‘You sure?’ He cracked a pained smile. ‘Thought you’d be happy watching us rodents eat each other … till it came to your dad, and then it was a different story, wasn’t it?’

‘I’m a police officer,’ she hissed. ‘I have a duty to protect.’

‘Keep telling yourself that …’

‘Don’t you bloody tell me what I think and believe!’

‘Doubt you’d be this upset if there wasn’t a grain of truth in it. But if it’s any consolation, love …’ He tried to adjust position, cringing with pain. ‘If it’s a consolation, Wild Bill was probably only here to do what he said … check out the health of a colleague. At a time when the press wouldn’t be around. So, if it was about doing your duty … it was a brave but wasted effort.’

‘Yeah, well, I wouldn’t get too carried away with how clever you are,’ she said. ‘It can’t go on, this – me keeping my mouth shut, watching my colleagues run around banging their heads on brick walls while I pretend I don’t know stuff. The first opportunity I get, I’m going to tell my boss exactly what my and your relationship is. And I’ll take any consequences that come my way.’

He seemed too agonised to be overly concerned. ‘There won’t be much down for you on the promotion front.’

‘You think I care? I’m happy being a detective constable … or at least I would be, if I wasn’t always feeling that I’m playing for the other side.’

‘No one asked you to do anything for us, Lucy.’

‘Christ’s sake, Dad … caring about you is too much. We should be enemies. I shouldn’t give a shit about you.’

‘And how will telling your gaffers improve that situation?’

‘At least then everyone will know their limits. They’ll know what I can and can’t be asked to do, and why.’

He rolled his eyes towards her, though even that seemed to hurt him. ‘So … you’re happy to be compromised, to say, “Hey lads, I can’t be trusted.”’

‘Damn it, Dad!’ she half-shouted. ‘I can’t be trusted! Not by the people who really matter to me. You might be able to live with something like that. But I can’t. Not any more.’

‘In my case it won’t be about whether I can live with it as much as whether I’ll be allowed to live. Like you said before, you tell your lot and word will have got to our lot in half a day.’

‘I know,’ she said. ‘And I’m sorry.’

‘You understand what that means, Lucy? I’m stuck here for at least another week. I’ll be a sitting duck.’

She stood up, torn with frustration. ‘They’re not going to kill you because of this.’