Shadows: The gripping new crime thriller from the #1 bestseller

From here it was straight north-west, first along Chorley New Road towards Horwich, and then north along Rivington Lane. Only now, on the northernmost edge of the Greater Manchester Police force area, with the great bulk of Winter Hill looming on her right – an amorphous escarpment on the star-speckled October sky – did the red-brick conurbation of the cityscape dissipate properly, to be replaced by the more pastoral villages, woodlands and stone-walled farms of rural Lancashire. In due course, she even veered away from this, riding east into the foothills of the West Pennine Moors, dipping and looping along narrow, fantastically twisty lanes. A few minutes later, deep in Lever Country Park, in the close vicinity of the renovated Tudor structure that was Rivington Barn, she throttled slowly down. A famous meeting point for bikers from all across the north of England, this picturesque but isolated spot was for the most part deserted late at night, but now one particular car park – a small area about four hundred yards from the Barn, hemmed on three sides by thick belts of trees – was a riot of light and noise.

Lucy homed in on it, gliding in among the many bikes parked haphazardly across its gritty surface and the bodies milling there in blue denim and worn leather. As usual, they were all ages, from rangy, pimply-faced teens to characters in their fifties with capacious ale-guts, bald pates and grey fuzz beards. Women of various ages were present too – Hell’s Angel type activity had never been exclusively confined to the guys.

Regardless of gender, the back of each jacket had been emblazoned in fiery orange letters: LOW RIDERS.

They fell silent as Lucy rode slowly among them, a natural alleyway parting for her. She hit the anchors properly at the far edge of the car park, where she turned the engine off and lowered her kickstand. She climbed from the bike, took off her crimson helmet and shook out her black hair, which tumbled glossily down her back and shoulders.

Immediately, there were wolf whistles, ribald comments.

Lucy didn’t react. She was in her motorbike leathers, which while they weren’t exactly skin-tight, were pretty clingy. Add to that her constant work-outs at the gym, which meant that she was in good shape. But when she turned and fronted them, and they recognised her as the copper she was, someone hawked and spat.

The Low Riders weren’t just a motorcycle club. They were traditionalists, with an ‘old-school’ ethos: Live fast, die hard. Leave us alone, and we’ll leave you alone. We operate by our rules, not yours. All of which translated into a lifestyle of endemic lawlessness and a natural distrust of the police.

Yellow teeth had now appeared in nasty, defiant grins. Lucy saw bottles of brown ale, the scattered empties as well as those half-full and clamped in oily fists (even though most of these guys would be on the road in the next hour). She saw spliffs too; not many, but enough on brazen display to signify a challenge. Not that making a drugs bust was why she was here tonight – as they realised perfectly well, hence their brashness.

One of them came swaggering forward.

It was Kyle Armstrong, president of the Crowley chapter.

Lucy hadn’t seen him for quite some time; he was in his mid-thirties now, but still the way she remembered him: tall and lean, with truculent ‘bad boy’ looks, a tar-black mane hanging to his collar, and thick black sideburns. In his tight jeans, steel-studded belt and leather jacket, which he almost invariably wore open on a bare, hairy chest, he had a raw animal appeal. He might be out of time, fashion-wise, but he’d always reminded her of one of those classy heavy rockers of the early days, an Ian Gillan or Robert Plant.

Of course, she’d never let him know that was what she thought about him. Armstrong’s ego was already the size of a barrage balloon.

‘New length on your locks,’ he said approvingly. ‘Just like the old days. Going plain clothes obviously suits you.’

Beforehand, when in uniform, a spell that had only ended about ten months previously, Lucy had always kept her hair cut square at the shoulder. She hadn’t been overly fond of that style, and so Armstrong was quite correct; being a CID officer did have its perks.

Again though, she wouldn’t admit this to him. Mainly because she wasn’t in the mood for banter. Were it any other low-to-mid-level criminal who’d requested a meeting with her, she’d have told him that he was the one who’d have to travel, but she and the Low Riders’ president had something of a shared past, which, being hard-headed about it, meant that a useful outcome here was marginally more possible than the norm.

Even so, she didn’t have to pretend that she liked the arrangement.

‘What do you want, Kyle?’ she asked.

