Strangers Read online

  ‘All I want is a toilet break, and … now you’re not letting me have one.’

  ‘You never mentioned you needed a break back at the nick.’

  ‘I didn’t need one then.’

  ‘We’ve only been out here ten bloody minutes.’

  ‘Sorry, but I can’t help it. It’s all that tea you kept pouring down my throat in the interview room.’

  ‘Just try and wait, Michael … you’re not a kid.’

  But he now sat stiffly upright, his face etched with discomfort. ‘What if I released it down my leg and messed your van up, eh? All because I couldn’t hold it? I bet you’d have a right go at me, wouldn’t you?’

  Lucy thought long and hard.

  It wouldn’t be the first time a prisoner had urinated on her, and quite often that had happened inside the back of a police vehicle. It wasn’t always their fault; some of them were losers in so many aspects of life. And it wasn’t as if clothing couldn’t go in the wash or that she herself couldn’t just step under a warm shower. But it always took so long to get the smell out of the car or van. This was a pool vehicle, of course, and different officers would drive it every day, so it wouldn’t solely be her problem … except that she was the one who’d get blamed for it, and on top of that, she’d be stuck in here tonight with the stink for God knew how long.

  ‘They probably won’t be more than an hour,’ she said, though it was as much an attempt to convince herself as Haygarth, and in that regard it didn’t work.

  Most likely they’d be much more than an hour. They might even be several hours.

  He muttered something else, his voice turning hoarse. She noticed that his bony knees, formerly wide apart, were squeezed together. He’d begun twitching, fidgeting.

  Could it really do any harm?

  ‘Alright,’ she said reluctantly. ‘We go outside and you pee against the nearest tree, but you’ll have to do it one-handed because you’re staying cuffed.’

  ‘That’s fine.’ He sounded relieved and waited patiently while Lucy reached down, found the release lever on the door and flipped it upright.

  If Alan Denning in the cab heard the clunk of the rear locks disengaging, he didn’t respond. Most likely, he couldn’t hear it with what sounded like Rhianna blaring away. Lucy thought to call him anyway, for the purpose of extra security, but decided that Denning, being the epitome of the big, unfeeling, hairy-arsed male copper, would most likely respond with: ‘Don’t be so soft, Clayburn! Make him fucking wait! He can tie a fucking knot in it!’ Or something similarly enlightened.

  She kept her mouth shut as she climbed out onto the road, Haygarth following, grit and twigs crunching under their feet. Proper darkness now enveloped the woods, the source of the constant dripping and pattering completely invisible. Lucy’s torch had been purloined by one of the others, but there was sufficient light spilling from the back of the van to show the nearest tree-trunk, a glinting black/green pillar standing on the verge about five yards away, with a huge hollow some eight feet up it, where a knot had fallen out. Haygarth made a beeline towards it, but Lucy stopped him, first peering down the length of the van to see if anyone else on the team was hanging around at the front, maybe having a smoke. From what she could see, there was no one. The glow of the headlights speared forward, delineating the concrete bollards that signified the end of the track. Those too sparkled with moisture. Beyond them lay a dense mesh of sepia-brown undergrowth. Nothing moved.

  ‘Okay,’ she said, proceeding to the tree. ‘This’ll do. Make it quick.’

  Haygarth grunted with gratitude as he assumed the position. Lucy stood alongside him, but turned her shoulder so that, even by accident, she couldn’t glance down and catch sight of anything. It fleetingly occurred to her that, given, Haygarth’s alleged form, this voluntary blindsiding of herself might not be the wisest policy, but it was done now, and he had the air of a broken man in any case – plus Alan Denning was only a shout away.

  She heard Haygarth sigh as liquid splashed gently down the bole of the tree.

  ‘That’s much better,’ he mumbled. ‘God, I’ve been waiting for this.’

  ‘DC Clayburn, what the hell’s going on?’

  Lucy turned, surprised. Behind the blob of torchlight approaching from beyond the bollards there was an indistinct figure, but she knew who it was. The clumsy, slightly stooped gait was the main giveaway, but the harsh, humourless voice was added proof.

  ‘Ma’am, the prisoner …’ Lucy’s words tailed off as everything suddenly seemed to go wrong at once.

