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‘Too soon?’ she asked. ‘Too soon,’ she affirmed to herself.

‘I am glad you know everything now. There are no more secrets I need to worry over. I had always wanted to tell you everything, but thought it would somehow change things between us and we’d fall apart.

Look, for what it’s worth, I spent a lot of my time doubtful I would ever let anyone in again, and I guess when we met and then got married, what I’m trying to say is…

’ Her voice softened for a moment before she began a new train of thought.

This whole conversation was just discombobulated people trying to articulate their innermost feelings and failing miserably.

‘Look, I need to go and talk to my idiot brother again,’ she said, rising to her feet.

‘But I need some time to decompress, so I’m going to check into a hotel and maybe we can find a time to talk properly in the next few days? ’

‘Of course, sure,’ I said, though I couldn’t shake the feeling she didn’t really mean it. ‘Let’s…just stay in touch, okay?’

‘Okay,’ Fran replied with a slight laugh, amused by my formality. ‘I’ll talk to you soon, okay? Bye.’

‘Bye,’ I said, resisting the impulse to say ‘I love you’ before letting her walk back to the station.

I had already made up my mind before she had even crossed the road.

It was three hours of near-constant motorway driving.

After what felt like a small eternity, I finally arrived, pulling up a little distance away from the lone house on the street.

I turned off the engine and curled my gloved hand around the knife, whilst tilting the cap further down my face.

I checked the crumpled piece of paper in my hand again.

It was definitely here. I listened out for anyone else nearby – anyone walking their dog, any teenagers smoking a joint – but it was dead quiet.

No cameras, no witnesses. I didn’t know how many were inside, but if it was meant to be some kind of safe house, I could practically guarantee it would be under three, including Clark.

Two, most likely. He was probably in the process of trying to flee the country to escape, nervous his actions with Heart of Hope were about to be fished out of the sewers.

I waited for thirty minutes or so in the darkened car.

After a while, I saw a small glimpse of light as a figure left the house and shut the door behind him.

I watched him bumble and stumble across the front garden, and then begin doddering in my direction.

Leaving the keys in the ignition, I pulled my fingers around the inside door handle, and carefully opened it up, placing the knife in the pocket of my coat.

Silently pulling myself out of the car, I crouched down, gently pushing the door shut.

As I eased myself closer to the bonnet to keep watch, my eyes remained fixed on the figure moving towards me.

He had a newsboy cap fitted to his head, and a thick winter coat wrapped around him, but I could tell by his stature that this was definitely Clark.

One strike to the head would be enough to take him out, not a doubt in my mind.

Once he passed the car I would leap out of my position, launch the knife down onto his skull, watch the man fall, and then drive away within twenty seconds.

I planned my trajectory as I adjusted my hands and feet.

In this moment of adrenaline, I was suddenly unsure whether I was left or right-handed.

Was this how Fran had felt before she’d murdered Macleod and O’Neill?

He still hadn’t seen me yet, but he continued walking painfully slowly along the grass directly ahead of me, illuminated by the street’s one barely working lamppost. I had to keep reminding myself that this was an evil, horrible man, who had leeched everything he could from the system, and the world would be better without him in it.

I knew I wanted to kill Clark. At least, I thought I wanted to kill him.

But for some reason, the blade wasn’t leaving my pocket.

I had told myself this was all for Fran, that I was racing to get to Clark before she could, making sure she didn’t spend the rest of her life in a prison cell.

But a small, sharp thought now began to seep into my subconscious: was I doing this, at least in part, for myself?

These men had ruined hundreds, maybe even thousands of lives, all to line their already fat pockets.

And now, here the last one was. I’d made my police oath several years ago, ‘upholding fundamental human rights and equal respect to all people’.

What kind of oath would it be if I just let him run away scot-free?

He was only a few metres away from me now. It was now or never; I pushed my body up to spring out of my position and deliver the killing blow – but I couldn’t help opening my mouth.

‘Evening,’ I blurted out, instead of killing him.

I thought I had given him a heart attack.

Clark jumped upwards, grabbed his chest, and shouted some indistinguishable mixture of curse words as he lurched downwards and keeled over.

I just stood there, like a kid about to tell his parents he had thrown up in the middle of the night.

As I stood over the man, watching him flail about on the pavement, I pondered how my body had taken control and blatantly revealed itself when I’d had the perfect opportunity to kill him.

Strangely, I was now fighting the urge to actually help him up.

‘Bastard,’ he spat at me. I could make that word out. He took a glance at me. I presumed he could only make out my vague outline, given the cataracts or macular degeneration of most pensioners.

‘Are you going to kill me?’ he asked with a spitty snarl, as he managed to prop himself up onto his elbow against the pavement. ‘Make it quick, then, you scum.’

At this exact moment in time, there was no way anyone could accuse Fran of killing Clark. There would be no way that the timelines would ever match up. I could end her spree before she did.

‘I know what you did,’ I murmured quietly.

‘I thought it would be her,’ Clark hissed. ‘Guess she didn’t have the guts.’

That should have been enough for me to do it right there; a good old prick on the head and he’d be out like a light. But maybe it was the years of police training, or maybe it just wasn’t in me. Maybe I was weak.

‘Go on then, do it. Kill me,’ Clark goaded.

It had only just occurred to me that he thought this was an intimidation technique.

Like I was dragging out every last little bit of terror from the man when, really, I was just being dreadfully indecisive.

He snarled at me again and raised his hand to throw a punch into my shins.

I grabbed his wrist before he could deliver the blow, when I spotted the glint of the ring on his hand.

I stared at it, making out the small symbols etched across the metal surface, and realised I knew exactly what I was going to do.

‘I don’t want to kill you, Abe. It’s just that I really don’t want her to.’

‘So, what are you going to do?’ he asked, his voice panicking.

I knew I’d brought the knife for something.