‘We’ll certainly speak to them,’ Tucker said. ‘But I’ll be honest, Lucy … I don’t think there’s much in this for us. The Benton lads are blaggers … no question there. Got lots of form, but they’ve never used firearms. Certainly not sub-machine guns.’

‘First time for everything, surely?’

‘I take it you’ve seen the ballistics report from the Northwood crime scene?’ someone interrupted.

Lucy turned and saw that Lee Gaskin had approached, his pitted face written with its usual schoolboy insolence.

‘No,’ she had to admit.

‘Well … there’s a surprise.’

‘How could I have?’ she said. ‘I’m not involved in the Northwood investigation.’

‘In that case,’ he said, ‘even though it’s well outside your remit, allow me to enlighten you. The two weapons we believe were used at Andy Northwood’s house are a pair of SIG-Sauer MPX gas-operated sub-machine guns, which can only be classified as high-tech military equipment. Now … where do you think a couple of scrotes like the Benton brothers are likely to get kit like that from? The last job they pulled involved a baseball bat and a butcher’s knife.’

‘The Crew could have provided the guns,’ she suggested.

‘That’s possible,’ Tucker said, giving Gaskin a warning glare. ‘But the Crew make money from idiots like the Benton boys by ripping them off … not supervising them.’

‘Anyway,’ Gaskin said, ‘you seriously saying the Crew would arm the Bentons, and then the first person they rob and kill is one of the Crew’s own pals?’

Lucy had no answer for that. For any of it, in fact. Gaskin was being his usual awkward self, but he was right to be dubious, and so was Tucker. The Benton brothers were strictly small-time. And that fact alone should dismiss any possibility they’d attack a Crew associate like Flash Andy.

‘Haven’t you got something to be getting on with?’ Tucker asked Gaskin, who reddened in the cheek before shooting Lucy one final malevolent glance and sloping back to his desk. ‘Don’t worry, Luce,’ Tucker said. ‘We’ll be interviewing the Bentons when they’re fit. Just don’t expect a result.’

She nodded. ‘Listen Danny … there’s something else. You’re aware this attack on the Bentons is only one of several quite violent incidents recently?’

‘Sure. But we’re pretty snowed under. I haven’t gone through the divisional crime-log in the last few days.’

‘There’s been a series of assaults,’ she said. ‘Not all as bad as the one at O’Halloran’s, but we’re talking a fair number of hoodlum-on-hoodlum incidents.’

‘Hoodlum-on-hoodlum?’ The turn of phrase brought a half-smile to his face; the first crack she’d seen in his business-like demeanour, though it was only fleeting.