‘I’ll do it, alright? Just back off.’ He may be a good foot taller than her, and weigh perhaps one and a half times her weight, but he had enough sense to know he would be seriously outclassed if it came to fighting dirty.

‘Down here.’ Nikki pointed to the wet pavement. ‘Now, carefully kick it towards me, then back against that wall.’

She picked up the blade with a gloved hand, then pushed it into her own pocket. ‘Right. Now, I need some information.’

‘Oh no! I’m no fucking nark. And I’m clean, right. I said before, you got the wrong man.’

Nikki ignored him. ‘Do you know someone called Frankie Doyle?’

‘Never heard of her.’

She raised an amused eyebrow. ‘Is that so?’

‘Yeah. Like I said, name means nothing.’

Before the man could take another breath, Nikki had leapt forward, one arm across his windpipe, and her knee jammed hard against his groin. ‘So how do you know that Frankie is a woman?’

For the second time in five minutes, Darren’s eyes practically exploded from their sockets. ‘I … I guess I’ve heard of her.’ He coughed painfully. ‘But I don’t know her. Really I don’t.’

‘So she’s out of your league, is she?’

‘Something like that.’ He winced and tried to wriggle away from the unrelenting pressure that her knee was exerting. ‘Lemme go. Please. I’ll tell you what I know, though I’m warning you, it ain’t much.’

Nikki leaned back a fraction, and the man gratefully exhaled stale breath. ‘I’ve heard she hangs out with some new guys on the Carborough Estate. I hear they are a really tough bunch. Always got cash, and I mean a lot of cash. They’ve got mega funding from somewhere, but no one knows where.’

‘Names?’

‘No one knows anything about these guys. And there’s only one real name on the Carborough, isn’t there?’

‘Apart from Archie Leonard.’

‘Nah, they use tags.’

‘Then give me a tag for whoever supplies Frankie, and I’ll help you out of the mess you’re in right now.’

‘But I ain’t in a mess, so I don’t need your help, do I?’

‘Oh, believe me, you do. Because you’re in the brown and sticky stuff right up to your scraggy and, if I may say, very grubby neck.’ She moved her knee a fraction and made to lean forward.

‘No! There’s this guy, calls himself Fluke. I think he’s connected to the new gang. I don’t say he supplies her, but he’ll know who does. He’s into everything.’

‘Does this Fluke live on the Carborough?’

‘I dunno, he kind of comes and goes. Like Frankie Doyle. They may even be an item.’ Darren swallowed noisily. ‘That’s all I know, so you gonna let me go now?’