He was a gangster. It was that simple. But not just an ordinary gangster; he held high rank in the Crew, the most influential crime syndicate in the whole of Northwest England. It hadn’t always been that way, of course. Thirty-two years ago, he’d been a small-time enforcer, one of whose duties was to mind the girls and watch the punters in a mob-owned strip-joint in central Manchester. It was there that he’d met a young Cora Clayburn, who, in a completely different life to the one she led now, had been one of the stars of the show. She’d taken to McCracken quickly; he was handsome, tough, intelligent, and he had the gift of the gab – his role at the club had been more ‘cooler’ than ‘bouncer’. They’d embarked on a relationship, but when Cora fell pregnant, she’d quickly reappraised her life. First of all, she’d decided that she wanted to keep the baby. Secondly, it was obvious that a rowdy strip-club was a completely inappropriate environment in which to raise a child. Thirdly, urbane though Frank McCracken could be, he was a criminal – and a violent one – and so were all his friends, so it didn’t take long for Cora to decide that she didn’t want him in her youngster’s life.

It still wasn’t a spur-of-the-moment decision to leave. Cora was open and honest with McCracken, and he accepted it, partly because he wasn’t ready for fatherhood but also because he could take his pick of the other strippers and was still at an age when playing the field was viewed as a male birthright. He’d offered Cora money to assist her, but she’d even turned that down, insisting that she wanted to make a complete break, advising her former beau that he would likely never see or even hear from her again.

And that was how it had remained. The child, a girl called Lucy, was born in Crowley, where Cora made her new life. She grew up never knowing who her father was but, ironically, joined the Greater Manchester Police. It was only two years ago, in the very dramatic circumstances of Operation Clearway, an undercover mission she and numerous other policewomen had undertaken in order to catch a killer called Jill the Ripper, that Lucy had finally come into contact with McCracken – now a major player, of course.