Lucy saw an image of a gawky teenage girl with long but messy blonde hair. Her OTT makeup was blotched by tears; she’d clearly been upset at the time of her arrest.

‘Alyssa Torgau,’ Lucy said, reading the details. ‘Fifteen years old … shoplifting.’

‘Like I say, hardly the villain of villains.’

‘This was back in 2014, which would only make her nineteen now.’

‘I was wondering about that … think they could have made a mistake?’

‘No.’ Lucy recollected the lithe, blonde-haired figure that had eluded her through the industrial basements. ‘But it’s a puzzler. I’m just wondering when this silly young cow went and joined the commandos.’

‘What?’

‘Nothing.’ Lucy flipped the papers around. ‘Who’s the other one?’

‘That’s her dad, Martin Torgau. I only include him because he’s the only known associate she’s got.’

This suspect – though ‘suspect’ was probably too strong a word at this stage – had a little more form. His last and only arrest had been in 2002, in Liverpool, when he’d been imprisoned for a year and a half for illegal possession of a handgun and for carrying a banned knife, though he was released after eight months for good behaviour.

Lucy was intrigued that he’d been jailed at all, but there were plenty of additional notations on his sheet to explain this. It seemed that he’d been arrested after paying a taxi fare, his overcoat falling open and the driver catching a glimpse of what looked like the butt of a pistol hanging in a shoulder-holster. On being taken into custody, the pistol was found to be a loaded Beretta M9, which was heavy stuff. A full body search had then found what was described as a ‘Rambo knife’ strapped to his lower left leg – which made Lucy think about the cross-guarded fighting knife she’d seen in the possession of her assailant at St Clement’s. But more important than any of this, Torgau had refused to explain his possession of these implements during interview. He’d admitted his guilt and apologised but had pointedly said nothing else.

The Merseyside detective on the case had been so concerned by this, because he’d felt that possession of such weapons meant the guy was more than he appeared to be, that he’d made a big issue of Torgau’s lack of cooperation, which the CPS later reflected in court, and the trial judge agreed with.

An additional footnote added that Martin Torgau, who’d been a widower at the time, had two young daughters, Alyssa and Ivana, twins, who, as there were no other living relatives, were placed in a Catholic care home for the brief time he was imprisoned.

Lucy wondered if she was going crazy. ‘Alyssa Torgau attacked a nun … having been held in a Catholic care home when she was a kid. Is that some kind of link?’

‘Not following,’ Tessa Payne said.