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telly again when Mick looked round at him. Then, when Mick turned away, Sefton raised one arm in a loop right up against the window, and touched the top of his head.
    Costain was staring at the tiny O-shaped cavity of the end of the gun. Toshack’s hands were shaking, but he was aiming at Costain’s stomach: the certain shot, the lingering death. ‘You bastard,’ he said. ‘Did you take it away from me? Can coppers do that?’
    ‘I don’t know anything about that.’ Costain tried to make his expression convey to the other man that he hadn’t wanted it to go this way, that they were now being overheard, and that he had no choice. At any second, the Nagra tape would run out with a loud click, the stuff of UC nightmares, perhaps be the cause of his death now, if Toshack was startled by it. The wall clock said he had three minutes.
    ‘You say you want to help me?’
    ‘I want to. I so bloody want to. You’ve given me a home here, Rob – first proper home I ever had. I haven’t told them nothing, so far. I was planted here, and then I saw what sort of house you kept. So they was waiting for tonight. But if I can save you with what we talk about here, if I can use the resources these coppers have got, and get you into hiding—’
    ‘Grass, you mean?’
    Costain got to his feet. ‘You’re the only boss left who cares about that honour shit! You see how London’s going, how the world’s going! The rest of them use grasses as just another weapon against each other. What’s the point of being noble, when nobody else is?’
    ‘“Noble!” The trouble is, you shite, that your mates would never believe me!’
    ‘They would if it came from me.’
    ‘What, they trust you, do they? Do they know about some of the stuff you’ve done while you were on my books?’
    No, and you don’t know all of it either. But there was something in Rob’s look that said he was desperate enough to listen, that if Costain could find a way through in the next two minutes . . . ‘Listen—!’
    Just then, from downstairs, there came the slam of a door bursting open under the impact of a battering ram.
    Rob stood there stock-still, horrified. The sounds of shouting and scuffling rose from downstairs. But no gunshots, which meant that the soldiers, who had never had to fight, were folding.
    ‘Give me something!’ shouted Costain. ‘Something that shows them you were willing to talk before you got nicked. For Martha’s sake!’
    But now there were boots running up the stairs. All hope dropped instantly from Rob’s face. Costain leaped for him. Rob’s shot went wild. Costain hit the big man, and they both went down. As they fell he could hear ‘Gun, gun!’ from the Armed Response coppers thundering upwards through the house. When they got there, could he trust them? And who at Gipsy Hill was he going to be able to trust with that tape? It said that the nick had been breached; that there was someone who could give out info on UCs.
    Rob fought to keep the gun. He slammed Costain to one side and then the other, but Costain managed to keep a grip on the hand holding the weapon. As they burst in through the doorway, Costain realized that Rob wasn’t trying to twist it round to aim at him, but was keeping his arm straight as if hoping to get a shot off at—
    Costain rolled him aside and that shot went through the window. ‘Don’t you fucking shoot him!’ he bellowed.
    Many hands grabbed for the pair’s wrists and suddenly the gun was gone, and they were being hauled to their feet, and Costain struggled, spat and swore at them as they heaved first him and then Rob towards the door. There were sounds, cries from the next floor, as more officers pounded up into the house. He could hear Martha starting to scream insults.
    On the landing, they smashed his face against the wall. His wrists were hauled behind him before the cuffs bit into them. He was pushed back towards the stairs, Rob passing him, but not looking at him. Below, he could