‘Maybe not …’ Lucy tried to sound unconcerned even though deep down she knew she’d never view the much-admired DI in the same light as before, if in any kind of light. ‘But I wonder if she’ll be happy taking those titbits when I tell her you were the trigger-man back in 2002.’

‘You think she doesn’t already have her own suspicions about that?’ McCracken seemed surprised Lucy would even think this. ‘I mean, if a DS and a DC thought they were onto something, you telling me a DI wouldn’t be … particularly a hotshot DI like Kathy Blake?’

Lucy literally could not believe it. Despite everything else she now knew, this was too much.

‘So, it’s a pay-off too?’ she said. ‘A few seconds ago, you told me that getting easy access to gangs of robbers would be “reason enough to stay friends with DI Blake, without all the other stuff”. Is this “the other stuff” … you give her a ready supply of blaggers, and she doesn’t investigate the 2002 job?’

McCracken pondered. ‘That’d be quite a trade-off … if it was real.’

Too dulled to say anything else, Lucy could only gaze bleary-eyed through the windshield until the Bentley cruised to a halt on Tarwood Lane, just across from Robber’s Row.

‘Why’re you looking so troubled?’ her father said. ‘This way everyone wins. Except for the bad lads who wanted to upset the apple cart, of course … and they’ll not be a problem anymore.’

‘Do you know how many ideals of mine have been shattered this evening?’

He snorted. ‘Ideals are an expensive luxury. You need to learn that …’

‘Don’t lecture me, gangster!’

‘Oh, give it a rest.’ He released the central locking. ‘That halo of yours is going to end up a millstone round your neck if you carry on like this. Blake can’t solve that robbery/homicide from 2002 without proof. I mean, even you know suspicion is not enough … so don’t think too badly of her.’

‘One day, there’ll be more than suspicion, Dad.’ Lucy climbed from the car, but leaned back in, deliberately invading his personal space. ‘And that’s the day you’ll get your thirty.’

She slammed the door, and walked around the car to cross the road. As she did, he pulled a U-turn, coming up alongside her on the opposite pavement, his window still down.

‘Yo … Lucy!’

She looked back one last time.

‘A few hours ago, you said something to me like “I’m not going to vanish into the shadows with a gang of hoods”.’

‘So?’

‘So, this whole thing is a game of shadows, love. You need to buy into that soon. Because if you can’t, well … there’re lots of vacancies for coat-check girls.’ He winked at her. ‘It’s not like you haven’t got the credentials.’

Epilogue