He stepped around her, unashamed in his admiration for her leather-clad form, which irked her, though it was insolence rather than an actual threat – and anyway it didn’t irk Lucy as much as it did Kelly Allen, or ‘Hells Kells’, as Lucy had once scornfully (and secretly) known her, a busty beauty of a biker chick, famous in the group not just for her impressive physique, but for her waist-length crimson-dyed hair, which very much matched her temperament. Many years ago, Kells had zealously sought out Armstrong’s personal affection, and when she’d finally secured it – and it didn’t come easily – she’d defended that status like a tigress.

Kells currently watched from about ten yards away, not looking her sexy best in a raggedy old Afghan coat, but her kohl-rimmed eyes blazing under her blood-red fringe.

Armstrong, meanwhile, had moved his attention on to Lucy’s bike.

‘I heard you’d written Il Monstro off chasing some bad guys,’ he said.

‘Banged it up a bit,’ she replied. ‘Nothing that wouldn’t fix.’

‘How about the villains of the piece?’

‘They’re both doing life.’

‘Ouch.’ He grinned. ‘Should’ve known better than to mess with you, eh?’

‘So should you by now. What’s this about?’

‘Don’t worry,’ he chuckled. ‘I’m not after rekindling that fire we once had together.’

‘Good … because that’s dead.’ She could sense the rest of them watching her in expectant silence, which annoyed her all the more – it might be a police thing, but Lucy never liked being the only person on the plot who didn’t know what was going on. ‘In addition to which,’ she said, ‘it’s late and I’m in Court tomorrow. So, whatever it is, make it quick.’

‘All right … can we walk a little?’

‘If you don’t want the rest of the crowd to know what you get up to, you shouldn’t bring them with you,’ she said as they strolled along a narrow, moonlit path. ‘Or is that like asking someone to go out without his pants on?’

‘It’s them I want to talk to you about,’ Armstrong replied. ‘Or one of them. But there’s no point everyone being party to the nitty-gritty, is there?’

She supposed he was right about that. The rest of the clan would know that he’d asked her here to make some kind of deal, but the fewer of them who knew what it specifically entailed, the less chance there was that the info would leak out.

‘The word is you’re a big noise now,’ he said. ‘A full-time detective no less.’

‘And?’

He turned to face her, his wolfish features saturnine in the woodland gloom. ‘I need your expertise.’

Lucy had expected nothing less, but was still cheesed off about it. It was amazing how many of these outlaw gangs fell back on the law when it suited them.

‘Don’t look at me like that, babe,’ he complained. ‘We’ve never been enemies.’

‘Really?’

‘Look … we’re on different sides of the fence, I agree. But we weren’t always, were we?’

‘I was young and stupid back then,’ she said.

‘Some might say you’re stupid to do what you do now.’ Briefly, he sounded stung by her dismissal of their former relationship. ‘Lead a happy life, do you, Luce? Still see all your old muckers?’

‘My personal happiness is irrelevant, Kyle … whether I’m stupid or not depends on my response to this favour you’re about to ask.’

He didn’t immediately reply, humbled again – firstly because she’d clearly guessed why she was here, which kind of gave her an advantage, and secondly because if he wanted to get anything out of this, he had no real option other than to be nice to her.

‘One of our lot got turned over by Crowley Drugs Squad,’ he said.

‘Well … wonders never cease.’

‘No, look … this is serious. Remember Ian Dyke?’

‘Not sure. The memory plays tricks. All your idiots tend to blend into one.’

‘He’s been busted for possession with intent to supply.’ Armstrong shrugged. ‘It wouldn’t normally be a big deal … he was only carrying some draw, a few ecstasy tablets … but he really doesn’t want to go down.’

‘What’s that popular phrase?’ she said. ‘If you don’t like the time, don’t do the …?’

‘I know all that. Listen Luce, Dykey’s girlfriend’s just had a baby and he’s trying to get his life sorted. Got himself a proper job and everything. But this isn’t going to help with that, is it?’

‘If it’s only a bit of molly … he won’t go down for that.’

‘But he will lose the job.’

‘So, he’ll have to get another.’

‘Look …’ Armstrong seemed inordinately frustrated. ‘Of all my lads, Dykey’s the last one to deserve this shit.’

‘You telling me the Drugs Squad framed him?’

‘Nah … that’ll be his defence, but that’s not what happened.’

