‘It’s a world you’re now part of too … whether you like it or not.’

‘Tell me about it.’

‘Which brings us back to where we were before.’

‘Don’t worry,’ she said, pained by the mere thought that she was complicit in this. ‘I’m well aware what’s required of me.’

‘You sure about that, Lucy?’

‘Why wouldn’t I be? It’s become a habit, telling massive lies under oath.’

‘You’re telling one little lie,’ he corrected her. ‘That you don’t know who shot Ruth Smiley. After that, everything else will fall into place. Anyway, I don’t know why you’re looking so stressed by all this. You’re still alive, aren’t you? Your mother’s still alive.’

Lucy sat back. ‘I just can’t believe it was Ruth and Danny. I mean, they seemed such a straight pair of bats.’

McCracken chuckled without humour. ‘None of your lot are straight bats.’

She glared round at him, stung. ‘That’s not true.’

‘Christ’s sake, Lucy … get real. No one plays a straight bat. Not if they want to get on in life … and not if they want to get revenge, that’s for damn sure.’

Unwilling to be baited, she gazed from the window. Only to turn and look back at him suddenly. ‘Revenge? You just said revenge?’

He didn’t reply, easing onto the brake as they approached a red light.

‘Does that mean … does that mean you know why Danny and Ruth were doing this?’ she asked. ‘How is that possible?’

‘Lucky guess, I suppose …’

‘Don’t give me that!’ Abruptly, even if not entirely sure why, she’d found herself sitting bolt-upright.

‘Soon as you mentioned the name “Tucker”, it rang a bell,’ he said offhandedly. ‘I’ve had dealings with that slimeball over the years.’

‘But how did you figure out that these robberies were about revenge? Even I didn’t know that. I thought they were about saving the Robbery Squad … it was Danny himself who put me right. I mean, it was a stupid, crazy, scattergun type of revenge. It couldn’t have had any impact on the Crew. I told him that to his face, but that’s all the more reason why I don’t see how you’ve managed to work it out, you who’ve done nothing but listen to police radio chat all night … I mean, unless you were a bit more involved than you’ve admi— Ohhh!’

The bitter taste that suddenly flooded Lucy’s mouth was all the worse because she knew that she shouldn’t be surprised by it, let alone disappointed. And yet, inexplicably, she was.

She pivoted slowly round in her seat to glare at him. ‘It wouldn’t be a stupid scattergun revenge if it wasn’t the boss of bosses they were trying to get even with, would it?’