‘Well … to be honest, Lee’s a bit of a prat.’ Tucker paused as if unhappy bad-mouthing his fellow Squad member, but perhaps thinking it was sometimes necessary. ‘He likes to get stuck in, so on one hand he’s a useful team member. But he has views that are … shall we say, not entirely conversant with police-think in the twenty-first century. Kathy’s had to rein him in on occasion.’

‘I’m surprised she tolerates him,’ Lucy said.

‘His background isn’t the best, you know.’

Lucy shrugged.

‘No one told you?’

‘No … but then, I suppose I never asked. When a guy vehemently hates you, how much more about him do you want to discover?’

‘That’s probably true.’ Tucker sipped some bourbon. ‘The thing with Lee is … he came into the job for very personal reasons. And they’re all kind of tied in with the origins of the Robbery Squad.’

Lucy sat up. ‘Wait a sec, you’re not saying …’ It was vaguely disconcerting that suddenly she thought she might know something about this, after all. ‘That was a PC Gaskin, wasn’t it?’

Tucker nodded sombrely.

Lucy sat back again. She breathed out. ‘Oh … wow.’

Sometime in the early 2000s, an armed robbery had occurred at a branch of the Halifax Building Society in central Manchester. The gang got clean away, but only because, when a patrolling constable confronted them as they left the premises, one of them shot him at point-blank range, killing him instantly.

‘It was Lee’s older brother, Tony,’ Tucker confirmed.

‘Jesus,’ she said slowly.

If her memory served, the formation of the Manchester Robbery Squad had followed about a year later, certain of the murdered officer’s colleagues refusing to accept that, because funds were tight, the investigation should be relegated to the ‘cold case’ division, and lobbying the GMP top brass for some kind of dedicated anti-armed robbery unit in the style of the Flying Squad in London. When journalists and local MPs got on the case as well, it finally happened.

‘Tony Gaskin had been my tutor-con when I first joined up,’ Tucker said. ‘Absolute top bloke. When he died in 2002, I was divisional CID at the Crescent, Salford. Just around the corner from where it happened. I couldn’t believe it … best lad in the job, gone in a blink. I felt we had to do something. Couldn’t let it go unanswered.’

‘You were part of the original lobby group?’ Lucy asked, fascinated.

Tucker shrugged. ‘That’s right. A few of us made a big pitch. Ended up going nationwide. Manchester was supposed to be a happening place, and rotten press like this didn’t look good. In the end, they couldn’t refuse us.’

‘So, you were in the Squad right from the beginning?’