‘You?’ Cora shook her head. She took her keys from her anorak pocket and opened the driver’s door. ‘You need to learn to live with the fact that your father’s a criminal. For the last two years, you’ve been running from that.’ She climbed in behind the wheel. ‘For all our sakes, Lucy, why don’t you just put it right?’

The door slammed, and the Honda rumbled to life. Lucy stepped back as it swung around and accelerated across the car park towards the exit gate.

As she walked back to the CID car, the whole thing seemed utterly surreal. It was impossible to imagine that something so improbable had emerged in her life. Like she didn’t have enough to concern herself with. It wasn’t purely about Frank McCracken getting shot and neither her nor her mum wanting him to die – Lucy couldn’t help but admit that she’d been somewhat relieved to learn that he’d live – it was the ongoing problem of conflicting interests. How many times was she going to have to be evasive and deceitful with her colleagues? How long could she keep ducking and diving? How much damage was being done all the time this went on and she continually refused to admit the truth?

She’d rounded the corner and was away from the ICU and the cops standing guard there, when from out of nowhere a huge vehicle screeched to a halt in front of her. It was a black Bentley Continental saloon.

Its driver leaned over and pushed open the front passenger door.

‘Lucy!’ Mick Shallicker said, looking tired and unkempt. ‘Get in. We’ve got to talk.’

Chapter 29

Ivana and Alyssa took the same route home they always did, driving first to the Cranleigh industrial park, just north of the town centre. Here they drove into their father’s lock-up on the narrow side-street that was Batley Lane, though in fact it was two lock-ups standing back to back, the other opening onto a parallel side-street called Crimea Terrace.

In the first lock-up they checked the doors were secure, stripped and bundled their combat gear and underclothes into a washing machine. Ordinarily, at this stage, they would clean their ‘appointments’, as they called them – boots, belts, harnesses, gloves and so on, buffing them with various of the chemicals stacked on the wall of shelves alongside the double-locked medical cabinet where they kept the drugs and syringes. But this was often a lengthy procedure, and at present they were under orders to get home quickly, so they opted to return later and attend to it then.