Copyright

Published by Avon an imprint of

HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd

1 London Bridge Street,

London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk

First published in Great Britain by HarperCollins Publishers 2017

Copyright © Paul Finch 2017

Cover photographs © Henry Steadman

Cover design © Henry Steadman 2017

Paul Finch asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

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Source ISBN: 9780007551330

Ebook Edition © October 2017 ISBN: 9780007551347

Version: 2019-06-18

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PRAISE FOR PAUL FINCH

‘Wonderfully dark and peppered with grim humour. Finch is a born storyteller and writes with the authentic voice of the ex-copper he is.’

PETER JAMES

‘Edge-of-the-seat reading … formidable – a British Alex Cross.’

SUN

‘An ingenious and original plot. Compulsive reading.’

RACHEL ABBOTT

‘As good as I expected from Paul Finch. Relentlessly action-packed, breathless in its finale, Paul expertly weaves a trail through the North’s dark underbelly.’

NEIL WHITE

‘A deliciously twisted and fiendish set of murders and a great pairing of detectives.’

STAV SHEREZ

‘Avon’s big star … part edge-of-the-seat, part hide-behind-the-sofa!’

THE BOOKSELLER

‘An explosive thriller that will leave you completely hooked.’

WE LOVE THIS BOOK

Dedication

For my children, Eleanor and Harry, who, even though they’ve now left home, are always available to bounce around a few ideas.

Table of Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Note to Readers

Praise for Paul Finch

Dedication

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

Chapter 38

Chapter 39

Chapter 40

Chapter 41

Chapter 42

Chapter 43

Chapter 44

Epilogue

Keep Reading …

About the Author

By the Same Author

About the Publisher

Chapter 1

The trouble with a really successful pub crawl – in other words, if you manage to hit all the hostelries on the proposed route – is that the team inevitably falls apart before you reach the end.

Oh, it’ll start off in the usual high spirits, with much yahooing and backslapping as you excitedly barge your way in through the first few sets of doors. But as the evening wears on, and the decibels rise, and the golden nectar flows down gulping throats, heads become progressively muzzier and one by one, as the team weaves ever on to the next establishment, members will drop by the wayside. Usually they end up lingering behind because they haven’t quite finished their pint, or because they’ve met a girl they know, or because they’ve lost track of where they’re supposed to be going next. Or quite simply, in that mysterious way of pub crawls the world over, they’ve simply vanished from the face of the earth – at least for the remainder of that night, no doubt to show up the following morning in a garden or on a park bench or maybe slumped in a shop doorway, rain-sodden and with head banging.

Either way, by the end of the night, only the hardy quaffers tend to remain; that small band of iron-core loyalists who will always see things through.

Tonight, oddly, even though the rest of his mates were well-known on campus as big-time boozers, Keith Redmond had somehow found himself at the last port of call alone.

It was called The Brasshouse and it was located on Broad Street, where its reputation as a popular watering hole was very well deserved. On this occasion though, Keith arrived there in a fog of confusion, at least twelve pints of lager sloshing around inside him, and none of the four or five faces currently in there – when he could focus on them sufficiently – even vaguely reminiscent of his fellow rugby club members. In the way of these things, he wasn’t quite able to work it all out. But as he ambled to the bar, filching his last tenner from his jeans pocket, he had some vague notion that the rest of the crew would catch him up in due course; either that, or they’d done what they’d said they were going to do some way back – namely not bother going the whole distance and, as it was only Wednesday, heading home early.

Keith wasn’t sure which it had been.

As he stood there alone, the last few of the other midweek drinkers nodding their farewells to the landlord and his staff and drifting out, it irked him that he’d been marooned here. Though, as he downed his last pint of the evening in desultory fashion, he supposed he hadn’t been marooned as such. If it had slipped his notice that they’d reached a communal decision to terminate the crawl early, then it was as much his fault as anyone else’s. So, he couldn’t really be angry with them. Not that this would stop him taking the mickey in the morning, or more likely in the afternoon, when he was finally fit to re-emerge, calling them plastics and phonies.

