It was astonishing to her now that, not once while she’d been talking to Danny Tucker, had he mentioned the actual name of the gangster they were trying to bring down. She’d thought she knew it anyway; but guesswork could be a pricy pastime in this line of work.

‘It was never Wild Bill at all, was it?’ she said slowly. ‘They could never have hurt him by hitting a few minor leaguers around Manchester … but they could have hurt you.’

McCracken studied the road ahead.

‘You’re the Shakedown, after all,’ she said. ‘You’re the Tax-Collector. Mick Shallicker gave it away himself, when we discussed Roy Shankhill … “that was another big earner gone”. Oh, my God …’ She shook her head in disbelief; this was yet another aspect of the case that had been sitting under her nose all along. ‘Tucker and Smiley were targeting the people you would normally target, weren’t they? Only they were getting there first. And after that … well, it wouldn’t matter how many times you and Shallicker nailed them to their granny’s grand-piano. They’d already been robbed blind, and in most cases, were half-dead from gunshot wounds, so you still wouldn’t get your money. Your contributions to Crew funds would decline, your star status would quickly wane.’

Danny Tucker’s words echoed in her mind: ‘I think you’ll find they’ll be ready to turn on their own long before then … imagine the end result …’

Still, McCracken said nothing.

‘And, of course …’ Lucy’s voice thickened with revulsion, ‘what this really means is that back in 2002, Wild Bill Pentecost didn’t shoot PC Tony Gaskin … you did.’

He drove on.

‘At least tell me it isn’t true!’ she pleaded. ‘At least try to deny it!’

‘What’d be the point,’ he replied, ‘you’ve clearly made your mind up.’

‘Dad …’ A word which even a few minutes ago would have been completely abhorrent to her slipped out and she barely noticed. ‘Dad … did you shoot and kill a police officer during an armed robbery in Manchester city centre back in 2002?’

‘Shouldn’t ask questions like that, Lucy.’

‘Damn it, did you kill that police officer?’

‘What difference would it make?’

‘So … you did?’

‘I didn’t say that.’ But McCracken was a wily enough operator to avoid looking at her when he said this, the eyes always being windows to the soul.

‘I cannot believe I was fathered by an animal like you,’ she spat.

‘Says the girl who engineered a fatal accident not four hours ago.’

‘That was a case of her or me.’

‘How do you know it wasn’t the same back in 2002?’

‘Tony Gaskin was a beat-bobby. He was unarmed.’