They drove in silence for a few minutes, Lucy doing her best to keep a lid on her vexation. All her fears and frustrations of earlier had been amplified in the last two hours by Sister Cassie’s confusing and contradictory directions. Given that the Santa Magdalena care home, though on the edge of the borough, was officially within Crowley, they ought to have located it some time ago, but they’d constantly gone the wrong way and needed to turn back. Several times they’d had to wing it because the ex-nun simply didn’t know where they were. Even Lucy’s sat-nav was useless as they didn’t have an address and, since the care home hadn’t existed for well over a decade, it didn’t figure in the list of local landmarks. Lucy didn’t know where it was herself, because it had closed before she’d started as a cop, and she couldn’t just Google it or ring someone to ask because she had no phone with her. On reflection, she ought to have gone home and looked it up on her laptop on first hearing about it, but Sister Cassie had seemed to know where it was and, at the time, letting her direct had seemed like the quickest option.

Lucy now realised that she ought to have known better.

‘There’s been so much building work since I was last here,’ the ex-nun complained. ‘I don’t recognise half of these housing estates.’

This was true, and much of the extensive redevelopment was still under way. At one point, they’d found themselves meshed in a web of roadworks, their route ahead blocked by a succession of dirt-carrying dumper trucks moving into and out of a fenced-off hardhat area, a bored-looking workman leaning on his ‘Stop’ sign as if it was the only thing keeping him awake. So irritated had Lucy become that she’d activated the blues and twos for a couple of minutes to clear themselves a passage.

‘I can’t identify this part of town at all.’ Sister Cassie’s voice, progressively more querulous, intruded on her thoughts.

‘Look,’ Lucy said. ‘We have to find it soon. This is Lower Green Lane, which means we’re not just on our way out of the N Division, we’re on our way out of the entire Greater Manchester Police area.’

‘Wait! Wait … I recognise that!’

A pub had appeared from the darkness on their left. It was boarded up, but the sign over its door was visible if Lucy slowed down, which she did, revealing that it had formerly been the Plough and Harrow.

‘You’re sure?’ Lucy said.

‘Yes, yes!’ The ex-nun’s confidence grew. ‘It’s a little further ahead on the right.’

There were now trees on their right, ranked densely behind a low stone wall. It did look as if they were following the boundary to some enclosed area. They passed a bus stop.