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of months on the weekly collection runs, but there had never yet been any need to call on his skills, much to the big man’s disappointment as he was eager to show them off. Dixon did not want to start now. Though he was smaller in stature than Miller, Dixon preferred to use his charm and tongue as opposed to brawn. But he knew the next address would be a toughie. It always was, but he felt he could handle it himself.
    â€˜Nahh, you’re okay – just be ready if I need you.’
    â€˜Sure. I will be,’ said Miller.
    Dixon reached for the sports bag slotted tightly behind the driver’s seat and pulled it on to his knees. He unzipped it and dropped his latest collection into it. He had a wicked grin on his face as he thought about the word ‘collection’. It had a kind of religious tinge to it, sounded like something done at church on Sundays. There was actually nothing religious about the £500-roll of banknotes he dropped into the bag, each one of which he knew would have traces of cocaine on it.
    He totted up the total in his notebook. That made just short of five grand he had collected that morning. Dixon’s heart began to beat a little faster at the thought of the amount of money he would have in his possession at the end of the day. The palms of his hands began to sweat. By 5 p.m. there would be about twelve thousand stuffed in the sports bag. He shook his head to rid his mind of impure thoughts – twelve Gs was not enough to go out on a limb for – and replaced the bag behind the driver’s seat, and in so doing his eyes caught those of Miller.
    Miller smiled. It was as though he had been reading Dixon’s mind.
    Dixon coughed and pulled himself together, swallowing nervously. ‘Let’s go,’ he said to Miller.
    As the car moved away from the roadside, Dixon leaned forwards and, for luck, touched the barrel of the sawn-off shotgun which was tucked out of sight underneath his seat.
    Ray Cragg was sitting next to JJ on the settee with an arm around his shoulders, talking in little more than a whisper, almost reassuringly.
    â€˜It’s always best to tell the truth, JJ, because you always get caught out when you lie, don’t you?’ Ray cooed.
    JJ nodded his head painfully, the pounding, searing pain from Ray’s open-handed blow across the side of his face was making each movement horrendous.
    â€˜So, c’mon, pal.’ Ray hugged him like a brother. ‘Spill the beans. We can only move forwards when we know where we’re up to, can’t we?’
    â€˜Yeah,’ breathed JJ. He looked at Carrie, who was still curled up in a ball on the living-room floor, whimpering.
    Ray glanced at her, too. ‘I know you’re concerned about her, but I promise that if you tell me the truth and we work this mess out, I’ll take her to casualty myself. Okay?’
    â€˜Right, right,’ said JJ, wondering if Ray would be good enough to do the same for him because he was certain his eardrum had exploded with the impact of Ray’s blow.
    â€˜So, come on, pal,’ Ray said again.
    â€˜Yeah, I have been skimming a bit, Ray. But not two grand, nowhere fuckin’ near two grand.’
    â€˜Well,’ said Ray, ‘that’s a start. How much would you say you’ve stolen from me, then?’
    â€˜I’m looking for Jack Burrows,’ Henry said to the very pretty woman who answered the door.
    â€˜That’ll be me,’ she said with a slightly crooked smile. ‘Jacqueline Burrows, but everybody calls me Jack, even me.’
    A fleeting thought crashed through Henry’s mind – Am I destined to meet women with men’s names? – as he remembered Danielle Furness, known as Danny, the woman he had once loved and who was now dead, murdered by the most dangerous man Henry had ever met. He cleared his mind of the last image he had of her, lying dead in an hotel room in Tenerife, her head twisted at a