‘Obviously this means more to you than I thought,’ Lucy said when she’d finished her starter. She dabbed at her mouth. ‘But you know the situation with him and me. As soon as word gets out, we’re both finished in our respective careers.’

‘And do you really believe that, Lucy?’ Cora scrutinised her in a firm, motherly way, as though trying to wheedle the truth out of a deceitful child. ‘Do you? Honestly?’

Again, Lucy considered this. Coming clean to her bosses about who her father was would be a huge risk. How would they ever be able to take her seriously as a police officer again?

‘Just say, for the sake of argument,’ Cora ventured, ‘that I did start seeing him –’ Lucy suppressed a shudder ‘– do any of your lot even know I’m your mother? I can count on one hand all the times during your career when other police officers have been to my house.’

‘It’s not just that,’ Lucy replied. ‘Look – Frank McCracken’s a hardened criminal. Oh, I get it, don’t worry. That refined aura, that rough-diamond charm. He could win anyone over. But he’s a murderer. He’s surrounded by murderers. I can’t stress that enough. The man he works for is one of the most feared gangsters in Britain. He’s literally a homicidal maniac.’

Cora looked unimpressed.

‘But you know all this already, don’t you?’ Lucy said, deflated.

‘I’m not saying I’m about to tie the knot with him. I just don’t think we can keep pretending that he isn’t part of our lives. And quite clearly, neither does he.’

Again, Lucy didn’t know how to respond. All this had come completely out of left field.

‘If you insist on it, I won’t thank him for the flowers,’ Cora said. ‘But this won’t be the last time I hear from him. I can feel it in my bones.’

I’d love to know why, Lucy suddenly wondered. What is he up to?

Was it conceivable – was it even faintly possible – that Cora was right, and that McCracken was hankering after a proper family? If so, he surely couldn’t imagine that she and her mother would provide that?

‘How’s work anyway?’ Cora asked, trying to change the subject. ‘Sounds like you had a busy day yesterday.’

‘Yeah …’ Lucy frowned as the waitress removed their plates. ‘I had a bit of a score, but it was none of it very edifying. Think of the quietest, leafiest neighbourhood you can, and there’ll be monsters there. Hiding behind the privets and the chintz curtains.’

‘And yet some of the lowliest people in society are exactly the opposite.’

Lucy shrugged. ‘Good and evil don’t make class distinctions.’

Briefly, Cora stared at nothing. ‘And no one looks out for them.’

‘Well … we try to.’

‘You think so? What happened to that bloke Walter Brown?’

‘Walter who?’