Strangers Read online

  ‘Just don’t take too long making your mind up,’ Nehwal said. ‘We go live on Monday, and before then I’ve got to see twenty other girls.’

  ‘Any chance there’s a way back into CID for me, ma’am?’ Lucy wondered. ‘I mean if this thing comes off.’

  Nehwal mused. ‘We never say “never”.’

  ‘They more or less said “never” when I fouled up last time.’

  ‘Jill the Ripper has changed every priority, PC Clayburn.’ Nehwal strode forward as a break opened in the traffic. ‘All bets are off from now on. Anything can happen.’

  Chapter 4

  Lucy was home by nine, though, strictly speaking, it was her mother’s home. Several years ago, Lucy had bought herself a bungalow on Cuthbertson Court, in another part of town. It was little more than a crash pad really, and at the time she’d acquired it mainly as an investment with a possible view to renting it out at some point. It had been in a poor state of repair back then, and to an extent it still was, Lucy increasingly seeing it as a long-term project, something she could slowly but surely refurbish when she finally got around to it. Whatever she opted to do with it when it was finally finished, in the meantime she was still in her old bedroom in her mother’s small terraced house in Saltbridge, another former mill district close to the border with Bolton.

  She yawned as she wheeled her Ducati through the back gate, and opened what had once been the coal bunker but now had been adapted into a shed with a felt and plastic-lined waterproof roof. She pushed the vehicle into the interior, which, though unlit and stinking of oil, was all very orderly. The tools with which she maintained the majestic beast were arrayed neatly on the walls. There were cleaning materials on the shelves, and several spare canisters of Ultimate Unleaded stored in a locker in the corner.

  As Lucy closed and padlocked the shed door behind her, her mother stepped out from the kitchen. Whereas Lucy was dark-haired and coltish in build, Cora Clayburn was fair haired and buxom. She’d been quite a beauty in her day, or so Lucy would imagine – she had to imagine, because they had no other living relatives and she knew no friends from her mother’s early life who could confirm this. Though age was catching up a little – Cora was now fifty-three and a lot of that lovely fair hair was running to silver – she was still trim and shapely, an appearance she preserved through careful eating and regular exercise. Lucy had always thought that her mum looked amazing in the pink Lycra top and tight, black tracksuit bottoms she wore each day for her five-mile evening constitutional. Less attractive, though, was the shapeless blue smock with the plastic name tag she was currently clad in for her role as assistant manager at the Saltbridge MiniMart.

  ‘Now?’ Cora said, looking relieved. Shortly after midnight, Lucy had left her a message that she’d be late, but it wouldn’t have stopped her worrying. ‘Long shift, that?’

  ‘Yeah, but a good one.’ Lucy pulled her gauntlets off and tucked them into her helmet. ‘Bloody maniac grabbed this eighteen-year-old lass on her way home from babysitting.’

  ‘My God … where?’

  ‘Top of Darthill Road.’

  Cora didn’t look surprised. ‘The Aggies?’

  ‘The edge of it.’

  ‘I wish they’d take action about that place. Build on it, or something.’

  ‘No chance, Mum … they’ll want to find a nice green space for that.’ Cora sidled past her and went indoors, where the mingled aromas of cooked bacon and fresh coffee set her empty stomach rumbling. ‘Anyway, the bastard – pardon my French – gave her a real smacking. Smashed her teeth, broke her nose and cheekbone.’ She unzipped her leather jacket and peeled it off the thin, sweat-damp T-shirt underneath. ‘I got him over in Bullwood. He still had her phone and purse in his pockets. Talk about banged to rights.’

  ‘Thank God for that,’ Cora said. ‘Who is he?’

  ‘A total lowlife called Wayne Crompton.’ Lucy folded her leather over the back of a kitchen chair, and stretched. ‘He’s got form as long as your arm, but this time he’ll be off the streets for a while. Charged him a couple of hours ago … robbery, GBH and attempted kidnapping.’

  ‘Like you said, a good night’s work.’ But Cora’s tone remained neutral, as it always did when Lucy got enthusiastic about cop stuff. ‘But I thought you were back on duty this afternoon?’

  ‘Was,’ Lucy confirmed. ‘Not any more. They offered me the money or the time in lieu, dropping extra-strong hints that they wanted me to take the time. So I’m going to – today.’

  Cora nodded approvingly as she shrugged her mac on.

