‘Well, of course. I know any kind of homework’s anathema to you …’

‘You think we weren’t interested in snaring the big fish?’ Tucker said. ‘Or better than that … hurting them? Really hurting them?’

Despite the fear seeping through her, Lucy sensed that they were coming to the crux of it, and forced herself to listen.

‘What would you say if I told you there’s a certain gangster in this neck of the woods who’s basically top of the world?’ Tucker said. ‘Everything he touches turns to gold, people go out of their way to tug their forelocks to him. I mean, he’s Mr Clean at present. Aren’t they always? Never gets his own hands dirty these days. But that doesn’t mean he hasn’t got a finger in a hundred nasty little pies. Doesn’t mean he doesn’t sell death and destruction on all sides.’

She assumed they were talking about Crew godfather, Bill Pentecost.

‘And it doesn’t mean he wasn’t a real a wild man back in the day,’ Harry said.

That settled it, she thought. Hadn’t they once used to call him ‘Wild Bill Pentecost’?

‘When me and Ruth Smiley were young bobbies back in Manchester city centre in the early 2000s,’ Tucker said, ‘Tony Gaskin was the top man in the job. Only a PC, but everyone liked him, everyone respected him – a real copper’s copper. When I got him as my tutor-con, it was the best thing that could have happened. He didn’t just show me the ropes, didn’t just mentor me … he taught me everything he knew, became one of my best mates. A year later, he puppy-walked young Ruth Smiley too, had exactly the same effect on her. And then he got slotted outside that building society – shot through the head, an unarmed beat bobby! Talk about one of the biggest losses the service has ever suffered.’

The car fell into silence. Outside, the autumn fields undulated past.

Lucy was again distracted from Tucker’s monologue. She wondered where it was going to happen. And when. It would have to be soon, because if it wasn’t, the next thing they’d be back on Hallgate Lane and the main road network. Surely, they wouldn’t risk doing it there? Unless they had somewhere else in mind, and were prepared to chance the main roads for a few minutes. That might give her a brief window of opportunity, she thought … Except, what was she going to do: try to jump from a moving car and leave her mother behind?

The lack of viable possibilities only chilled her all the more.