She took another second to get herself together, and then followed him through the door, finding herself in another decayed ex-office. This one contained a low table and two chairs. On top of the table, there was an open haversack with several stacks of rubber-banded banknotes lying alongside it. In the wall close by, at floor-level, another concealed door – to all intents and purposes a square section of plaster wall – stood open, revealing a recess in which yet more money was visible. Alongside that, propped upright, there was a pump-action shotgun; momentarily this stopped her short, though if her host intended to use it, he most likely would have ambushed her with it out in the hallway.

‘Before you even ask, all this money’s mine,’ the man wheezed, hobbling to the table. ‘I was in the process of collecting it when you showed up.’

Lucy looked around the room. On its far side, a length of dirty rope with a knot tied at the end dangled from a hole in the ceiling; a pull-cord of some sort. Next to that, an ordinary door, made from wood and with a doorknob, stood open on what looked like an exterior brick passage.

‘Like I say …’ the man said, ‘this was always intended to be my escape route if anyone ever came here who wasn’t supposed to. And this cash …’ leaning on one crutch, he began loading the money into the bag, ‘was my extra supply. Always thought it was a fool-proof plan. Someone knocks, unexpected … like you lot. We don’t let ’em in … always had a good man on the door for that. He gives me the nod, I come downstairs into here, let you idiots sledgehammer the door down and run all over the building. If you’re slow to do that, I help you along. That rope over there’s attached to the puppet show on the top floor. If you fell for it, why wouldn’t someone else? Ought to have bought us enough time to get all this stuff together … then out through the back door, down the entry into a private yard and into a vehicle. Leave the area by a different route … Bob’s your uncle. But it seems like nothing’s actually fool-proof. My good man on the door turned out to not be that good after all.’

He grimaced, briefly but intensely; Lucy couldn’t tell whether it was an expression of pain or anger, or both.

‘For which he too has a paid a severe price,’ the man added, ‘though not severe enough.’

She walked towards him. ‘You’re saying someone was shot here? I mean apart from you?’