DI Kathy Blake came next. She was in scruffs, but also wore a Kevlar vest and shoulder pads, and a high-visibility baseball cap. A Glock was holstered on her right hip, and she was talking on the phone. A divisional prisoner-transport van followed, a firearms officer walking on the nearside of it, a Robbery Squad officer walking on the offside. Three more firearms guys walked into the car park behind the van, and then came a couple of the Robbery Squad’s unmarked cars, both loaded with detectives, all of whom, from their faces, seemed to be in a very good mood.

DI Blake was too busy on the phone to notice Lucy and Harry, as she veered away towards the Custody Suite’s outer door, which swung open in advance of her reaching it. The prisoner-transport peeled from the cavalcade and followed her, pulling up right alongside the door. The troop-carrier and the detectives’ cars halted a couple of dozen yards away, their personnel spilling out and hurrying across the yard to form a cordon.

‘Now this is what you call a result,’ Lucy said, half to herself but loud enough for Harry to hear.

The prisoner-transport’s rear doors swung open, as did the cage doors inside them, and pairs of men began scrambling out, four of them in total, in each case a Robbery Squad officer handcuffed to a suspect. Lucy didn’t need to look at the suspects, who, to a man, were brawny individuals with close-cropped hair and prison tats to match, to know that this was the fabled Saturday Street Gang.

One by one, they were taken inside. Danny Tucker now appeared, stepping out from the Custody Suite and having a quick word with the inspector in charge of the firearms-response team, who nodded and indicated that his men could climb back into their vehicle. Tucker spotted Lucy, and gave her a thumbs-up before going back inside, slamming the door behind him.

‘You want to avoid that fella,’ Harry grunted. ‘Don’t like him. Too flash. Don’t trust any of these flash bastard specialist departments.’

Lucy glanced round at him. ‘You can’t argue with their results.’

‘Yeah, but why do you think they’re under the microscope at present?’ Harry chuntered on as they walked across the yard towards his silver-grey BMW. ‘All they do all day is focus on these teams of blaggers – who might do a job once every six months. Meanwhile, the rest of us wear down shoe-leather chasing the odds and sods of Crowley, who’re at it twenty-four-seven. Small scores on paper, but in the long run we’re the ones who are cleaning up the frontier.’

‘You know,’ Lucy said, as they climbed into the car, ‘uniform probably think the same way about CID in general.’

He didn’t bother to answer as the BMW grumbled to life.

‘We’re all on the same side, Harry,’ she added. ‘Chill out.’