  First, she sensed movement alongside her. When she glanced around, Haygarth, who was six foot four – and with one arm extended upward could reach to nearly nine feet – was rooting inside the tree-trunk cavity.

  ‘What’re you …?’ she said, fleetingly baffled.

  Next, DI Doyle ran forward. At the same time, with a metallic thud, a driving-cab door swung open in response. Then there was a plasticky crackle, and Haygarth laughed, or rather giggled – it was a hyena-like sound rather than human.

  Lucy tried to grab his arm, but he barged into her with his left shoulder, knocking her off balance. And now the object he’d been groping for inside the tree came into view. It was only small, but it had been swathed in a supermarket wrapper to protect it, so its make and model were concealed. And it was anyone’s guess what calibre it was.

  As Lucy fell to the ground, he swung the object around. Its first booming report took out Doyle’s torch. She was only about ten yards away, but her light vanished with a PLOK. By the way she grunted and gasped and doubled over, the bullet had punched clean through it, tearing into her midriff.

  Lucy, prone on her back, was too numb to react. Hideous, unimaginable seconds seemed to pass before her training kicked in and she tried to roll away – only for her right arm to pull taut where it was handcuffed to Haygarth’s left. As she struggled to escape, he turned a slow circle, still laughing, a black skeletal figure in the reduced light, a man of sticks, a living scarecrow. And yet so much stronger than he looked. With embarrassing ease, he yanked her backwards, throwing her hard onto her spine, and pointed his bag down at her, smoke still venting from the hole blown at the end.

  She kicked out, slamming the flat of her foot against his right knee. There was a crack of sinew, and Haygarth’s leg buckled. He gave a piercing squeal as he collapsed on top of her, at the same time trying to hit her with his weapon. She blocked the blow with her left arm, and fleetingly their faces were an inch apart, his no longer the melancholic image she’d seen earlier, but a portrait of dementia, foam surging through his clenched buck-teeth, cheeks bunched, brow furrowed.

  He headbutted her. Right on the bridge of her nose.

  The pain that smashed through the middle of Lucy’s head was so intense that she almost blacked out, and as such didn’t see the weapon as he swept it down at her again, twice in fact, both times catching her clean on the left temple. A double explosion roared in her skull. As awareness faded and hot, sticky fluid pooled over her left eye, she saw him kneel upright, sweating, drool stringing from his mouth as he bit at the plastic wrapping, exposing the gleaming steel pistol underneath, and then pointed it down at her face – only to go rigid as a massive blow clattered the back of his own head.

  Consciousness ebbing away, the last thing Lucy saw was Haygarth’s thin, limp form as it was hauled roughly off her by the brute force that was Alan Denning.

  Chapter 1

  Now …

  He said that his name was Ronnie Ford and that he was from Warrington. By the looks of his heavy build, weathered face and chalk-grey hair, he was somewhere in his late forties. Apparently, he ran his own business – an auto-repair shop, which explained his ragged sweater and oil-stained canvas trousers – but he added that he was now on his way home for tea. Weirdly, the longer the woman rode alongside him, the more she came to suspect that he’d picked her up for honest, even gentlemanly reasons.

  For the first fifteen minutes of their shared jo
urney, he’d kept his eyes firmly on the road, chatting amiably, covering every subject under the sun, from the unseasonably mild autumn weather, to the poor state of the Malaga hotel where he and his wife had spent two weeks last August, to the latest and, in his opinion, even-more-hopeless-than-usual contestants on the new series of X Factor. It was all very affable and light-hearted.

  So … a bit of a father figure, Ronnie Ford.

  Or at least, an avuncular uncle type.

  But ultimately he was a man too. And seemingly as red-blooded as so many others.

  When he parked the car in the quiet lay-by and she climbed out, he climbed out as well. When she ran giggling to the stile, he followed her, expressing open if feigned admiration as she climbed it with lithe efficiency, despite her tight, knee-length skirt and four-inch heels. It helped, of course, that she did it sexily, wiggling up the rickety ladder and stepping prettily over its topmost rung before descending into the field on the other side.

  At this point, he shouted. ‘Hold up, love! Whoa … wait a minute!’