  ‘Mum, there’s something else I need to talk to you about,’ Lucy said.

  ‘Tell me quick, because I’m running a bit late.’

  ‘It’s okay … it’s not important.’

  Cora stopped by the door. ‘Go on … I can tell you want to.’

  So Lucy did, all about Operation Clearway, not specifying the exact role she’d be playing of course, but outlining the basics of the case and the new lines of enquiry the taskforce would shortly be embarking on.

  Cora frowned. ‘So what are you saying … you’re a detective again?’

  ‘Not quite. It may be a way back for me though.’

  ‘I’m surprised you want a way back in after the way they treated you last time.’

  ‘Mum, come on … I’m lucky I’m still in the job.’

  ‘Some of us wouldn’t mind if you weren’t.’

  ‘I know that, but look –’ Lucy embraced her ‘– this is me. It’s my life, okay?’

  ‘Yes, yes, I know.’ Cora returned the embrace but a little stiffly. ‘And we’ve had this conversation before … so stop going on about it, you silly old trout.’

  Lucy pecked her on the cheek. ‘I’ve never called you “a silly old trout”.’

  ‘You’ve thought it, I’m sure.’

  ‘The thing is, I’m mainly going to be working nights for the next few weeks.’

  Cora considered this with visible apprehension.

  Lucy knew why, and that it would be unrelated to her mother’s own safety.

  With its edificial industrial ruins and rows of red-brick terraced houses, Saltbridge was not the most salubrious part of Crowley. Like so many working class neighbourhoods in the post-manufacturing era, it was extensively unemployed, drugs and alcoholism were rife and it suffered higher than normal crime rates. But Cora had lived here all of Lucy’s life at least, a dauntless single mum who’d never once been oppressed or intimidated by the environment in which she’d been forced to raise her child. These days, having held a management position for several years, she could probably afford to move out to the suburbs if she wanted to, but she had friends locally and was comfortable here.

  ‘How long will this assignment last?’ Cora asked.

  ‘As long as it takes. Could be a few months. But don’t worry. I’m not going to be in harm’s way.’

  ‘I bet you thought that last time too. And then look what happened. You were relieved you didn’t lose your job. All that mattered to me was that I didn’t lose my child.’

  Lucy smiled tiredly. It was tempting to retort with the provable fact that uniformed patrol, her current role, was one of the most dangerous jobs a police officer could undertake, and that detectives didn’t encounter violent criminals half as often as bobbies on the beat did. But that would hardly help. Perhaps if Lucy had earned herself some stripes by now, or maybe an inspector’s pips, things would be different. She’d be able to con her mum into thinking that each shift was spent in the hermetically sealed environment of a supervisor’s office, rubber-stamping reports all day. But though Lucy had already passed both her sergeant’s and inspector’s exams, she hadn’t received the call just yet. Positive discrimination was a big thing in the service these days. The top brass were keen to advance the careers of their female underlings, but perhaps not when said underling was the child of a single parent from the wrong side of town – a child who didn’t even know her father, and especially not after that fo
ul-up in Borsdane Wood.

  ‘So you’ll be here this evening when I get home?’ Cora said, opening the back door.

  ‘Certainly will. I’ll have tea ready and waiting.’

  ‘Lovely. That’ll make us square. Your breakfast’s in the oven.’

  ‘Oh cool … I’m starving.’ Lucy pulled on a padded glove and drew out the hotplate, and was delighted to see bacon, eggs, sausage, beans, grilled tomato and toast. ‘Mum! You shouldn’t have gone to this much trouble.’

  ‘I know I shouldn’t, but I have to make it worth your while coming home, don’t I? Otherwise one day you might not.’

  ‘Don’t be silly.’ Lucy kissed her on the forehead. ‘Go on … you’ll be late.’

  Chapter 5

  An executive decision was taken to locate Operation Clearway’s Major Incident Room, or MIR as it was known in the trade, at Robber’s Row. The taskforce took residence on its top two floors, where suites of offices were available which already were well equipped and close to all necessary facilities. The MIR itself was on the lower of these, the station’s fourth floor, where the N Division’s Sports & Social Club had once been: over a hundred square yards of floor-space with a raised stage at one end and a bar at the other, though both of these were now defunct. Robber’s Row was one of the last nicks in GMP with a section-house attached, in other words sleeping quarters for junior officers. Few of these comfortable but basic one-bed domiciles were used any more; in fact most of them would need to be aired out at the very least, but the proximity to the MIR of such a purpose-built bunkhouse was perfect, given that, as promised, nearly half of the two hundred officers attached full time to Clearway had been brought in from outside the GMP area.

