McCracken was unsure how to reply. It was true that he and Cora had barely had contact since she’d left him and the SugaBabes club. In the last two years, though, he’d seen her much more regularly, though that was mainly due to their both becoming embroiled in Lucy’s investigations. But even then, it was difficult pretending that renewing his acquaintance with her hadn’t made an impact on him.

He remembered Cora vividly from her youth, a twenty-something dancer, whose flowing flaxen hair and sinuous, exotic routine had struck even the rowdiest clientele dumb with amazement. Okay, the alluring outfits had all come off piece by piece, in the sexiest way imaginable, and any red-blooded male would have been stirred. But it wasn’t just that. Cora had been the only stripper in the club to use a microphone, talking to the crowd, teasing them, taunting them. Even when fully dressed, she’d known exactly how to rock a man’s world.

But needless to say, there’d been a lot more to her than that.

Whether it was her determined nature or adversarial spirit, McCracken wasn’t sure – he’d always found those things appealing in a woman, because they were such a challenge to his own alpha-male status. But Cora had been morally upright too, in her own way, as if deep down inside there’d always been a model citizen trying to get out. On reflection it was no surprise that, when she’d learned she was pregnant, she’d extricated herself and her unborn child completely from the lowlife environment that had become her world.

‘The least you can do is give me an answer,’ she said into his ear.

‘I’m working on one,’ he replied.

‘Oh, charming …’

Though that was the most genuine reply he could have given. He felt he knew what the real answer was, or at least he had a vague idea – but he couldn’t articulate it. There’d been savagery all his life. He’d only ever known violent criminals, had only ever lived off the proceeds of violent crime – and so often his women had been part of those proceeds.

With the sole exception of Cora Clayburn.

When only a few things in your life were actually good – when everything else was wrong or bent or corrupt – didn’t you sometimes cling to those few things? Didn’t you go looking for them when you thought they were lost because so often they felt like your final hope?