‘Course, I do. But sit down with him for ten minutes. See what you can get.’

‘Will do,’ she sighed, cutting the call and going back into the living room. ‘Reg … we may need to talk about this some more, but for the moment I’m going to make further enquiries. What I need from you now is an explanation, and a quick one if you don’t mind … what do you mean when you say you’re not the only person this has happened to?’

Murgatroyd shifted uncomfortably in his chair. ‘These are only rumours, you understand?’

‘I understand nothing so far. It’s a big puzzle.’

‘Aye.’ He nodded glumly. ‘This is why I was nervous … I mean about you thinking I might’ve done something wrong. Because good things like this don’t happen, do they? Not to the likes of us. Because what we’re supposed to get in life is all the rubbish. And if we don’t … if something good comes along, there must be something bad behind it, wouldn’t you say? Must be something very, very bad.’

Chapter 24

‘You sure you don’t want a solicitor present, Leon?’ Lucy asked.

At the other side of the table, the underworld enforcer, still a menacing figure even now in his custody whites and with his hands cuffed behind his back, shrugged.

‘Don’t need one,’ he said. ‘Gonna come clean with you.’

‘I imagine that’ll be some kind of first,’ she replied. ‘Especially after the way you held out on DI Beardmore earlier.’

Royton shrugged again.

As Lucy had already told herself, she knew what the suspect was up to here. Beardmore, an experienced DI, had given him the third degree, looking for anything he could find on the wider crime wave that had recently struck Crowley. Lucy was in no doubt that Royton possessed information about that, but guessed he’d have resisted talking about it to protect all those others involved, finally requesting a younger, newer detective – an ‘eager young lass’, like herself – who he could give half a story to, maybe confessing to the assault, in effect chucking her a crumb, which she’d consider a result and which the likes of Beardmore would grudgingly accept in lieu of having anything else.

Lucy glanced sidelong at Kirsty Banks, who nodded that she was ready.

‘You realise you’re still under caution, Leon?’ Lucy said.

‘Sure,’ he replied. ‘Look … I’m sorry about them two coppers. I didn’t mean to hurt ’em. But they came at me first, you know.’

Lucy pursed her lips to consider this. Given that Royton beat people up for a living, such remorse was most likely as big a pretence as his seeming willingness to co-operate. He knew he was going down, and was now trying to mitigate the severity of it. But if nothing else, it would make the interview less stressful.