  The whole thing would be a home from home for Lucy, who’d worked out of Robber’s Row for the last four years, ever since she’d transferred away from Cotehill Crescent, the sub-divisional nick where she’d been posted until the incident at Borsdane Wood. But the atmosphere would be different in the MIR. A little less formal perhaps, with everyone in civvies and relatively few newbies involved, but with less margin for error than would normally be tolerated. The thought of having Priya Nehwal in command was a little unnerving – she was the best, so she expected the same from her staff. But in truth, she was only one member of the top brass on Operation Clearway, Deputy SIO in fact. According to the bumph circulated by email those first couple of nights, the rest of the senior supervision would comprise Detective Chief Superintendent Jim Cavill, also from GMP’s Serious Crimes Division, who was SIO, and Detective Chief Inspector June Swanson from Merseyside, who was Office Manager. Both of these characters were unknown quantities to Lucy, so it was anyone’s guess what their overall management style would be, but given the general experience of the taskforce, it was to be hoped that it would be pretty relaxed.

  It all started reasonably well that first morning.

  As part of the Intel Unit, as they’d now be referred to, Lucy found her induction briefing on the top floor in what had once been the classroom where the N Division Training Officer had put probationers through their paces. From here on, this would be their base. It was airy and spacious, with rows of neatly arranged tables and chairs, and a large desk and widescreen VDU at the front. It also had a locker room attached and a small anteroom, which the DI running the Intel Unit could make use of as a private office. If nothing else, it was a relief to be in there, given that downstairs it was already a tale of chaos, taskforce detectives doing their level best to work amid the bedlam of delivery guys tramping in and out wheeling desks, filing cabinets and computer equipment, and techies hammering and banging as they installed new electrical fittings. Not that the Intel Unit didn’t feel a little crowded itself. That first day, approximately thirty young female officers were assembled there, mostly seated, while a row of fifteen blokes stood at the back.

  ‘Morning, everyone,’ DI Geoff Slater said from the front. ‘Chuffed to bits to see so many of you here … but if I don’t sound overly excited, apologies in advance. We’ve got a shedload of work ahead of us.’

  Slater was another GMP Serious Crimes Division man, but to Lucy’s eye he looked more like a TV cop. He was somewhere in his late-thirties, tall and lean, but with an air of virility. He had a thatch of unruly black hair and rugged, lived-in looks. His shirt, tie, jacket and trousers were all vaguely rumpled. He didn’t seem especially happy: he wore a serious, rather sullen expression – and yet it all hung together nicely.

  ‘You all know why you’re here and what a ball-acher of a job you’re going to be doing when you’re out there,’ Slater said. ‘Hopefully you all gave deep consideration to this assignment before you stuck your hands up – I hope so at least, otherwise you might find you’re in the wrong place. I’m certainly not going to do you the disservice of trying to sugar-coat this, because that’d be a total waste of time. Likewise, I don’t want to spend time we can’t spare making formal introductions, aside from to introduce myself, which I already have done, and your two immediate line-managers, detective sergeants Sally Bryant from Merseyside and Maureen Clark from Lancashire.’

  Two of the seated women stuck their hands up to indicate who they were.

  ‘You’ll obviously need to get to know each other,’ Slater said, ‘but you can do that on your first tea-break. You’re all wearing name-tags anyway, so that should help and there’re a couple of charts on the wall that you might find useful.’

  Lucy glanced up. Among a mass of other paperwork, mainly maps and photographs with marker-pen notations all over them, there were two colour charts, one for women and one for men, each bearing ordered and neatly blown-up headshots, with essential details like name, rank, collar-number and police force of origin listed underneath. She skimmed through. Several of the women were already serving detectives, though the majority were PCs like herself. The male officers, she’d already learned, had largely been drafted from the Tactical Support Group, which meant they’d most likely be ex-military, which their burly physiques and hard, truculent faces also seemed to imply. Their role was basically to keep an eye on the women, but also to drive up in unmarked cars every so often, posing as customers, so as to maintain the illusion that the girls were working prostitutes.