These things happened, he reflected, as he threaded his unsteady way back across a central Birmingham awash with glistening October rain, and at this hour on a weekday almost bare of life. He wasn’t sure what time it was. Probably around one. Which wasn’t too bad. He had no lectures of note in the morning, so he could sleep until noon.

But he was only a hundred yards down the road, heading due southwest towards Edgbaston, when he remembered something important. It was quite fortuitous. A ‘Poundstretcher’ sign caught his eye, reminding him that he was supposed to draw some extra money out tonight. He was going home to Brighton this weekend, for his older brother, Jason’s, stag do. Keith sniggered. There’d be no phonies tolerated on that seafront tour; any who thought they were going to try it would get dragged to the last few venues by their underpants’ elastic.

Of course, Keith wouldn’t be involved in any of that if he didn’t have enough money. In his quest to find a cashpoint, he backtracked a little along Broad Street, and then crossed the canal, heading roughly in the direction of the city centre.

It was vaguely unsettling, even in his drunken state: there was literally no one else around.

That was partly because of the lateness of the hour, but primarily because rain was still falling in torrents: rivers gushed out of pipes and gurgled down drains; lagoons had formed at road junctions, the occasional passing vehicle kicking them up in spectacular waves. Keith was in his usual attire – jeans, trainers, and zip-up lightweight anorak over his T-shirt, though in truth that ‘anorak’ certainly wasn’t protecting him tonight, his T-shirt already soaked through; at least that went with his jeans which were also sopping, not to mention his trainers.

On reflection, it might have been a better plan to have organised a taxi back this evening. This would usually be a last resort for Keith, who, as a student, preferred to spend what little cash he had on booze, but these conditions were pretty extreme by any standards. He could still try to flag one down, of course, but only after he’d drawn the money out for the weekend.

At least, one positive result of the downpour was the sluggish but steady return of sobriety. Keith’s head was getting the full, unrestricted brunt of it, his short straw-blond hair dripping wet even as it lay plastered to his skull. It was amazing what a reviving effect that could actually have on beer-laden thought processes. By the time he’d crossed Centenary Square, those familiar post-party urges to chuckle pointlessly at nothing, or sing out loud or kick at the occasional can had long departed. He now found himself walking steadily and in a reasonably straight line.

And at the same time, as he came back to his senses, he wondered if perhaps this wasn’t the best idea. His original intention had been to call at a cashpoint before they started hitting the pubs, or at least halfway through, when it wasn’t too late and when there were other people around. Keith wasn’t the sort of person who would normally expect to be robbed, but there was a particular story circulating at present that even he found unnerving.

He considered chucking it in and heading back to Edgbaston. But then another voice advised that there was a cashpoint not too far ahead, near the Town Hall, and if he turned around now when he was so close, he’d be an absolute idiot – not to mention a total wuss.

Keith puffed his chest and thrust out his jaw as he walked defiantly on. He didn’t play wing-forward for the university seconds for nothing. He was six feet tall, and though, at the tender age of twenty, not exactly solid muscle, he was on the way to getting there. He’d make a formidable opponent even for some loser like … What was it they were calling this bloke?

Oh yeah … ‘the Creep’.

Keith snorted with derision as he strutted determinedly past a row of silent shops, water pouring in cataracts from the canopies over their fronts. Even if the bastard showed up, it wasn’t as if Keith was totally on his own here. There were lights on in some of the flat windows overhead. He even fancied he could hear music. And if he could hear them, they could surely hear him if he cried out for help.

Not that he would be crying out, for all the reasons he’d just underlined to himself.

Of course, it wasn’t comforting that this guy – the Creep – supposedly came armed.

Keith shook the thought from his head as the object of his search at last slid into view. About thirty yards ahead, on the left, the bright green square of a cashpoint VDU revealed itself. He veered over there, turning his head and checking behind him as he did.

It was in the close vicinity of cashpoints, always late at night, where this nutball was supposed to hang around. Essentially, he was a mugger. He would stop folk in the street, produce his blade, and it was quite some blade, by all accounts, and demand the cash they’d just drawn from the telling machine – though apparently it was never quite as simple as that, or at least it hadn’t been so far.

