When the operation was over – completed successfully, in that the girls and the thugs at the bottom of the heap were arrested and the politicians and the moneymen remained untouched – they all went to a pub in the city centre. Vera was treated as one of the lads by the men in the team. She drank pints and didn’t ask for favours. Judy Laidlaw was rather different. She flirted with them, stroking their egos, and they were queuing up to buy her vodka tonics.

Sammy Kerr was as good as his word and introduced the two women. His voice was mellow with beer. ‘Meet our Vera,’ he said. ‘Sharp as a tack. You could use her on your team.’ And he melted away towards the bar. In the crowded pub the women could have been alone. They took a small table in a corner, and the noise continued away from them.

‘Vera?’ Laidlaw’s eyes were unfocused – the vodka tonics were taking their toll – but her voice was gracious. Still, she knew she had it in her power to deliver favours.

‘Aye. Vera Stanhope.’ Emphasizing the rural accent. She looked up at the inspector. ‘I think you know my dad.’

Laidlaw set down her drink. She looked around her to check that her colleagues were out of earshot, and again Vera recognized the despair she’d seen in the woman at Emmanuel Head. ‘What do you want?’

‘To know what was going on between you and my father.’

‘Nothing. Nothing was going on.’ A look of distaste. ‘Nothing like that.’

‘I saw you on Holy Island, one November afternoon.’

Laidlaw gave a tight little laugh. ‘He said he’d brought his daughter. Cover, he said, though who would be interested in us?’ Then, quite serious, ‘You do realize this could ruin me?’

‘I want to know.’

Perhaps the drink made Laidlaw reckless, persuaded her that Vera really posed no threat. Or perhaps now she found the secret unbearable. In any event she started talking and the words spilled out. ‘I was Northumbria’s first Wildlife Liaison Officer. A new post, and nobody wanted it. But I knew it would get me noticed, and a woman in the force needs all the visibility she can get. You’ll understand that.’

Vera nodded.

‘Your father did his homework. Checked me out. I was the enemy, the new opposition. I’d head up any investigation into wildlife crime. He discovered that I had a baby and no husband, that I was ambitious. That I was in debt.’

Vera said nothing, but she knew what was coming next. She remembered the wallet packed with cash as Hector had paid for lunch in the Lindisfarne Hotel.

‘He offered me money,’ Laidlaw said. ‘More money than I’d seen before. I went to the island determined to stand firm. But he persuaded me.’

‘Oh yes,’ Vera said. ‘He can be very persuasive.’

‘So after that I turned a blind eye.’ The woman shrugged. ‘Birds’ eggs. That’s not real crime, is it?’