He opened the driver’s door. She got in the passenger seat and looked at her pocket notebook.

‘Do you want to get off home now or are you happy to carry on working?’

‘I’m easy. Where do you want to go?’

He started the car and prepared to drive off.

‘I was thinking of visiting Abby Jones. She’s the young girl who saw the man shooting at the police car—’

‘Didn’t Murphy say to hold off on her for now?’

‘Yes, but I’ve a gut feeling she may have seen O’Reilly’s face. What she said to me at the scene doesn’t add up.’

He frowned at Jane. ‘That will piss Murphy off big time – and that’s not something you want to do right now.’

She checked something in her pocket notebook.

‘I asked Abby to describe the tall man who got out of the passenger seat of the Cortina. She told me he was wearing a balaclava, even though every other witness said he was wearing a brown stocking mask.’

Teflon shrugged. ‘The poor kid obviously made a mistake – which is understandable when there are bullets flying round your head and police cars crashing in front of you.’

‘From where the getaway car stopped in Woodville Road there were two trails of blood. One ran to the middle of the road, where several drops were confined to a small area, which indicates someone was standing there. The fired cartridge cases were near there as well, and the direction of the other blood trail was returning to where the car had been—’

He was starting to get frustrated with her stubbornness.

‘I think maybe it’s best we call it a day.’

But Jane wasn’t going to be deterred.

‘If the man who fired the handgun at the police car had a cut to his forehead, you’d expect the stocking mask to soak up the blood and maybe leave a few drops here and there.’

‘What’s your point, Jane?’

‘If the blood was being soaked up by the stocking it would spread like ink on blotting paper, making it difficult to see. We think O’Reilly was the man who fired the handgun, and we know he has a cut to his head. I believe he took the stocking mask off before he got out of the getaway car because he couldn’t see with it on. Abby wasn’t mistaken; she lied because she was frightened. But if she can identify O’Reilly in a line-up, we’ve got him. Likewise, if Fiona Simpson can identify Graham, plus we can link them to the Ripley brothers—’

‘Even if Abby Jones agrees to do an ID parade, she might bottle it on the day, then you’re left with nothing. You nick them on the plot, and they’re all fucked in one hit.’