Keith’s rain-greasy fingers fumbled at the buttons as he tried to bash in his pin number. For an absurd moment, he miskeyed and got a refusal notice. He hesitated before giving it another go, glancing around first. Pulses of heavy rain drove along the deserted street in a kind of choreographed procession. But he was still alone.

Unsure how many attempts he’d be allowed before it locked him out, Keith tried his number again, much more carefully this time. With relief, the transaction was completed and a wad of crisp twenty-pound notes scrolled from the slot. He crammed them into his pocket as he lurched back along the shopfronts.

It was about three and a half miles to his digs. That would be no problem normally, but though he wasn’t exactly leaden-footed, his energy reserves felt as if they were dwindling – that was probably as much to do with the cold and wet as it was the booze. Again, he thought about trying to hail a taxi, except that, typically, there were none in sight at present.

It didn’t matter too much. He was sure that he could make good time on foot if he got away from the town centre. That was all he needed to do, in truth. All the attacks had occurred in that inner zone, the areas around New Street and the Bullring; nothing had happened as far out as Edgbaston. As he walked down Paradise Street, and crossed Suffolk Street Queensway, his confidence grew that all would be well. The guy hadn’t always struck as soon as the victims had drawn out their cash; apparently, he’d shadowed a couple for a few streets, until they’d hit more secluded spots. But there’d been absolutely nothing out in the residential districts.

Keith felt mildly critical of himself. It had been folly – drunken folly, needless to say – to have got himself into this predicament in the first place, but the reality was that he’d probably not been in any real danger. There’d only been three or four of these attacks, as far as he knew, and Birmingham city centre was covered by CCTV, so it couldn’t be long before the lunatic was caught. Perhaps ‘the Creep’ had realised that himself and had already gone to ground. That was surely what any sensible criminal would do.

As he headed down Holliday Street, Keith casually glanced over his shoulder. And had to blink twice – as what looked like a dark figure about fifty yards behind stepped out of sight.

Keith halted and pivoted around to look properly, his heart suddenly jolting in his chest.

Seconds passed. There was no sign of anyone there now.

He walked quickly on, throwing more glances over his shoulder, but seeing nothing through the gauze of rain. Before he reached the canal, he cut left down a ginnel, unsure if this was the quickest route but determined now to keep heading southwest.

Could what he’d just seen have been a figment of his imagination?

He hurried down a covered walk, and emerged onto another main road, Commercial Street. From here, glancing left, he could see all the way to the point where it intersected with Severn Street. It was at least a hundred yards off, but a dark, upright shape seemingly waited at that junction. It was impossible to tell what it was from this distance – it could easily have been some kind of permanent fixture there, but on the other hand it might be someone loitering.

Keith hurried the other way along Commercial Street until he reached Granville Street. From here he had good vantage both to the left and right. Not too far away, a set of traffic lights sat on green; there were no cars to obey them, just more curtains of rain swishing over the empty crossing. He glanced back once to see if the figure at the intersection was still there, but it was impossible to be sure; again, the rain obscured all detail.

Low-key night lights were still on in various shops, he noted as he walked on. Funny how, when you were out alone at night that didn’t really bring you any comfort, somehow enforcing the message that there was no one else here but you.

He turned onto Bath Row, lurching sharp right. The deluge still hammered down. Keith wondered if it was going to slacken off at all before he got back to the flat, not that it would make much difference now, saturated as he already was.

For what seemed like the umpteenth time, he turned and glanced behind.

And this time saw a figure about forty yards away and on the other side of the road, but heading roughly in the same direction that he was. As before, Keith felt as if he’d been struck. But then he had a couple of reassuring thoughts: firstly, although the figure was wearing heavy waterproof clothing, with the hood pulled up, concealing the face was hardly sinister on a night like this; secondly, he’d made no effort to duck out of sight again.

It must be someone else on their way home. Nothing to be worried about.

Even so, Keith increased his pace, jamming his hands into his anorak pockets, and more out of instinct than logic, on the spur of the moment, taking a detour down another alley, this one leading around the back of the Shell garage. Technically, he was heading northward again – not where he wanted to go, but he had to admit, he hadn’t liked the way that other homeward-bound pedestrian had suddenly appeared from nowhere.