  He’d lost sight of her, thanks mainly to the autumn twilight. It was early October and not yet seven in the evening, so it wasn’t what you’d actually call dusk. It wasn’t even what you’d call cold. They’d had an Indian summer, which even now was only dissipating slowly, but light was leaching from the cloudy sky and dim traces of mist rising in the undergrowth.

  In the field, hacked stubble was all that remained of a recently harvested crop. It was roughly the size of a football pitch, but as the woman already knew, there was a clear pathway running straight as a ribbon to a belt of reddish-leafed trees on its far side. She hared off along this, still giggling. She had no idea why men found that ‘cheeky giggle’ thing fetching; she supposed it harked back to those daft naughty schoolgirl fantasies that generation after generation of saucy movies and top-shelf lads’ mags had impressed on British male society.

  From behind, she heard the clump of Ronnie Ford’s feet on the wooden rungs, and his loud grunts for breath. A non-too-fit avuncular uncle then, but evidently a man who now felt he was on a mission.

  They usually were in the end. It was always so pathetically easy.

  She’d only needed to remove her black knitted beret and shake out her blonde locks, ease down the zip on her anorak just sufficiently to reveal the skimpy blouse underneath, and then cross and uncross her legs a few times while he’d attempted to drive.

  The surreptitious sidelong glances had started soon after. And then, about quarter of an hour into the journey, when the suggestive conversation had commenced, she’d known he was hers.

  ‘It’s okay to check me out,’ she said in what was almost an apologetic tone. ‘I know I’m a bit of alright. Men are always saying crude stuff like that to me. I’ve got used to it now. So if it makes it easier for you, I don’t mind you looking.’

  ‘The problem is,’ he replied, heat visibly flaming the back of his neck, ‘I’ve got to concentrate on the road. Where did you say you were heading for again?’

  ‘Liverpool.’

  ‘I can drop you off at Warrington bus station. You’ll have no problem getting a connection to Liverpool from there. It’s not too far.’

  ‘That’s very kind of you.’

  ‘Not at all.’

  Despite having permission, Ronnie still only glanced furtively at her. Possibly he was even more of a gentleman than she’d first thought. Or maybe it was just his age and upbringing. She’d all but invited him to ogle her, but his initial reaction seemed to be to try and resist, to try to avoid getting drawn into those huge doe-eyes, which had gazed on him so beseechingly when he’d first pulled up alongside her, as if to say: ‘Are you here to help? Is it possible you are genuinely here to help? Or are you only after one thing too?’

  That always added to the allure, the ‘little girl lost’ approach.

  She resumed that teasing conversation, again crossing and uncrossing her legs so that the hem of her skirt started to rise.

  ‘Warrington’s still quite a ride from here,’ she said. ‘And I’ve nothing to pay you with.’

  ‘Doesn’t matter,’ he replied. ‘I’m going that direction anyway.’

  ‘Yes, but you should get something for your trouble. I’m Loretta, by the way.’

  ‘Erm … nice to meet you, Loretta.’

  Somewhat belatedly, he fiddled with the radio, trying to find a different station, something smoother than the hard-edged rock jarring out at them. After twenty seconds jamming and prodding, he located a slow, bluesy saxophone and turned it down a notch so that it could clearly be heard but at the same time they could talk.

  ‘What about it?’ she asked again, watching him. ‘How do I make it worth your while?’

  ‘Don’t be daft, Loretta …’

  But she wasn’t being daft. And he knew it.

  The revealing attire, the improper pose, the Marilyn Monroe combo of sweet, innocent kid and pulse-pounding vamp.

  ‘Look … I don’t mean to imply anything, but …’ He cleared his throat awkwardly. ‘I don’t have much cash on me.’

  ‘You’re paying your way by giving me a ride,’ she tittered. ‘I’m just wondering if I can return the favour.’

  ‘Don’t taunt me like that, love,’ he said, driving less than steadily. ‘You’ll make a sad old man even sadder.’

  ‘No, I’m serious,’ she responded. ‘I want to make it up to you any way I can. You’ll find I’m very broadminded.’

  ‘Yeah?’ Though it wasn’t really a question.

  ‘Look … just ahead there’s a turn,’ she said. ‘That’s a backroad. It leads to Abram eventually, but about half a mile along it there’s a lay-by for lorries and such. There’s a chippie van there during the day, but it’ll be closed at this hour. We could park up.’