‘Well, then he does deserve it, doesn’t he?’

‘It was his last delivery,’ the biker stressed. ‘His very last one. After that, I was gonna cut him loose so he could start a normal family life.’

She eyed him with fascination. ‘So … is this your guilty conscience speaking, Kyle? Is the untouchable general finally getting a complex about the good little soldiers he sends into battle for him?’

‘Hey, I’m just trying to help a guy out who’s been a good mate of mine for a long time.’

She pondered, mulling over whether she could turn this thing to her own advantage. ‘Have we got a trial date yet?’

‘Yeah … next spring.’

‘Next spring?’

‘He’s at Manchester Crown.’

‘He’s at Crown Court?’ That surprised her. ‘And he was only delivering a few bits and bobs?’

Suddenly Armstrong couldn’t look her in the face.

‘Any other lies I should know about?’ she asked. ‘Like maybe he hasn’t got a job? Maybe his girlfriend hasn’t just had a baby? Maybe he hasn’t even got a sodding girlfriend … that’d be more believable, knowing half of your lot.’

‘Lucy, come on,’ he pleaded. ‘I can make this worth your while.’

‘Yeah … how?’

He lowered his voice, and glanced back along the path to the lights of the car park. ‘Maybe I can drop you a bit of intel now and then.’

‘Oh … you want to be my informant?’

‘For Christ’s sake, keep it down!’ he hissed. ‘And no, I never said that.’

‘But we’ll give each other a back scratch every so often?’

‘Come on … I know you do this stuff all the time.’

She contemplated his offer. ‘Anything you can give me now?’

‘No, but …’ He shrugged. ‘But when the time comes, you only need to ask. Come on, Lucy … you know me.’

Yeah, I know you, she thought. The Low Riders were reprobates through and through, and could hardly be relied on to give help to law enforcement. But they were connected, and if Armstrong – who at one time had been a lot more to Lucy than just an acquaintance, even if she had only been going through a ‘teen rebel’ phase – said he might be able to give her something now and then, there was always a chance it would be juicy.

She sighed. ‘You say this lad’s name is Ian Dyke?’

‘Yeah. He lives on Thorneywood Lane.’

Lucy knew the place. It was yet another nice-sounding street on a Crowley council estate, which in actual fact was so run-down that it ought to be bulldozed.

‘All I can do is speak to Drugs Squad,’ she said. ‘I’ve no clout … you understand that?’

‘Sure.’ He sounded happier.

‘I may be a detective, but I’m still only a constable.’

‘I know you …’ He eyed her suggestively. You can be very persuasive when you want to be.’

‘I can’t.’ she assured him. ‘And I’m not going to be. Best I can do is have a word.’

They walked back to the car park, where Lucy pulled her helmet on, kicked her machine to life and spun it round in a tight circle. Before heading back to the exit, she pulled up alongside Armstrong and lifted her visor. The rest of the chapter looked on in silence, though Hells Kells had now come forward and firmly linked arms with her beau. She glared at Lucy with icy intensity.

‘Let me know how we get on, yeah?’ Armstrong said.

‘There is no “we”, Kyle. So, don’t be pestering me. I’ll call you if there’s anything to report. And if we hit pay-dirt on this, I want something back.’ She pointed a warning finger at him. ‘I mean it.’

He shrugged. ‘Promised, didn’t I?’

‘Yeah … you promised all right.’ And she treated him to a dubious frown, before hitting the throttle and speeding out of the car park.

Chapter 3

Lucy Clayburn was known widely in the Greater Manchester Police as a biker girl, and as a deft handler of her Ducati M900. There was scarcely a colleague, whether male or female, who didn’t in some way find this intriguing.

Most of the men, especially those members of the Motorcycle Wing, thought it majorly cool, even more so when they learned that Lucy was also a self-taught mechanic. One or two of the more old-fashioned types were vaguely miffed, regarding it as a challenge to their machismo, but these were fewer and farther between each year in the British police service, so on the whole they kept quiet. There were equally diverse opinions among the women, a couple of the more serious-minded types dismissing it as a frivolous thing, accusing Lucy of trying too hard to win the men’s vote by playing the tomboy. But most of the girls were impressed, liking the fact that she’d strayed unapologetically into male territory and quietly admiring the derring-do it surely required just to ride one of these high-powered machines through the chaotic traffic of the twenty-first century.