He peered backward as he trudged down the alley, its junction with Bath Row falling steadily behind. But no waterproof-clad figure strode past it as he’d expected. When the junction was a hundred yards distant, Keith still hadn’t seen anyone.

And that felt wrong.

He pressed on urgently, and almost collided with the steel post of a street sign, which he must have made a blind beeline for without realising. He skipped aside, but in so doing, slipped on a greasy flagstone, and landed heavily on his back.

A great video for someone to post on YouTube, he thought as he scrambled back to his feet, insulated from the pain by his growing sense of unease. In actual fact, he hoped that somebody was filming. It might help them catch this Creep nutter.

When he stepped out onto a narrow, largely residential thoroughfare which he recognised as Roseland Way, it was a relief. He wasn’t far from home now.

Within a few minutes, he’d worked his way down to the A4540, or the Middleway as it was known, a large inner-urban dual carriageway, which formed part of the Birmingham ring road.

On the other side of that lay Edgbaston.

He crossed the Middleway via an underpass, descending a flight of stone steps and heading quickly along the square cement passage, which led some thirty yards to the other side. The usual graffiti was there in abundance – ‘Blues’ and ‘AVFC’ – along with other vastly more profane slogans. Keith might consider himself a lad-about-town, but he didn’t particularly like using these subways at night, especially not alone – they were damp, desolate and echoey. But tonight was an exception. He just wanted to get home, get showered and get to bed. Not long now.

He was perhaps ten yards from the end when a figure descended the steps in front of him.

By its height and shape it was male, but there was no real certainty of that because it was covered by a heavy black rain-slicker with the hood pulled down over the face.

It came straight along the passage, head bowed, hands buried in its pockets.

Keith continued forward too, didn’t even falter in his stride. Partly this was due to surprise – it basically stupefied him; his brain, for all that he thought he’d sobered up, was still too sluggish to transfer immediate messages to his limbs. It was also, he supposed – somewhat fatalistically – because there was no turning back now.

He lowered his own head as he advanced, burrowing his hands deeper into his pockets, and at the same time moving slightly to the right. Drunk or not, he was still an athlete. He could still dodge and run. But the guy – who was quite clearly the same person Keith had seen before – now veered straight into his path.

They were about two yards apart when he looked up and met Keith face to face.

Keith couldn’t speak. He was too mesmerised by the waxy-pale features and the deranged grin imprinted on them. In fact, he was only able to move when the figure drew something metallic and gleaming from inside its right-hand pocket – which clearly wasn’t a pocket at all, because this thing came out inch after curved and glittering inch.

It wasn’t as much a knife as an old-fashioned cavalry sabre.

Keith jerked himself backward – and slipped on some waste paper. For the second time that night, he landed hard on his spine. For the second time, he barely felt it as he attempted to crab-scuttle backward. The grinning figure followed with a slow, deliberate tread, raising the sword as though for a massive downward chop.

‘Alright!’ Keith shrieked, scrabbling frantically to his feet but at the same time yanking the wad of cash from his jeans pocket and waving it at the advancing shape.

Sword still hovering, the Creep – whose maniacal expression never changed – reached out a gloved hand, and snatched the cash away. Keith could only peer up at the gleaming steel. In part because he couldn’t bear to lock gazes with those small and weirdly shimmery eyes – he’d read something in the paper about the Creep always wearing a demented expression and having a penetrating, glint-eyed stare – but also because he knew, he just knew, that awful blade would not be staying overhead. Even so, he never expected it to sweep down in a blur of speed, to deliver a murderous blow to the joint between his neck and shoulder, to bury itself deep in muscle and bone. Keith sagged to his knees, stunned by pain and horror.

But it was only when the blade was wrenched free that the blood fountained out of him, and he fell face-first to the concrete.

Chapter 2

Detective Constable Lucy Clayburn headed north along the M60, and at the Wardley interchange swerved west along the M61. It was just after ten o’clock at night, so even Greater Manchester’s famously crowded motorway network was relatively quiet, enabling her blood-red liveried Ducati M900 ‘Monster’ to hit a cruising speed of 80mph as she passed the turn-offs to Farnworth, Lostock and Westhoughton. She only slowed as she reached Junction 6, where she swung a right, entering the complexity of roundabouts and slip roads surrounding the Reebok stadium, the home of Bolton Wanderers Football Club.

