As such, as recently as the 1970s, Crowley’s ‘inner ring’ had been crammed with working mills and factories, their forest of tall chimneys pumping smoke into the air above the Greater Manchester township day and night. It had certainly given the place some character back in the day, and it did so now – to a degree – a succession of immense industrial structures towering over the red-brick terraced neighbourhoods which for so many decades had supplied their workforces.

Of course, in the twenty-first century such buildings were an anachronism. Some, rather ambitiously, had been renovated into blocks of ‘desirable apartments’ (many of which were still for sale), while others had become visitor centres. Of the rest, most had been boarded over and left. To some this was a blight on the environment, but others saw it as an opportunity. For example, it was in Rudyard Row, a weed-filled backstreet snaking its way between several of the most decrepit of these empty Edwardian monoliths, where Roy ‘the Shank’ Shankhill ran his ‘business’.

Rudyard Row wasn’t an alley you’d stumble into by accident, because you had to work your way through a warren of similarly-squalid passages just to reach it, and so most folk, even locals, didn’t know it was there. In addition, there was next to no reason to go there. Some of the former workshops that lined it on either side were still used, but most of them were soulless facades of brick, with plank-covered windows.

It looked as dismal as ever on that dull, damp day in mid-October, when Malcolm Pugh showed up there. This was nowhere near his first visit, and highly likely it would not be his last, but he was no less nervous for that.

He’d come into town from Bullwood by bus. It was late-morning, rush hour long over, and so he’d travelled on the top deck alone, mulling endlessly over his plethora of problems. As he walked warily down Rudyard Row, he felt even more alone, but now he was frightened too.

In many ways, it was a good thing he was doing here today. He expected it to curry favour, but you could never be absolutely certain what the outcome might be when dealing with the Shank. He glanced left and right before knocking on the door to No. 38, the two numerals hanging rusty and limp amid strips of peeling paintwork.

What he neglected to do was look directly behind him, so he didn’t see the door to the derelict building opposite swing silently open on recently oiled hinges.