Lucy didn’t bother elaborating on how all this, along with the organised nature of the ambush – the teamwork it had clearly involved, and the fact that the victim was being targeted for kidnap rather than a simple assault – put it way beyond common-or-garden street violence. Instead, she asked: ‘I don’t suppose the girl said anything to you?’

‘Hissed a few foul-mouthed things, that’s all.’

‘Anything you recognised?’

‘I suppose I recognised the words, even if I didn’t quite understand them.’

Lucy shrugged. ‘Any you’d care to share?’

‘Well … I dislike the language of course. But I suppose you’ll need to hear everything?’

‘Unfortunately, it’s essential.’

Sister Cassie nodded sadly. ‘She called me a “stiff-assed virgin bitch” and said something equally uncouth about “taking me back to fucking Maggies”.’

‘And did that mean anything to you?’

‘I assure you not. Such a foul mouth on one so young. But then it’s all we seem to hear these days, is it not?’

‘Sometimes feels that way,’ Lucy agreed.

‘At least I clouted her a good one.’ Sister Cassie’s face coloured a little. ‘My old mother, a devout Christian woman despite her own occasional use of inappropriate words, always used to say that turning the other cheek was only good so long as no fella came up and striped it with his razor blade. She grew up on Sheriff Street, of course, an unforgiving neighbourhood in her day. But alas –’ she held up her injured right hand ‘– though I followed her instruction and tried to stand up to this young bully, I fear I’ve paid a price.’

‘Let me look at that,’ Lucy said.

The ex-nun obliged. Her hand was now sticky with blood, most of it from the top of the stick-like middle finger, where the entire nail had been torn away.

‘I think this happened when I struck the girl,’ the ex-nun said.

Lucy glanced up at her. ‘Really?’

‘My fingernails are not exactly manicured, as you can see. So, I must have hooked her in some way when I slapped her. But this is a minor thing. I am more than used to—’

‘Sister, can you follow me down the slope?’

‘Go back below?’

‘Just for a minute. Please. I promise you it’s important.’

The ex-nun acquiesced, buckling up her satchel, while Lucy went over to her Ducati. She rode it back down the ramp, angling it up on top of the rubble barricade again and parking it just over the apex, so that her headlight flooded the floorway beyond. She climbed off and waited for Sister Cassie to join her, then the two of them scrambled down the rest of the way on foot.

‘In case you’re wondering, we’re looking for your missing fingernail,’ Lucy said.

‘Dear child … I hardly need that back.’