‘Ta,’ he replied, distracted and flustered as he went through the details of the original arrest, noted in his pocketbook.

Lucy was quietly amused by that. Out on the street, he was as cool as they came – casually and confidently dealing with even the worst of the town’s yobs and criminals; a good man to have in a tight corner. But confront him with a wall of bureaucracy, and he became childlike in his ineptitude; face him with officialdom, and he lost all sense of who he was – grew nervous and frazzled.

Giving evidence in Court was never less than an ordeal for him.

The defendant that morning was a certain Darren Pringle, a repeat violent offender whom they both knew of old. Lucy didn’t think that Pringle had much chance on this occasion – he’d been charged with wounding, yet again. A habitually aggressive drunk, the previous August he’d come stumbling out of a Crowley pub, taken offence that a young chap was sitting at a nearby traffic light in a sports car, and with no provocation whatsoever, had walked around the vehicle, punched out its driver-side window and then punched out the driver, blacking his eye and splitting his eyebrow in the process. He’d then run for it, but Lucy and Harry, having taken various statements from onlookers and following a ‘vapour-trail’ of CCTV, had arrested him at his council flat the following morning, where they’d also seized his clothing, which had later proved to be covered with glass fragments and spatters of blood – both his own and the aggrieved party’s. It didn’t look good for him, but strange things happened in courtrooms.

They discussed the detail while they had their tea, and then traipsed upstairs to the lobby, where they had a quick conflab with the civvy witnesses and the brief from the CPS.

After that, they sat down on a bench to wait.

‘By the way,’ Harry said. ‘You know there’ve been a number of breaks on the Hatchwood?’

Lucy nodded. Hatchwood Green was one of the most deprived housing estates in the whole of Crowley Borough. Crime there was nothing new. But the recent spate of house burglaries had occurred at a remarkable rate, and a quick analysis of the various crime reports would reveal many similar characteristics between them.

‘Well … from today onward,’ Harry added, ‘that’s me and you.’

She glanced round with interest.

‘Stan’s had enough and wants it clearing up,’ he said.

Stan Beardmore was the divisional detective inspector at Robber’s Row, and Lucy and Harry’s immediate senior manager.

Before she could question him further on this, the clerk appeared and called Harry into Court. He stood up, straightened his loosely knotted tie and brushed down the lapels of his crumpled jacket.

‘Once I’m done, if I’m discharged I’ll head back to the nick and gather the intel,’ he said. ‘So we can hit the ground running.’