He drove towards the M6, having arranged to meet a guy at the service station before the M61 turn-off. That family was perfect. It didn’t matter to him what age, race or colour they were. He needed a family of three for the next part of his plan and they fitted the criteria. He’d done his homework well; he had struggled to find a contact for a gun until he’d met seventeen-year-old JD, who was a respected member of one of the local gangs. He’d helped him out of a tight spot and the kid had told him that if he needed anything, he was his man. Of course, JD had been a little shocked when he’d told him he needed a handgun.

‘Man, you don’t need no gun – what you gonna do with it?’

He’d shrugged. ‘Best I don’t tell you.’

JD had looked him up and down. ‘Shit, you serious? You’re not having me on?’

He nodded.

‘Right, well leave it with me. Give me your number and I’ll hook you up with a guy I know from Liverpool.’

He’d passed him a scrap of paper with the number of the pay-as-you-go mobile that he’d bought from Tesco a couple of months ago written on it. The boy had taken it from him, pushing it deep into his pocket.

‘This is between you and me, right? I’d lose my job if they found out I had a handgun. I need your word.’

JD nodded. ‘Too right this is between us – you don’t need to worry about a thing. I owe you, man.’

Pretty soon he’d meet whoever it was that was selling it to him in a corner of the motorway café car park. It was cash on delivery. He’d hired this car for the day so if they took his number plate it wouldn’t lead them back to his address. It also covered him for the ANPR cameras. He knew that there were lots of them dotted along the motorways and the various main roads in and around the county. JD had offered to come with him, but he’d declined. The fewer people knew about his actions, the better. The kid might have hooked him up, but he had no idea what he wanted the gun for.

He parked in the quietest corner of the car park, as far away from the busy service station as he could be. He didn’t intend to go inside, even though he would kill for a coffee and something to eat. There would be too many cameras in the building that would capture his image; if the CCTV footage got passed to the police it wouldn’t be that hard to trace him. He picked up the newspaper from the passenger seat and began to read the latest stories.

He didn’t get to the end of the front page before a black Audi parked next to him. Its almost black, tinted rear windows made it impossible to see who was sitting in the back seat. The driver, who was a good ten years older than JD, nodded at him, and he nodded back. He pushed the button and waited for his window to go down; the driver of the Audi did the same.

‘You the guy JD told me about?’

He nodded. ‘That’s right, I’m the man.’

‘What is it you want?’

‘Exactly what I told JD. He told you, didn’t he?’

The driver looked across at the huge guy sitting next to him and laughed. ‘He told me okay – he said you were the man. Get out of your car and walk to the bin over there, leave the money on your seat and I’ll do you a swap. Don’t come back to the car until I’ve driven away. Am I clear? You understand that?’

‘Yes. How do I know you’re not going to take the money and run?’

‘Well then, mister, you don’t, do you? You just going to have to trust me.’

He didn’t trust him one little bit, but he didn’t have any other option. He picked up his unfinished newspaper and got out of the car, walking towards the nearest bin to dump it. As hard as it was not to turn around, he managed to resist, even though the whole time he wondered how much shit he would be in with the rental company for leaving the keys in an unattended car at a busy service station. He dropped the paper in the bin and slowly turned around. The Audi was driving away and thankfully the car was where he’d left it. He walked back towards it, opened the door and picked up the heavy brown paper bag that had been placed on his seat. Casually tossing it into the passenger-side footwell, he shut his door and turned the key in the ignition, his hands slick with sweat.

It was certainly heavy enough to be a handgun. He’d just bought his first and last illegal firearm – as soon as he’d used it he’d be throwing it into the sea at the end of the pier. Straight into the grimy waters off Brooklyn Bay, where it would hopefully either be carried out to sea or embed itself into a sand bank. Either way, it didn’t matter; if anyone found it the salty seawater would have got rid of any DNA or trace evidence, rendering it inadmissible as evidence in court. He knew they could match the bullets up to the barrel of the gun, but hopefully they wouldn’t find it until it was covered in rust and barnacles, any evidence washed away. His plan was running perfectly.