All of this was somewhat ironic, of course, because Lucy didn’t take her bike out very often these days. Back in uniform, she’d regularly used it to travel to and from work, because when she was actually on duty back then she drove a marked police car. Now that she was in CID, she could either drive one of the pool cars – which often had interiors like litterbins, and stank of sweat and ketchup and chips – or she could drive her own car, which was easily the more preferable option. As such, she’d bought herself a small four-wheel-drive, an aquamarine Suzuki Jimny soft-top, which now provided her main set of wheels. The Ducati was still her pride and joy, but the bike shed where it lived and where all her tools were stored, was still at her mother’s house in Saltbridge, at the Bolton end of Crowley Borough, while Lucy had moved into her newly refurbished dormer bungalow on the Brenner Estate, at the opposite end. As such, she rarely even saw the machine.

The previous night, when she’d headed up to the West Pennine Moors to meet Kyle Armstrong and the rest of the Low Riders, had been an exception; riding her bike to that meeting could only have helped to win their approval. But later on that night, when she returned to Crowley, she parked the bike back in its shed, and without bothering to pop indoors to see her mum, who by that hour was most likely in bed, she headed across town in her Jimny. First thing this morning, she was back behind its wheel, eating toast as she drove into central Crowley, not towards Robber’s Row police station, but to the central Magistrates Court.

En route, she used her hands-free to place a call to the CID office, where she asked DS Kirsty Banks to sign her on for duty. And then placed a call to DCI Geoff Slater, at the Drugs Squad. Slater, whom Lucy had worked with in the past on ‘Operation Clearway’ – a non-drugs related case – was not available to take the call, so she left a message instead, asking him to contact her.

On arrival at the Court – an authoritative-looking Victorian building, complete with tall, stained-glass windows and faux Grecian columns to either side of its front steps, and yet faded to a dingy grey through time and weathering – she parked in the staff car park at the rear, entered through the staff door and went down the steps to the police room and the holding cells.

‘Where’ve you been?’ DC Harry Jepson snapped.

‘Why … I’m not late?’ She threw her overcoat onto a hanger.

‘I know, but I wanted to make sure we’ve got everything straight before we go up.’

‘Listen, Harry …’ Lucy checked her watch as she entered the kitchen area; they had a good twenty minutes before the trial commenced, ‘… if you tell the truth in Court’ – she stressed the word ‘truth’ as if it might be a novel concept for him – ‘then there’s nothing to get straight, is there. We’ll both be on the same page automatically.’

Jepson looked hurt. ‘I am going to tell the truth.’

‘Good.’ She put the kettle on. ‘So, what’s the problem?’

After ten years working as a uniformed constable out of various police stations in Crowley, her home town, but also home to GMP’s notorious November Division, or ‘the N’, as it was sometimes called, Lucy had made the long-awaited permanent move to CID the previous winter. To some extent, this had been a battlefield promotion, a result of the ‘exemplary courage and resourcefulness’, to use the words of the Deputy Chief Constable at her commendation, that she’d displayed during a long, complex and particularly dangerous undercover assignment, the now legendary Operation Clearway. Without any of this, it was highly unlikely that she’d ever have made detective. Long before Clearway, at a relatively early stage of her career, one spectacular foul-up had almost seen her kicked out of the job and had certainly looked as if it would follow her round forever. Even with Clearway under her belt, it was mainly thanks to the persuasive powers of Detective Superintendent Priya Nehwal of the Serious Crimes Division, that the GMP top brass had finally decided to overlook her previous indiscretion. That was the good news.

The bad news was that, for her first posting, working out of the CID office at Robber’s Row – Crowley’s divisional HQ – Lucy had been partnered with Detective Constable Harry Jepson, who, though affable enough when it suited him, was a bit of a throwback.

Harry had already been a detective for fifteen years when Lucy came along, but in all that time he’d never once been promoted, which implied that his dual habits of cutting procedural corners and showing heavy-handedness with suspects did not always pay dividends. He was a reasonably good-looking bloke, fair-haired and with a big frame – like a rugby player – though he was now in his early forties and a tad beaten-up around the edges. He was also a divorcee, unhappily so, with several kids to support, which embittered him no end; he drank too much as well, was increasingly slovenly in appearance, and inclined to gruffness with those he didn’t know.

