

‘Don’t you feel anything, that he might be your son?’ Jack said.

Don jabbed Shane again, this time in the groin. ‘He’s not my son. He’s nothing, and within five minutes, he’ll be dead. And so will you be if you don’t kick his chair away.’

‘I’m not like you. Why should I do it?’

‘Because it will make you his killer,’ Don said, with relish. ‘With my career choices, you get to know a bit about the law, and I know one thing: you have no defence to murder if you kick that chair. The law doesn’t allow you to be a coward. Isn’t that right, David?’ And he looked towards David Hoyle.

David Hoyle didn’t say anything.

‘Hoyle!’ Don shouted. ‘Give this fucker some legal advice.’

Hoyle nodded slowly. When he spoke, it came out with a stammer.

‘H-h-he’s right. You would call it duress, where you did what you did because you were under threat, but it doesn’t count if you kill someone.’

Don grinned malevolently. ‘You see, it’s fucking genius. The law won’t let you kill someone else to save yourself, because that would be a coward’s charter, but it’s the only choice you’ve got. If you kick his chair away, you live. You won’t tell anyone, because if you do you’ll spend your life in prison, and I don’t think you like that idea. But if you don’t, and there’s a fucking time limit on this, then I kick both, and you’ll be buried on the moors with him.’

Jack looked upwards. He noticed the cobwebs on the steel roof beams, and the pinpricks of stars through a skylight. Was that to be his last view? He listened out for the sound of sirens, hoping that Laura had followed the same thought process that he had, but all he could hear was the tap-tap of Don’s shoes. His mind flashed through his life, with images of his father, strong and silent, and the warmth of his mother. Friends. Past girlfriends. All rushing through his head like a flickbook, and as he recognised them, all those people who would judge him, he knew that there was only one thing he would do.

He knew what he was going to do, and his lip trembled as he realised that it might be the last thing he would ever say. He closed his eyes and tried to imagine how it would feel when the chair shifted underneath him, as the tow-rope gripped tightly around his neck and he felt the swing of his body.

It didn’t make him change his mind.

He opened his eyes and glared at Don Roberts. ‘You might be a murderer, Don, but I’m not. Go fuck yourself.’

Chapter Sixty-Nine

Carson had called up more marked cars and they were clearing the way with sirens and lights. The blue flashes were bright between the buildings as they raced through the suburban streets.

‘You need to stay in the car when we get there,’ Carson shouted to Angel.

She nodded but didn’t say anything. Her fear seemed to have sobered her up, and now she was grim-faced in the back of the car.

‘How certain are you about this?’

‘I heard them talking outside,’ Angel said. ‘They had that pervert tied up in the back of the car, and they were discussing where to take him.’

Laura turned around. ‘Why did David get involved? It’s a step too far for him.’

‘Because Don wanted him there,’ Angel said. ‘I told David not to go, and he didn’t want to, but he does everything Don asks, because he’s too frightened to say no. You were right, I was at Don’s house so that hard-faced bitch could keep an eye on me.’

‘It was to give you both too much to lose,’ Carson said. ‘By taking David along, Don’s got him forever, and nothing will be too illegal, because Don will always have something over him. And once he has that hold, you’ll stay quiet too. Being a career criminal is just about stopping the whispers, nothing more.’

‘I’m not like them,’ Angel said softly.

‘Yes, I know, and that’s why you wouldn’t have held out. It would have split you and David up.’

Carson made a sharp turn, and Laura had to grip the door handle herself, thinking that only good luck was keeping them from a crash.

They were racing round the edge of the town centre, on whatever counted as the inner ring road in Blackley – really just a succession of traffic lights – and so Carson was stop-start all the way down, edging his way through the red lights. They had an address.

‘How far now?’ he shouted.

‘Turn left here,’ Laura said. ‘It’s somewhere around here.’

Carson screeched his tyres as he turned into a road that took them towards the viaduct, a large shadow at the end of the street. Laura was trying to see along the side streets, looking for signs of Don’s business, the signs and hoardings lit up by blue flashes. Then the headlights caught something else. A Triumph Stag.

‘Pull over!’ Laura screamed.

The car hadn’t fully stopped before Laura opened the door and started to run.