‘I think it would have worked better for you if you’d hit ordinary targets,’ she said. ‘Banks, post offices. Then there’d really have been a need for the Robbery Squad. But you couldn’t do that, could you? That would’ve been a step too far … because deep down, you, Ruth and Lee Gaskin, still considered yourself coppers, didn’t you? You weren’t going to steal from Joe Public. Instead, you were going to steal from those animals who make ordinary folk’s lives such a misery. Okay, it wouldn’t have got reported straight away, but it would in due course … and even though the targets might be undesirables, robbery is robbery, and by then it would be apparent there’d been an awful lot of these crimes, and always with maximum brutality, so it would still be a job for the Squad. But even hitting the undesirables has got out of hand now, hasn’t it? Lots of people have got hurt … even killed. Including one of your own.’

‘You’ll pay for that, Lucy,’ he said through bared teeth. ‘You’ve no idea how far back me and Ruth Smiley go. For the last time, you are under arrest on suspicion of murder.’

‘No, Danny,’ she said, ‘you’re under arrest.’

Tucker was sweating bullets. He glanced fearfully around as the crowd openly edged towards him, Lucy at their forefront, her open hand extended for his weapon.

‘Give me the gun, Danny,’ she said. ‘Come on. It’s over.’

The eyes bulged in his drenched face. He seemed baffled, as though she was someone he no longer recognised. He stood rigid, gun levelled for several seconds, though it must, to Tucker, have seemed like hours.

Gradually, almost imperceptibly, he began to lower it.

‘That’s it,’ she coaxed him. ‘It’s better for everyone.’

‘Yeah,’ he said, the gun at half-mast.

Only for his face to tighten back into a mask of defiant rage. He raised the gun again.

‘No!’ Cora screamed, barging into Lucy, shoving her aside.

BLAM!

It wasn’t a loud shot, but the round struck Cora cleanly and from point-blank range, flinging her to the floor with jackhammer force.

Chapter 42

Kyle Armstrong, who’d managed to manoeuvre himself to one side, was the first to strike.

He lashed down with his truncheon, smashing the revolver from Tucker’s grasp. It skittered across the floor as the rest of the Low Riders piled in, flailing with their bats, pipes and chains.

Lucy, who’d quickly righted herself after staggering, was fleetingly frozen by the sight of her mother on the floor, blood pooling out around her, and at the same time by the explosion of violence in front of her: Danny Tucker, a big guy in good shape, dealing out roundhouses to the left and right, felling bikers on all sides, but also taking blow after blow.