  He glanced at her wonderingly. Whatever he’d been about to say died on his tongue, his eyes diverting down to where the zip on her silver anorak had completely descended, exposing a deep, creamy cleavage, and then even further down, to where a pair of black stocking-tops were revealed, along with shiny clips and taut, white straps.

  He looked again at her beautiful face, this time askance. And then he grinned. Broadly if somewhat disbelievingly. ‘Is this for real?’

  ‘Maybe. You’ll have to find out.’

  And if nothing else, he was keen to do that. Which was why she was now three quarters of the way across an empty field, with the darkling trees in front and Ronnie Ford about fifty yards behind.

  ‘Loretta?’ he called, huffing and puffing as he attempted to follow. ‘Come on, eh?’

  He wasn’t just unfit, he was clearly unhealthy. Just climbing over the stile appeared to have sapped him of energy. Perhaps it would be necessary to give him further encouragement. The wood stood in front of her, the path leading into it through a natural archway amid the nearest trees. As soon as she entered, and was fleetingly out of view, the woman hiked her skirt up and slipped her lacy white knickers down, stepping nimbly out of them and hanging the garment on a nearby twig.

  Giggling again, she hurried on into the darkness. Any reservations he might still have harboured ought to evaporate completely now.

  ‘Loretta?’ He tried to make a joke of it as he breathlessly entered the wood. ‘As you’ve seen, I’m approaching the autumn of my years. I might be like a fine vintage wine, but I can’t chase around the countryside anymore.’

  She watched him from about forty yards in front, from behind the clump of rhododendrons she’d been looking for on the left side of the path.

  Approximately five yards into the trees, he stopped and pivoted round. Suddenly wary.

  She wondered what he was thinking.

  A blue murk was spreading amid the gnarled stanchions of the trunks. Here and there, ground-level bushes hung heavy with dew. There was a reek of woodland decay, of fungus and leaf-mulch. All was deathly still.

  It looked as if he was about to start retreating. But then he stopped short.

 
Ten yards to his right, he’d spotted the pair of knickers suspended from their twig.

  Hurriedly, he lumbered over there, fingers twitching, apparently eager to fondle that soft, pliable material.

  Yeah … so much for the avuncular uncle.

  He yanked the garment down and spread it out in two hands, to check its authenticity no doubt. Then he folded it into a small, neat square and inserted it into his left hip pocket, before ambling back to the path and proceeding along it towards her, penetrating deeper into the ever-gloomier trees but now with a big lewd grin on his mug.

  She’d have laughed aloud if it wouldn’t have given her away.

  The poor stupid sod really thought he was going to get some.

  Chapter 2

  The Hatchwood Green estate was a sinkhole even by the standards of Crowley, which was one of Greater Manchester’s most deprived boroughs. It had been constructed in the 1950s, along with the rest of the district’s many council estates, though this was one of the largest, having been built on extensive brownfield land – a site formerly occupied by the long defunct Manchester Railway Company – and in so many ways it embodied the decline of the council housing dream in post-war Britain.

  Brand-new, spacious living accommodation for Crowley’s working class had soon turned sour for its residents as they’d found themselves isolated from the town centre and other amenities, and often from jobs. More to the point, this new community was broken from the outset, as its members had already sacrificed the old social networks they’d formerly built up in order to move. Follow that with decades of neglect, the gradual deterioration of cheaply built properties due to their having exceeded their expected lifetimes, and the increased and often twin ravages of drugs and crime, and you were left with a truly depressing environment. Years later, even with right-to-buy in force, Hatchwood Green still had the aura of desolation and menace.

  To PC Lucy Clayburn’s jaundiced eye – and she couldn’t help but see it this way as a copper – there was something inherently soul-destroying about these immense, sprawling housing estates: all the domiciles built from the same red brick, their doors existing in repeating patterns of pale blue, pale red or pale yellow; the patches of grass between them boasting no other distinguishing features – no trees, no bushes, no flowerbeds – though they occasionally hosted the relics of kiddies’ playgrounds. And of course, when they had dropped into disrepair, as this one had, with dilapidated housing and broken fences, their inhospitable aura reached a new low.