‘We, Frank?’ Pentecost wondered. ‘Or me?’

‘We,’ McCracken said. ‘We’re all in this together … that’s why I’m not taking yesterday’s losses personally.’

‘Perhaps you can elaborate on “wrong way”?’

‘For what it’s worth,’ McCracken said, ‘I think you’re dead right to assume this is a bunch of cowboys trying their luck. These are good-sized blags, but I don’t see any pattern to it. They’re hitting targets of convenience.’

‘Targets of convenience?’

‘Oh, they clearly know where the money is,’ McCracken said. ‘They’ve done their research. But everything’s a bit crazy, a bit madcap.’

‘I have to agree with that,’ Benny B spoke up. ‘I don’t see any Brink’s-Mat type planning behind any of this.’

‘Nevertheless …’ Pentecost swivelled round to peer accusingly at his fat security chief, ‘yesterday alone, they walked away with one-fifty K of our cash. Ours, Benny. No one else’s.’

Benny B reddened and looked at his knees; he was acutely aware that some of the underbosses were now briefing against him. If he’d let his body go to seed, they were asking, how far behind that was his head? Any more foul-ups like this, and his time spent as Bill Pentecost’s personal bodyguard when they were juvenile offenders back in Moston would most likely count for nothing.

‘And that’s my second point, Bill,’ McCracken interjected. ‘We shouldn’t underestimate them. They’re clearly good at this. That’s why I think we made an error putting out a general reward for intel. If anything, that’s proved counter-productive.’

Benny B, whose idea it had been, cut a sideways look at him. ‘You’d have done nothing, I suppose?’

‘Well, I wouldn’t have invited all the criminals of Manchester to eat each other,’ McCracken replied.

‘Like you’ve never beaten the shit out of anyone.’

‘The point is,’ McCracken said, ‘it’s brought us nothing but misinformation. You put a big reward out for intel, Benny – intel, not certainty! – and all it’s just been one big opportunity for a whole raft of lowlifes to get rich quick or pay off some old scores, or both.’

McCracken turned to address the rest of the Board.