They cut the call and Lucy drove on sourly, furious with herself that even in the midst of what was turning into a major criminal enquiry, her thoughts were still ranging over domestic issues. But they had to. The fact that she’d been brooding on it all night, barely sleeping, was hardly a surprise, because what was going on at home was not routine stuff; it had the potential to plunge her life and career into a crisis from which there might be no escape.

And then there was the emotional context.

On the few occasions she’d met with her father previously, he’d been a mischievous, patronising presence, comfy in the knowledge that he could toy with her while she couldn’t ever risk calling his bluff because she shouldn’t have been conferring with him in the first place. Doubtless, that was always the way of it when coppers and underworld bigwigs were involved in shady dealing. But with Frank McCracken, it was aggravated by the father and daughter thing, McCracken often assuming a teacherly role, as if she needed to know how things were really done in this business and he was the ideal man for it. It was also true that he’d helped her out when she’d been in over her head. Lucy repeatedly told herself that this had mainly been to help himself, because, a couple of times at least, their aims had been the same. But it was hard to deny that there’d been something else there too.

McCracken had never been a dad to her. She’d met him just two years ago and before then had known him only as a gangster. And even though he’d known about her, he’d made no effort to get acquainted until it had become unavoidable. But now that they did know each other, he’d related to her increasingly differently, expressing guarded interest in her career, showing admiration at the things she’d got right, even offering advice when it came to the things he thought she was getting wrong.

She couldn’t bloody believe it, to be honest.

The closer she felt he was to her, the more frightened she was that the whole thing was suddenly going to go pear-shaped. Because it was impossible to overstate just how high in the criminal hierarchy Frank McCracken was, and, for all his civilised airs, just how dangerous. She couldn’t even guess how many people he’d killed or beaten, or ordered to be killed or beaten. And just because they were his fellow villains, that didn’t make it okay.

And now there was this.

It was a subtle change in his demeanour, but it was a change nevertheless, his connection to the Clayburn family suddenly taking a turn for the personal, as if they were no longer just a fact of life for him, but something he was starting to care about.