‘Before you really blow a gasket,’ Shallicker said, ‘I doubt she was here on official business. She was wearing this …’ he held up the red woollen mask, ‘and taking potshots at your lass.’

‘And where the fuck is she?’

‘She’s here!’ Lucy snarled, projecting herself away from a nearby house wall, where she’d been leaning, shivering, arms folded tightly around herself. ‘And that bird had a name. She was DC Smiley from the Robbery Squad.’

McCracken regarded her stonily, as she walked unsteadily across the cobbles towards him.

He was not unaccustomed to seeing his daughter in an emotional state, but this was a whole new level. To start with, she’d been significantly roughed up, sporting several cuts and bruises, including four particularly livid claw-marks down her left cheek. Her hair, which was longer than when he’d last seen it, hung to her shoulders in a straggling, sweat-soaked mop, giving her an untamed appearance. Her shoulders were hunched, partly through pain, he suspected, but also with anger. She was breathing hard, eyes wild and wet – which was hardly a surprise, he supposed, given that one of her own colleagues lay dead at her feet.

For Lucy’s part, the last few minutes had seen her barely able to think straight.

She’d just had something very akin to a near-death experience. She’d been chased and shot at, and beaten savagely as she’d fought for her life, literally having to scrap it out like a tigress. The fact that she’d managed to win that nose-to-nose encounter was more explainable given that her opponent had been female, though in truth it explained nothing of real consequence, because now she was enmeshed in a genuine nightmare.

She shuddered uncontrollably at the sight of Smiley’s corpse.

It was almost beyond her capability to deal with. It defied all logic, every rule of the game. Nothing Lucy had previously believed in before, or at least thought she’d believed in, seemed relevant any more. And then of course there was the double act from hell: Shallicker and her father. She might have known they’d be involved in something as demented and perverse as this.

But she didn’t quite know enough – not for her liking.

‘What’s this fucking gorilla been following me around for?’ she shouted. ‘How are you two bastards involved in this?’

‘You snotty bitch!’ Shallicker snapped. ‘I just saved your arse.’

‘We’re involved in nothing!’ McCracken stuck a warning finger in her face. ‘And you’d better watch your tone, my girl. Mick’s right – it’s thanks to us that you’re alive and kicking.’

‘Let me guess,’ she said. ‘You’ve been trying to find out who’s been robbing your mates? Is that why you’ve been tailing me?’

He shrugged. ‘Who was going to make ground on the case, if not you?’