She got up and pulled her coat on. Technically, she wasn’t supposed to attend meetings like this on her own. According to GMP rules, Harry ought to be present as well, but he wouldn’t get back here from Hatchwood Green in time, even if he was able to set off straight away – which he likely wouldn’t be if he was mid-interview. But it wouldn’t be the end of the world. If anyone asked, she was feeling out a possible lead. If it looked promising, she and Harry could do this thing together, officially, later on today or maybe tomorrow.

She rounded the front of the building to Tarwood Lane and joined a couple of mothers with prams waiting at the bus stop there. She probably made a slightly incongruous figure, still dressed for court in a smart blouse and slacks, heeled shoes and her poshest beige raincoat, but if this was the way she had to do it, there was no real argument. Besides, she only had to wait a short time before the one-fifteen from Crowley town centre to Borsdane Wood turned up. The two young mothers clambered aboard first, Lucy assisting them with their prams. After she’d paid for her own ticket, she climbed the tight stairway to the top deck, where a single fellow passenger rode in the front seat – this was his usual position, mainly because the upstairs security cameras on this bus route were also located at the front, and thus unable to see the persons sitting directly below them.

There was no one else anywhere near, so Lucy slid into the seat immediately behind.

You wouldn’t be able to tell it while he was seated, but Jerry McGlaglen was a tall man, about six-foot three and now aged somewhere in his early sixties. Almost invariably, he dressed in elegant fashion – flannel trousers and matching blazer and tie were his preferred combination, often with a carnation in the buttonhole – though this often jarred with his thin features, sunken cheeks and wispy grey beard and moustache, not to mention his mop of grey hair, which had something of the feather duster about it. When you spoke to him face-on, he had odd-coloured eyes, one blue and one green, and unhealthy, brownish teeth; his personal hygiene wasn’t quite what it had used to be, either. As such, while he might strike an imposing figure from a distance, up close it was strange and rather scuzzy.

‘Why are we persisting with this cloak-and-dagger stuff, Jerry?’ Lucy asked quietly, after the bus recommenced its journey. ‘Can’t we just meet in the pub like everyone else?’

McGlaglen didn’t look around. ‘Because what I am giving you today, my dear, is the biggest tip-off you’re ever likely to receive.’