‘I don’t know the address, but it’s over towards Glazebury.’

‘Could you find it if we got in the car?’ Lucy asked.

‘We aren’t going to the police station?’

‘If you can direct me there, Sister … we’ll call it time served.’

Chapter 42

Frank McCracken’s official residence was 17, Yellowbrook Close, Didsbury, in South Manchester. The house, a five-bedroom detached, surrounded by extensive gardens, was located on a swish but secluded housing estate, where the average property price could be anything between £700,000 and £1,000,000.

At present, though, there was no one home. It was nearly eight o’clock in the evening, and Mrs Hepplethwaite, McCracken’s housekeeper, finished no later than six. Most of the neighbours were indoors, their children along with them because it was a school night. Overhead, the evening sky turned from lilac to indigo, while down below, the dim orange bulbs of streetlights flickered to life one by one.

Slowly, unusually cautiously, Mick Shallicker drove along the empty street, parking the Bentley in front of McCracken’s house rather than using the fob on the key-ring to open the electronically operated gates. Yellowbrook Close was a cul-de-sac, which always made him feel hemmed in, even in normal circumstances, so to go onto the drive now would seem like sheer folly. He climbed from the car and loitered on the pavement, scanning the surrounding gardens, paying particular attention to other parked vehicles, seeing if there were any that he didn’t recognise. No one would think it strange to see him here, for all that his size made him an eye-catching individual. He was known locally as an employee of McCracken’s, a security man who often lived on site, though this behaviour might have appeared a little strange.

At present, of course, he had too many other things on his mind to be worried by that.

He finally used the fob on the pedestrian gate, which stood to one side. It swung open, and he walked up the drive, unlocking a side-door to the house. Inside, he deactivated the alarm and stood for a second, listening. The palatial interior was perfectly still and smelled clean and fresh.

Satisfied, Shallicker trotted upstairs to the third bedroom, which was reserved for guests. In an upper section of its wardrobe, he found a series of matching tan suitcases of decreasing size, each one placed inside the next like the parts of a Russian doll. He selected one of the smaller ones, though not the smallest, and took it through to the main bedroom. Opening the wardrobe in there, he yanked out various clothes and threw them all into the case. He then moved through to the bathroom, which was all gold and chrome and crystal, the tub large enough to accommodate several people at once – and that had happened at least a couple of times to Shallicker’s memory, his employer frolicking two and even three at a time with some of his favourite ladies.