He shook his head. ‘You know it doesn’t work like that. Someone puts his hands on you, won’t let you go … the next thing, you’re doing thirty years. Uh-uh … that’s your life over as surely as if you’d eaten a bullet.’

‘You could have hit just him … you could have knocked him out.’

‘Who says the robber responsible didn’t try to do that? Who says the gun didn’t go off by accident? Course …’ he shrugged, ‘I don’t know whether it did, or didn’t. I wasn’t there, so I can’t really comment.’

‘You must’ve covered your tracks pretty well,’ she said. ‘I mean, the Manchester Robbery Squad formed because of that incident. And even they weren’t able to bring you down.’

‘Well, no one’s perfect, Lucy. Not even your saintly DI Blake. I mean, just out of interest, how do you think it was that she showed up tonight when she did?’

‘I …?’ Lucy still hadn’t been able to give much thought to this not-inconsiderable mystery.

‘Maybe someone tipped her off?’ McCracken suggested. ‘Maybe, earlier this evening, someone advised her that if she wanted to catch the Red-Headed League, she could do worse than put a tail on a certain DS Tucker. Bloody good job they did, isn’t it?’

‘Like she’d respond to an anonymous tip implicating one of her own men,’ Lucy scoffed.

‘Who said it was anonymous? Who said the tip didn’t come from someone she trusts?’

Lucy was about to scoff at this too, when she remembered the vehicle leaving the scene of the arrests; the one that had looked exactly like the car she was riding in now.

‘Seriously, Luce?’ He sounded amused. ‘You think you’re the only police officer I have a relationship with?’

‘You and Kathy Blake!’ she said slowly. ‘Are you kidding me? You’re her grass?

‘Grass?’ He almost choked. ‘Good Christ, girl … show me some bloody respect.’

‘What, then?’

‘As rival gaffers, it occasionally makes sense for us to talk. When things are cutting up nasty. You know … make the occasional parley. Don’t worry … this time, it’s all approved.’

On a day of life-changing revelations, Lucy had fallen into a state of mind where she could believe just about anything. But there had to be a limit somewhere.

‘No chance! Kathy Blake takes your sort down for the sheer fun of it.’

‘Correction. She takes cowboys down for the fun of it. I don’t run with cowboys anymore.’