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Trenchcoat replied. ‘Want to know why?’

      ‘I’m guessing it’s not because you like football.’

      ‘You guess right where I’m concerned,’ Beard replied. ‘I fucking hate it.’

      ‘I, on the other hand, do like it,’ Hatchet Nose said. ‘I’m even a Man U fan. But the Reds were great before you, Dean, and they’ll be great again after.’

      Dean’s eyes flitted from one to the other. ‘So …?’

      ‘So we want to get paid twice,’ Beard said.

      ‘What do you mean?’

      ‘Your wife’s giving us two hundred grand to tail you for four months,’ Trenchcoat explained. ‘To find out exactly what’s been going on, and whether or not it’s dodgy … and if it is, to provide indisputable evidence. Now, we’ve got that evidence, as you’ve seen. But, you see, here’s the thing … we don’t like to ruin people’s lives. We only do it if we absolutely have to. So, our normal method, once we’ve collected said evidence, is to give the guilty party an opportunity to buy it back.’

      ‘I think I understand,’ Dean said, with a dull, sinking feeling.

      ‘Course you understand,’ Trenchcoat replied. ‘But do it our way, and it all works out beautifully. We go back to your missus, tell her you’re clean as a whistle. You then go home and get hugs and kisses instead of a solicitor’s letter. Everyone’s happy. And we get paid twice.’

      ‘And how much is this going to cost me?’ Dean asked.

      ‘Well, your wife’s paying us two hundred. We thought the very least it’d be worth to you, given that your kids won’t see Mummy and Daddy split up, and the Chelsea boot-boys won’t suddenly have a whole new generation of nasty names to call you … maybe four times that.’

      ‘Eight hundred grand?’ Dean was stung, but he could easily afford it.

      ‘Makes it a round million.’ Hatchet Nose grinned. ‘And we only get taxed on a fifth of it.’

      ‘You look surprised, Lightning,’ Trenchcoat said. ‘No doubt you thought, as someone who earns two hundred grand a week just for showing up, the cost would be a lot more. Well … the sad fact is there’s always a danger that something could slip out to the press at a later date. Not straight away, obviously. But we’ll still have your best interests at heart, so every so often it’ll be worth us checking in with you … just to ensure that it’s a false alarm.’

      Dean nodded. It was unbearable of course, but he had no choice.

      ‘Okay.’ Trenchcoat’s tone lightened, almost became friendly. ‘Well, that’s it. There’s nothing else to discuss. We’ll be in touch shortly, about how and when this needs to happen.’

      He turned and walked away, Hatchet Nose going with him. But the larger, bearded individual remained, hovering like an ape in the half-darkness – before lurching forward, coming close to Dean, nose to nose.

      ‘You got off easy,’ he grunted. ‘No one on this fucking planet thinks you and those other prima donnas are worth the fortune you earn. You may reckon they love you, superstar, but don’t be fooled. Away from the footy ground, if half of them saw you lying in a gutter burning, they’d rescue your wallet before even thinking about calling the Fire Brigade.’

      Then he turned and lumbered away too, vanishing into the gloom.

       Chapter 8

      The woman was called Janet Dawson, and she was het up. Lucy met her at her father’s house just after ten that morning. She was in early middle age and tubby, with curly fair hair running to grey, and a pale, worried face.

      The address was 8, Atkinson Row, and it belonged to an OAP called Harry Hopkins.

      ‘I’ve been ringing Dad for the last three days,’ she said, ushering Lucy down a short hall into the interior of a terraced house so neat and tidy it could have passed for a show home. ‘I’ve been asking around too. His friends and the locals down the pub. No one’s seen him.’

      ‘He keeps a tidy home,’ Lucy said, looking around the lounge and then heading upstairs.

      ‘Oh, yes.’ The woman followed. ‘He’s always been very house-proud.’

      ‘There’s absolutely nothing out of place?’ Lucy asked, looking into the two bedrooms.

      ‘Nothing obvious. Oh … apart from out at the back. Do you know about that already?’

      ‘Yeah, I was told about that before I got here.’

      What had really panicked Janet Dawson, on calling to see her father this morning and discovering the house empty, had been the back door and back gate, which were both wide open. She’d quickly called the police. Uniform had arrived first and, not liking it either, had passed the info to CID.

      ‘We’ll look down at the back in a sec,’ Lucy said, still checking around upstairs.

      She noticed a large, circular cushion on the carpet next to Harry’s bed. A well-chewed rubber bone sat in the middle of it.

      ‘Your dad has a dog?’

      ‘Yes. Milly … she’s a Pekingese.’

      ‘Does he take her out a lot?’

      ‘Yeah. She gets at least two walks a day. But he leaves her in when he’s off to the pub or the bookies, or something like that.’ The woman’s voice trembled as she spoke.

      Lucy pondered. She didn’t say it aloud, because she simply wasn’t sure, but the absence of the dog made foul play a little less likely. If you were going to abduct someone, would you really go to the trouble of abducting their pet too? It seemed more possible that something had happened to the old guy while he was out walking the dog, but if there’d been an accident, or he’d dropped dead from a heart attack, someone ought to have found him by now. And then there was the mystery surrounding the back door and the back gate.

      ‘Could your father have left her here, forgotten to lock up at the back, and she’s just run away?’ she asked.

      ‘I honestly don’t think she’d run away,’ the woman replied. ‘And I’ve never known Dad make a mistake like that before. Plus, why would he go out without his hat and coat?’

      They went downstairs and through into the lounge, where the television was playing away to itself, a range of Saturday-morning chefs producing a selection of mouth-watering dishes.

      ‘And that’s not like Dad either,’ Janet Dawson said. ‘The telly being on.’

      ‘It was on when you arrived here this morning?’ Lucy asked.

      ‘Yes.’

      ‘Could he not just have left it on as a security measure while he was going out … you know, to make thieves think he was in?’

      ‘Yes, but he only does that at night.’

      The implication was evident.

      ‘What time did you arrive this morning?’ Lucy asked.

      ‘Just after eight.’

      ‘So you’re worried the television might have been left on all night?’

      The woman looked even paler than before. ‘I can hardly bear to think what that might mean if it’s true.’

      ‘Your father doesn’t own any other property that we might look around?’ Lucy asked. ‘An allotment with a shed perhaps? A garage?’

      ‘No, I’m sorry.’

      ‘Okay.’ Lucy walked back through the house to the kitchen, where she halted next to one of the spotless worktops.

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