Burdened down by boxes of expensive electricals, Francis and Tommy had no chance to run; Norbert’s retreat back to the van was cut off by a phalanx of men and women eager to try out their newly issued long-handled truncheons.

‘Just like the military in the Gulf,’ Millington explained in the canteen later. ‘Not so often you get a chance to give the hardware a try, battle conditions and all.’

Resnick had taken Vincent and Naylor for back-up, but left them downstairs, watching over Coughlan’s wife as she offered them a choice of Ceylon or Darjeeling. Resnick read Coughlan his rights as the big man dressed, hesitating for longer than was strictly necessary over the striped tie or the plain blue. Either way, the custody sergeant would never let him take it with him into the cells.

‘Some bastard fingered me, I suppose,’ Coughlan said, walking ahead of Resnick out of the room.

‘Your mistake,’ Resnick said, ‘doing a job with Breakshaw, letting him wade into those officers the way he did.’

‘It wasn’t Cookie, was it?’ Coughlan stood facing Resnick at the foot of the stairs.

‘Terry? No,’ Resnick said. ‘Besides, I thought the two of you were close. Family, almost. Last thing I should have thought he’d want to drop you in it. Unless you’ve given him reason, of course.’

‘Whatever time is it?’ Eileen asked. The faintest glow from the streetlamp, orange, filtered through the curtain of the room.

Terry picked up the clock and brought it closer to his face. ‘Half three.’

‘What you doing still awake?’

‘Can’t sleep.’

She turned towards him, careful not to let the cold air into the bed. ‘You’re not worried, are you?’

‘What about?’

‘I don’t know. I thought maybe the other night…’

‘Shush.’ Leaning forward, he kissed her lightly on the mouth. ‘It’s happened. Done.’

‘I won’t do it again.’

‘You said.’

Again he stopped her, this time with his hand. ‘Don’t. Don’t promise. There isn’t any need.’

She moved her mouth so that first one, then two of his fingers were between her lips. Terry reached down and hooked his thumb inside the top of his boxer shorts, easing them lower till he could kick them away to the end of the bed.

‘I don’t deserve you, you know,’ Eileen said, reaching for him, his tongue for that moment where his fingers had been.

‘Yes,’ he said, when he could speak again. ‘Yes, sweetheart, you do.’ This had to be a better way, Terry thought, of relieving stress. No matter what the doctor said.

John Harvey is best known for his richly praised sequence of ten Nottingham-based Charlie Resnick novels, the first of which, Lonely Hearts, was recently chosen by The Times as one of the '100 Best Crime Novels of the Century'. He is also a poet, dramatist and broadcaster.After living in Nottingham for a good number of years, he has now returned to London to live with his partner and their young daughter.