Cora knew better than to resist Lucy merely on principle, but this was a lot to ask. She’d just settled down after a busy week at the MiniMart, and everything she’d just said notwithstanding, she actually did have plans for later this evening, because yes, it was a Friday.

She removed her glasses. ‘So where are we supposed to be going?’

‘I don’t know, I’m winging things a bit.’

‘Lucy …’

‘Mum …’ Lucy commenced dialling, ‘do you think I’d ask you to do this if it wasn’t vital?’

With an irritated sigh, an extra loud one to show that this really wasn’t good enough, Cora walked from the room.

Lucy waited impatiently as the phone rang out at the other end.

She had no clue why whoever had raided her house might have an interest in coming here, unless they viewed her mother as the weak point in her armour. Getting to a beloved family member was an obvious way to get to her. If it didn’t draw Lucy out, it would still give them massive leverage over her. But somehow, probably because she knew the district better than they did, she’d managed to get ahead of them, and now she intended to keep it that way.

‘Come on, come on,’ she said into the phone.

‘Yeah?’ came a sudden, lazy-voiced response.

‘Harry!’ she blurted, with a gush of relief. ‘It’s me.’

‘Lucy?’ He sounded oddly distrustful. She wondered if word had now got around that she was a suspect in the murder of a fellow police officer, or if it was just Harry being cagey because he thought she might be about to enquire when he was planning to return to work.

‘Where are you?’ she asked.

‘Running some errands, why?’

‘Have you been back to the office at all? I mean today?’

‘Why would I, I’m still off sick?’ His tone shifted from cagey to defensive. ‘Listen, Lucy … just because I’m out and about that doesn’t mean—’

‘Cut the shit, Harry. Listen to me … I need you to get in touch with Stan Beardmore.’

‘Eh?’

‘I’d do it myself, but I haven’t got time to be writing stuff down. I know you’ve got all his contacts listed on your mobile. So, I want you to call him right now, and tell him this …’

In as few words as possible, Lucy relayed the events of the last few hours, from her pulling the CCTV footage at the Mission Hall to her arrival at Rudyard Row, and from Ruth Smiley’s attempt to murder her at the Archways to Smiley’s own death at the hands of an unknown gunman. All the time, she underlined the importance of her suspicion that certain elements in the Robbery Squad – maybe all of them for all she knew, but at the very least Danny Tucker, Ruth Smiley and maybe Lee Gaskin – had themselves been robbing the underworld.