‘Listen … I’ve been around a bit in this job.’ He leaned forward, to be heard over the hubbub. ‘I mean, I know I was part of forming this outfit, but I’ve transferred round a bit … yet I’ve always come back. This was always a good team, but since Kathy took over, it’s been the best team I’ve ever known.’ He shook his head, unable to hide his disappointment. ‘Telling you, Lucy … it almost makes me cry when I think how they’re planning to shut us down.’

‘Is that definitely going to happen?’

He shrugged his big shoulders. ‘Who can say? But the very fact it’s on the table’s an outrage, in my view. We’ve rolled more blaggers in GMP than the Crime Commissioner’s had slap-up dinners. Last year alone, we sent over fifty seriously bad people to jail.’

‘With results like that, you’d have thought it a no-brainer.’

‘Once the accountants take against you, it doesn’t matter how many results you get.’

‘What’s their justification?’

‘They say we’re not cost-effective. I mean, I don’t know how some bunch of suits stuffed with straw can seriously evaluate what we do? How can you put any kind of price tag on the removal of vicious toe-rags from law-abiding society?’

Lucy had heard similar opposition to much of the top-down reorganisation in the modern police and, ultimately, it would be the same with the Robbery Squad. They were an expensive unit, and though fifty convictions a year was impressive, it wasn’t massively impressive when seen purely from a statistical point of view, especially when stacked against the costs – but then that would not take into account the high-level criminals they targeted, nor the very serious crimes that would not be committed once these career-felons were in prison. For quite some time now, there’d been a popular phrase among the rank and file: ‘The job’s fucked’. Lucy didn’t quite see it in those stark terms, but she was often disheartened.

Though not as much as Danny Tucker seemed to be.

Fleetingly, the guy who every time she’d met him thus far had been upbeat and chipper, grinning broadly, effusing enthusiasm, seemed down and morose. But then, as if remembering who he was, his mood changed.

‘Shit, listen to me!’ he laughed. ‘Going off like an old woman. Hell, nothing’s been decided yet. It may never happen and tonight’s a party. Let’s just enjoy ourselves, yeah?’