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I felt the blade go in, tugging and tearing. It glanced off the bone, then settled deep into flesh. West howled much less convincingly than Friday had done, and I was aware of a fierce blast of grim satisfaction. It left a dark and bitter taste in my mouth.

By the time I turned to face him, West was on the ground, writhing. Both hands were clamped round the handle of the knife, which was all I could see protruding from his leg. Blood was welling from the wound in gushing spurts like a burst water main coming up through clay.

Numbly, I left him there and stumbled over to kneel by Friday’s body. The dog lifted his head as I reached him, and begged me with those big expressive eyes to make his pain go away. There was a trickle of blood coming out of his nose, and his sides rose and fell shallowly, as though he was afraid to breathe. The sight of him stung my eyes with tears.

Madeleine had helped Sean to his feet. He moved across, producing from the side pocket of his trousers the sling he’d discarded earlier. He thrust it into my hand as he came past.

“Here, stop the bleeding with this and watch he doesn’t bite you,” he said. He still looked pale. “You OK?”

I nodded, and he carried on, bending over West.

Loudly, with expletives, West was demanding a doctor, and an ambulance. He’d pulled out a grubby handkerchief from his pocket and was clumsily trying to knot that round his thigh. Sean eyed him coldly, and made no moves to help.

Then, after a few moments he reached down and took hold of the knife’s greasy handle.

West’s body jerked at the touch. “No, no!” he shouted. “Let them do it at the hospital. Don’t move it. I’ll bleed to death.”

Sean cocked an eyebrow at that less-than-convincing argument, and hauled the knife straight out of the wound with a vicious jerk. West bucked and twisted, swearing.

“You didn’t think,” Sean demanded quietly, “that I was going to leave you with a concealed weapon, did you, you sick fucker?”

West stopped thrashing about long enough to spit at him. Sean leaned closer, ignoring the splatter of phlegm that landed near his feet.

“Did you know that you can pick up virulent infections from dogs’ blood?” he lied conversationally, then turned on his heel and walked away, with the polluted knife still dangling from his fingers.

Sean moved back to where Madeleine and I were trying to patch up Friday’s wound. He held the knife out towards me without speaking, and for a moment I didn’t understand what he was showing me.

It was just a knife. A combat knife with a long serrated blade and a camouflage-coloured plastic non-slip handle. Then I suddenly realised where I’d seen it before.

Well, maybe not that particular knife, but one very much like it.

In fact, I hadn’t seen the blade. That had been buried deep in Harvey Langford’s chest, but the rest was identical.

I didn’t have time to react to the discovery, though, because it very quickly became apparent we weren’t alone any more. That the burning Patrol had served as a beacon for trouble.

Madeleine and Sean turned a slow circle, staring out beyond the area lit by the flames. I came to my feet, also, aware of a tightening in my chest, a drumming in my ears.

Slowly, gradually, there came the slip and slither of feet approaching across the rubble from all sides until at last more than a dozen men took shape out of the darkness, and formed a semicircular perimeter in front of us.

A final figure appeared, and they parted to let him through. Ian Garton-Jones looked much as he had done at our last meeting, shaven-headed and dressed in black. There was one notable exception, however.

This time, he was carrying a double-barrelled shotgun, and he was pointing it unswervingly in our direction.

Twenty-eight

The shotgun was a twelve gauge Browning with stacked over-and-under barrels, a middle-of-the-range sportsman’s gun. Garton-Jones probably used it for clays.

A brief picture of one of my old army weapons’ handling instructors flashed into my mind at that point. There was nothing to beat a shotgun for house clearance, he’d said. In a confined space you hardly even had to aim. They were deadly.

On open ground, though, there was always a chance you could sprint out of effective range. Providing you were prepared to risk it that the gun hadn’t been choked down too far, and the shooter’s aim wasn’t too accurate. With a normal spread pattern of the shot you’d probably escape serious injury at anything over thirty metres. Forty, to be on the safe side.

I glanced across at Sean, but he had that stubborn look about him that said he wasn’t going to run away from this one, even if he got the opportunity. And besides, Friday wasn’t in any state to sprint anywhere. There was no way I was going to abandon the Ridgeback to Garton-Jones’s tender ministrations.

“Let that dog loose on me or any of my men,” he’d said, “and I’ll personally break its spine.”

I stood my ground.

West squirmed round, recognised his boss, and started making a lot of noise. He pointed to the knife which was still in Sean’s hand, screaming that we’d stabbed him, and exhorting Garton-Jones to shoot us.

Garton-Jones silenced him with a dark look, the play from the firelight emphasising the older man’s deep eye sockets, making it difficult to read him. He jerked his head to one of his men, who approached warily and snatched the knife away from Sean.

The man trotted back across to Garton-Jones and handed it over. He studied the knife for a long time, turning the blood-smeared blade over so it caught the light.

“Look at it,” West shouted then. “It’s just the same as the one they used to kill that vigilante bloke.”

I half-turned in surprise at his words. Whatever tactic I’d been expecting from West, that certainly wasn’t it. My eye caught Harlow and Drummond, both now back on their feet and trying to merge in with the other security men. They looked edgy, ill at ease.

Sean ignored them, pinning West with a contemptuous stare. “And just why would I want to do a thing like that?” he demanded in a deadly quiet tone.

West tried to stand, but his leg wouldn’t support him. He fell back heavily, addressing Garton-Jones rather than Sean.

“Like I told you, Langford knew Meyer was trying to take over the turf now he was back on Copthorne,” he said, the lies forcing the sweat out of his skin. “He knew Meyer had killed the Gadatra boy for getting his brother into the shit. That’s why they got rid of him.”

Sean took a step forwards then, intent. “You miserable, lying little—”

“That’s enough,” Garton-Jones rapped. He brought the barrels of the Browning up, just to hammer home his point. “I think I’d like your hands where I can see them, all of you. Now – if you don’t mind.”

Sean put his out by his sides. The left one wouldn’t lift more than a few inches. The blood had reached as far as his hand, trickling down his wrist and dripping from his fingers. West must have blown my father’s neat and careful stitches wide open. He was going to be livid.

At that moment we caught the sounds of shouting, breaking glass, and missiles being thrown. The riot was moving closer, only a few streets away now. The sky was lightening up all the time as more houses fell to the flames.

“I think we should continue this interesting discussion from a fallback position,” Garton-Jones said. He raised his voice. “Let’s move it out.”

“We’re not going anywhere,” Sean said, between clenched teeth. “My brother’s still out there.”