Detective Constable Lucy Clayburn headed north along the M60, and at the Wardley interchange swerved west along the M61. It was just after ten o’clock at night, so even Greater Manchester’s famously crowded motorway network was relatively quiet, enabling her blood-red liveried Ducati M900 ‘Monster’ to hit a cruising speed of 80mph as she passed the turn-offs to Farnworth, Lostock and Westhoughton. She only slowed as she reached Junction 6, where she swung a right, entering the complexity of roundabouts and slip roads surrounding the Reebok stadium, the home of Bolton Wanderers Football Club.

From here it was straight north-west, first along Chorley New Road towards Horwich, and then north along Rivington Lane. Only now, on the northernmost edge of the Greater Manchester Police force area, with the great bulk of Winter Hill looming on her right – an amorphous escarpment on the star-speckled October sky – did the red-brick conurbation of the cityscape dissipate properly, to be replaced by the more pastoral villages, woodlands and stone-walled farms of rural Lancashire. In due course, she even veered away from this, riding east into the foothills of the West Pennine Moors, dipping and looping along narrow, fantastically twisty lanes. A few minutes later, deep in Lever Country Park, in the close vicinity of the renovated Tudor structure that was Rivington Barn, she throttled slowly down. A famous meeting point for bikers from all across the north of England, this picturesque but isolated spot was for the most part deserted late at night, but now one particular car park – a small area about four hundred yards from the Barn, hemmed on three sides by thick belts of trees – was a riot of light and noise.

Lucy homed in on it, gliding in among the many bikes parked haphazardly across its gritty surface and the bodies milling there in blue denim and worn leather. As usual, they were all ages, from rangy, pimply-faced teens to characters in their fifties with capacious ale-guts, bald pates and grey fuzz beards. Women of various ages were present too – Hell’s Angel type activity had never been exclusively confined to the guys.

Regardless of gender, the back of each jacket had been emblazoned in fiery orange letters: LOW RIDERS.

They fell silent as Lucy rode slowly among them, a natural alleyway parting for her. She hit the anchors properly at the far edge of the car park, where she turned the engine off and lowered her kickstand. She climbed from the bike, took off her crimson helmet and shook out her black hair, which tumbled glossily down her back and shoulders.

Immediately, there were wolf whistles, ribald comments.

Lucy didn’t react. She was in her motorbike leathers, which while they weren’t exactly skin-tight, were pretty clingy. Add to that her constant work-outs at the gym, which meant that she was in good shape. But when she turned and fronted them, and they recognised her as the copper she was, someone hawked and spat.