Lucy occasionally wondered, though had never asked aloud, if her being partnered with Harry was deemed to be as much for his benefit as hers. Not that she was renowned for playing a totally straight bat, herself, she had to admit.

It was also a growing concern that she thought Harry might secretly be carrying a candle for her. She knew he was lonely and frustrated, and he was well aware that she too was a singleton. Though they enjoyed a productive working relationship, she’d several times caught him eyeing her approvingly when he thought she wasn’t looking. Not that Lucy was in any way tempted. Harry wasn’t unfanciable – he had a certain roughneck charm. But she had strict rules about mixing work and pleasure, much to her mum’s helpless fury.

‘Brew,’ she said. It wasn’t a question; she handed him a mug of tea, while still stirring her own.

‘Ta,’ he replied, distracted and flustered as he went through the details of the original arrest, noted in his pocketbook.

Lucy was quietly amused by that. Out on the street, he was as cool as they came – casually and confidently dealing with even the worst of the town’s yobs and criminals; a good man to have in a tight corner. But confront him with a wall of bureaucracy, and he became childlike in his ineptitude; face him with officialdom, and he lost all sense of who he was – grew nervous and frazzled.

Giving evidence in Court was never less than an ordeal for him.

The defendant that morning was a certain Darren Pringle, a repeat violent offender whom they both knew of old. Lucy didn’t think that Pringle had much chance on this occasion – he’d been charged with wounding, yet again. A habitually aggressive drunk, the previous August he’d come stumbling out of a Crowley pub, taken offence that a young chap was sitting at a nearby traffic light in a sports car, and with no provocation whatsoever, had walked around the vehicle, punched out its driver-side window and then punched out the driver, blacking his eye and splitting his eyebrow in the process. He’d then run for it, but Lucy and Harry, having taken various statements from onlookers and following a ‘vapour-trail’ of CCTV, had arrested him at his council flat the following morning, where they’d also seized his clothing, which had later proved to be covered with glass fragments and spatters of blood – both his own and the aggrieved party’s. It didn’t look good for him, but strange things happened in courtrooms.

They discussed the detail while they had their tea, and then traipsed upstairs to the lobby, where they had a quick conflab with the civvy witnesses and the brief from the CPS.

After that, they sat down on a bench to wait.

‘By the way,’ Harry said. ‘You know there’ve been a number of breaks on the Hatchwood?’

Lucy nodded. Hatchwood Green was one of the most deprived housing estates in the whole of Crowley Borough. Crime there was nothing new. But the recent spate of house burglaries had occurred at a remarkable rate, and a quick analysis of the various crime reports would reveal many similar characteristics between them.

‘Well … from today onward,’ Harry added, ‘that’s me and you.’

She glanced round with interest.

‘Stan’s had enough and wants it clearing up,’ he said.

Stan Beardmore was the divisional detective inspector at Robber’s Row, and Lucy and Harry’s immediate senior manager.

Before she could question him further on this, the clerk appeared and called Harry into Court. He stood up, straightened his loosely knotted tie and brushed down the lapels of his crumpled jacket.

‘Once I’m done, if I’m discharged I’ll head back to the nick and gather the intel,’ he said. ‘So we can hit the ground running.’

Lucy nodded, and waited. As she did, her phone rang.

‘DC Clayburn,’ she answered.

‘Lucy …?’

‘Morning, sir.’ She immediately recognised the gruff but friendly tone of Geoff Slater.

‘How the hell are you doing?’

‘Bumbling along, as they say.’

‘Nah!’ he laughed. ‘“Lucy Clayburn” and “bumble” can’t fit in the same sentence together. Thought you’d have your stripes by now.’

Lucy fleetingly pondered that. The mere fact she’d made detective was miracle enough; the possibility of being promoted to sergeant, even though in her mind at least she’d earned it many times over, seemed light years away. Slater of course, had no such millstones round his neck. When they’d last worked together, he’d been a detective inspector on the Serious Crimes Division. Now he was a detective chief-inspector, though he’d needed to accept a transfer back to his original stamping-ground of the Drugs Squad before any such honour had finally been conferred.

‘No way, boss … don’t think my face fits as well as yours.’