She had already known that Gaskin was a part of the Robbery Squad. She’d glimpsed him several times in other parts of the building during the intervening weeks since the Squad had set up its base here, but so far had managed to avoid him.

‘I heard you’d finally got your long sought-for CID post,’ he said quietly but intensely. ‘Un-fucking-believable. Anyway, the good news …’ He stuck his thumb in the direction of the door. ‘The local DO’s downstairs. There can’t be anything up here for you, so don’t trip on your way down. Or rather, do trip … but make sure you fall all the way to the bottom, so they have to deal with your body rather than us.’

‘You sure you’re not confusing me with one of your prisoners?’ Lucy wondered, standing up, determined not to be cowed by him. ‘Isn’t that what normally happens to them?’

‘Whoa!’ he snorted. ‘A smarty-pants too since she’s put her civvies on. I’ll have to be on top form from now on.’

‘Well … first time for everything.’

‘And a last.’ He leaned forward, bringing his scabrous face right into her personal space. She was resolute that she wouldn’t flinch, difficult though this was. ‘Whatever you’re up here for, love,’ he said quietly, ‘I really, really hope it’s nothing to do with this big obbo we’ve got starting tonight …’

Lucy glanced across the office to see if anyone else had noticed the altercation, but they were all too busy, and Gaskin was still keeping it low key.

‘But if it is,’ he added, ‘and you have another cock-up … well, I’ll just have to make sure the boss knows damn well that you’ve got a long track-record for that sort of thing.’

‘You finished?’ she said. ‘Because if you have, get your rotten fag-breath out of my nostrils … right fucking now.’

Grinning almost ghoulishly, he stepped away from her and turned.

Slowly and precisely, Lucy replaced the West Mids paperwork in its relevant folders. Re-stacking them on the filing cabinet, and checking again that no one else had observed the minor incident, she walked from the room.

‘Why does it have to be him?’ she said under her breath.

She could ride this complication out; she knew she could. But it undeniably put a dampener on things. Why the hell did it have to be him?

‘Now, stranger,’ Lucy’s mother said from over the counter at the Saltbridge MiniMart.

Cora Clayburn was fifty-four now, and since her long fair hair had finally started running to silver, she had begun cutting it to shoulder-length. She was still a handsome woman, though – Lucy remembered her as a stunner in her younger days; she could even make the unflattering blue smock and heavy plastic ‘Assistant Manager’ tag look good.

‘Thought I could take you for lunch,’ Lucy said.

‘Ooh, had a pay rise or something?’