But Frank McCracken, for one, was never overly fond of visiting it.

It wasn’t too bad when scheduled general meetings were to be held. Those were usually only for the assessment of annual reports and discussions of routine business. But today’s event was a special meeting, called at short notice in response to a growing crisis, and you were never quite sure how these special meetings were going to pan out. Firstly, because Bill Pentecost, Chairman of the Board, would only ever reveal how much he knew when you were face-to-face with him, and depending on what kind of information he’d received, it didn’t matter if you were innocent of any wrongdoing, you could still wind up in the frame. Secondly, because a special meeting almost always led to special measures, which, in short, meant that someone was going to cop it. People copped it all the time in this game, quite often on Frank McCracken’s instructions, if, for example, they were non-Crew affiliates who’d failed or refused to pay their tax. But there was a certain stratum in the British underworld, which contained men who, while not necessarily untouchable, were deemed to be figures of influence and authority; even the Crew had to be careful how it handled some of these guys, because they too could summon muscle.

It was not that the Crew didn’t think they could win any war that might break out; they always had, and always would. But there’d inevitably be disruption. Normal business would be interfered with, cash flow would falter, and the more the conflict spilled into the open, the more likely it was to attract the interest of the police.

Not that the latter hadn’t already happened to a certain degree.

In truth, as he’d explained to Cora, McCracken was already troubled by the way this thing was going. The challenge to their authority was unexpected, admittedly, and the financial losses, while not grievous, were painful. But the response had been cack-handed, in his view. He was beginning to wonder if their august Chairman was finally losing it.

‘A church?’ McCracken said, as they negotiated the lunchtime traffic around Piccadilly.

‘Yeah,’ Shallicker replied from behind the wheel. ‘Yesterday afternoon.’

‘You mean she was going to a service? I mean, I know her mum goes, but Lucy …?’

‘Don’t think it was that. Nobby says she was only in there fifteen minutes.’

‘Where was this?’

‘St Clement’s, Hatchwood Green.’

McCracken sank back into his Bentley’s leather-upholstered rear seat. ‘Shithole area. Probably been a break-in, yeah? Just doing normal detective stuff?’

‘That’s what I thought.’

‘She hadn’t by any chance clocked Nobby and was basically ripping the piss?’

‘No way,’ Shallicker said. ‘He didn’t see who she spoke to, but she was only in there quarter of an hour …’