  ‘What I will say is this,’ Slater said. ‘We’re a small but vital part of a very big operation. I’ve been a detective for sixteen years and I’ve never known a case where as many resources were being chucked around. I could put my cynical hat on and say that if we were investigating the usual type of serial murder … i.e. drug-addled hookers getting sliced ’n’ diced rather than the white, middle-class men who use their services, there wouldn’t be half as much media attention and nowhere near as much pressure on us to get a result. But I’m not going to. I don’t know if that’s the case, and frankly I don’t care.’

  His gaze roved across them. His delivery was a low, taut monotone.

  ‘Mine’s a school of thought where all lives are valuable,’ he said. ‘Where each one that gets snuffed out leaves a hole in people’s lives that will probably never be filled. None of these fellas asked to get murdered, much less tortured. And that’s the other thing. That’s the really nasty bit … someone’s out there using a butcher’s knife to carve off these blokes’ crown jewels. Now I’m sure everyone here knows some misogynistic pillock who in one of your lighter moments you’d happily say deserves such a fate. But you’ve still got to ask yourself the question … do you really want someone wandering the streets who’s capable of this kind of sadism? I mean, disregarding the mistreatment she may have suffered at the hands of men, because that’s irrelevant to our role here … do you really want this woman walking about free? Because who gets it next? Not just the bloke who propositions her or offers her money … maybe the bloke who makes a politer approach, offering her a drink or asking her out on a date. Maybe the bloke who opens a door for her, or simply gives her a smile when he’s out walking his dog. And this is the real rub, ladies. Because when you get out there, this c
ould be the very same person you’re swapping banter with when you’re fixing your make-up in the bus station toilets. It could be the girl standing on the next street-corner, the one who comes over every five minutes to scrounge a ciggie off you.’

  He scrutinised them carefully.

  ‘When policewomen usually do decoy work, they’re standing among the prospective victims. This time you may be standing with the killer. And for that reason if none other, you’re going to have to stay sharp. You’ll be working four days on, three days off, four till four. You’ll not be on the same pitch all the time, though I’m not going to allocate any one of you more than two or three pitches, the whole purpose of this being that you get to know the other girls who work there … that you talk to them, find out who they think might be doing it. But for your own safety, at no time can you take your eye off the ball. I mean not once. Because if you let something slip about who you are, and Jill the Ripper picks up on it, and you’re stuck with her all night on a lonely road … I wonder who’s not going to be heading home again when the shift finally ends.’

  Lucy had already considered this discomforting possibility, though by the looks on the faces of some of the others, primarily the younger girls, they hadn’t. There was no safe way to perform this kind of work. At the best of times, the women they’d be interacting with were likely to be damaged. They wouldn’t all be bad people; there’d be tired mums trying to make ends meet, students with college bills to pay, actresses and models who couldn’t get real work. But it was an unforgiving profession. There’d be thieves among them too, addicts, mental patients, disease carriers. And now one of them could be a murderer.

  ‘And if that hasn’t scared you shitless,’ Slater said, ‘sorry … but next up we’re going to run through the details of the enquiry. And this isn’t going to be pleasant either.’

  He called various images onto the VDU as he outlined the progress thus far. As expected, the crime scene photos were graphic in the extreme, and yet, from a purely analytical perspective, there were startling similarities between them. The most recent victim, Ronald Ford, lay on his back in the roadside woods near Abram, with a pool of blood and brains beneath his broken skull, and his trousers and underpants pushed down to his shins, exposing a gore-glutted cavity where his genitals used to be. Two of the other victims, William Hammond and Graham Cummins, who were found in lay-bys near Chadderton and Southport respectively, lay in exactly the same posture, suffering from exactly the same fatal injuries. Only the second victim, Larry Pupper – the heavily built HGV driver, who’d been dragged a considerable distance – lay on his side in a muddy, litter-cluttered ditch on the outskirts of Salford. His trousers were tangled around his feet, as though he’d been trying to take them off altogether, which suggested the killer had waited until he was most off his guard in order to attack, and his face was battered savagely and extensively, implying that even then he’d put up a fight. Perhaps even after the beating, he’d struggled, which might explain why he’d needed to be dragged still further from the East Lancashire road. Whatever, it looked as if he’d died before he’d reached his final destination – in the photo he lay draped on his side, his arms twisted out of shape as though partly dislodged from their sockets. The gaping wound where his genitals had been hacked off was less bloody than the others.