Shankhill snorted again, as if this was his very last consideration.

‘What would you say if I told you these guys have done this more than once?’ she said.

‘Wouldn’t surprise me. They didn’t look like amateurs. But neither will it move me. Not one inch. I’m saying nothing else.’

‘Okay … all right.’ Lucy tried to think this through. ‘This never happened … at least, officially. But I’d still like to catch them if possible.’

‘Good luck.’

‘You saying there’s nothing you can tell me at all … even off the record?’

‘Off the record, sure.’ He chuckled derisively.

‘I can’t force you to make a complaint, Roy … but I’m sure you’d like the bastards to answer for something.’

He finally appeared to mull this over.

‘I’ve just told you they’ve done other jobs, which are being investigated,’ she said. ‘Give me something to add, and maybe we can bring them in without any of this coming back to you.’

‘Okay,’ he replied, after some deliberation. ‘Okay, but this is all you get: two guys, average size and height, one slightly taller than the other. Heavy clothing … dark for the most part. Black leather jackets and gloves certainly. Red woollen ski masks.’

‘Red wool … you’re sure?’

‘I’ll never forget that.’ He patted at his forehead again. ‘Regular pair of devils, they looked like. Slits for their eyes … no mouth-holes.’

‘Accents?’

‘Local. Northwest.’

‘What about the ordinance? I’m guessing they used automatic weapons?’

‘I’m no expert, but … machine-pistols or sub-machine guns, whatever you call them.’ He eased himself backward in his chair, which barely seemed to make him any more comfortable.

‘Any other witnesses … I mean apart from your so-called friend who you’re happy to leave in whatever shithole of an unlicensed hospital you’ve found for him?’

‘There was one other, actually,’ Shankhill admitted.

‘Who?’

‘Some civvy fuckhead.’

‘A civvy?’

‘He owed me money. By the looks of it, he was coming to pay me back when they bushwhacked him outside and used him to get through the front door.’

‘Name?’

‘That’s irrelevant.’

‘I think I’ll decide whether it’s relev—’

‘No!’ he shouted, the effort of which set him cringing. ‘I’ll decide whether it’s relevant or not. I’m the one who’s near enough lost his legs, okay? I’m the one who now owes the big boys in the field a cut of his business, which he can’t pay.’

Which explained to Lucy why he hadn’t come out to see her immediately she’d arrived here. He’d thought she might be the Crew. Her own father, no doubt, or one of his henchmen. It also explained why he’d felt relief on learning that she was a cop.