‘The answer’s still no, Mr Pentecost, sir,’ Lucy said, hoping the severe mask she wore would conceal the fact that underneath she was shaking like a leaf. ‘In fact, you and your friends shouldn’t even be in this area. So I’ll have to ask you to vacate the Intensive Care suite altogether.’ She pointed at the glass door. ‘If you’d like to go out the way you came in.’

Pentecost regarded her with genuine, if chilling, interest. ‘Clayburn, did you say?’

‘That’s right, sir.’

‘That name sounds familiar.’

‘It’s possible we’ve had contact in the past, you being who you are and me being who I am.’

He came forward again with a slow, steady gait. Before Lucy knew it, she’d backed into the very doorway of the room where McCracken lay unconscious. She had to make a stand here. Whatever else happened, she couldn’t retreat past this point.

‘Clearly it wasn’t close contact,’ Pentecost said. ‘Otherwise you’d know that grandstanding like this is very ill-advised.’

‘Just doing my duty, sir. Now, if you and your friends would like to leave—’

‘Fuck this bitch!’ one of Pentecost’s thugs snapped.

He looked younger than the others, and had a mop of unruly blond hair, but was hugely built under his tight-fitting suit. He lurched forward with fierce, leonine aggression. Lucy grabbed at the tray of surgical instruments on top of the trolley just inside the room and snatched up a scalpel.

‘One more step, pretty boy, and I’ll stripe that face till your mum wouldn’t know it!’

‘Burke!’ Pentecost snapped, his voice a whip-crack.

The blond guy obeyed immediately, but his attack had faltered anyway, his eyes locked on the blade Lucy hefted at him.

Fleetingly, she’d even surprised herself. Did she really care so much about her father? She tried to deny that possibility, to insist to herself that she was simply following orders here, keeping the witness isolated.

And that involves pulling a knife?

She held her ground, anyway. The chances were slim that they’d try to hurt McCracken in a public place like this, but suddenly, and for whatever reason, she was absolutely damned if these scumbags were going anywhere near him.

‘Well, well,’ Pentecost said. ‘Aren’t we the feisty one? And aren’t we maybe overstepping the mark a little bit? A group of concerned citizens come to check on the health of an ailing friend and you, a representative of the Greater Manchester Police, threaten them with violence.’

‘I imagine you understand other languages, Mr Pentecost,’ she replied. ‘But I can’t be completely sure.’

‘Now you’re just being impertinent.’

‘Mr McCracken is doing well. He’s had minor surgery, which apparently was completely successful, and he’s expected to make a full recovery.’ She lowered the scalpel, but not very far. ‘I don’t think there’s anything else you can do here, do you?’