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.’

‘Bloody hell … if it was down to who’s got the best face, you’d be the Chief Con and I’d be deputy bog-brush.’

‘Flattery will get your everywhere, sir,’ she said, ‘as always. Especially when I’m after a favour.’

‘Shoot. Anything.’

‘You’ve got a case pending next spring at Manchester Crown … Regina v Ian Dyke.’

‘Oh yeah … that little shit.’ Slater chuckled darkly. ‘Courier for the Low Riders. Well, he’s gonna get what’s coming to him, I’ll tell you.’

‘Facing hard time, is he?’

‘With any luck. We’ve been trying to get into that lot for a while. We dropped lucky with Dyke. On his own he isn’t worth too much … we offered him the usual deal, but he wouldn’t bite. You know what bikers are like … they’re a tight crew. Anyway, like I say, he wouldn’t play, so he’s copping for the lot.’

That explained everything, Lucy realised. She already suspected that what Kyle Armstrong was really concerned about was whether Ian Dyke would try to make a deal and drop the entire chapter in it. But a promise was a promise, especially if it might pay off at some point.

‘I was just wondering,’ she said, not entirely comfortable with this, but persevering. ‘Well … if there was any way you might … well, go easy on him?’

There was a short but profound silence at the other end of the line.

‘Lucy … the trial date’s been set,’ Slater said. ‘April 3. And that was no small amount of gear we found on him.’

‘It’s just that it may be useful to one of my own enquiries.’

‘I can’t get the charges reduced at this stage, even if I was inclined to.’

‘Sir … you remember that really crappy job you gave me during Operation Clearway? Going undercover in that brothel over in Cheetham Hill?’

‘The job you lobbied me for, you mean?’ he said sternly.

‘Yeah, that one. And then remember how one of those bastards even threatened to blowtorch my nose off?’

‘Don’t try this on, Lucy …’

‘I’m not trying anything on. I’m just saying … I did a job of work for you, that year. We took down a crime syndicate and arrested two serial killers.’

‘For which you’ve been rightly recognised.’

‘Sir, it’s only a little thing I’m asking.’

‘Lucy …’ Slater sounded flabbergasted. ‘Ian Dyke’s a bad lad. He’s been spreading the Low Riders’ poison all over Crowley, and probably well beyond it, for years …’

‘You’ve just told me he’s a cog in a machine. Is it really going to advance the cause if you throw everything but the kitchen sink at him just because you can’t collar the rest of them?’

There was another pregnant silence.

‘Okay,’ he eventually replied. ‘I’ll tell you what I can do. And this is purely on the basis of our friendship, which is on thin ice at present, my girl.’

‘I understand that, sir … I’m very sorry.’

‘Yeah, you sound it.’ He paused, as if maybe about to reconsider. ‘If Dyke changes his plea to guilty … and he might as well because he hasn’t got a leg to stand on, I will personally write to the judge and point out that the accused has been helpful and cooperative throughout the case, has demonstrated genuine remorse and is seriously trying to get his life together. Now, you don’t need me to tell you it won’t necessarily save his neck, but it might mean that the judge will go a little easier on him … and, like I say, he’s got to change his plea first, and that hasn’t come from me, by the way … it needs to come from his legal team. So, the first thing Dyke needs to do is get onto his brief. Make sure he understands that, Lucy … the first move must come from him.’

‘Okay, sir. I’ll pass that on.’ Lucy knew this was the best deal they were going to get. ‘Thanks for your help.’

‘I don’t know what you’re into with the Low Riders, love … but I advise you to be wary of them. They’re not just some run-of-the-mill motorcycle club. They’re a heavy crew and they’re regularly involved in crime.’

‘I know that, sir.’

‘And that president of theirs, Kyle Armstrong – he’s the worst of them.’

‘I know that too, sir. Thanks.’

Slater harrumphed. ‘See you round, Lucy. Take care.’

Chapter 4

Owing to Crowley’s status as a one-time coal and textiles hotspot, its warehouse and factory district was almost in the town centre, primarily because that was where the main rail-yard was, but it was also only a stone’s throw from the main shopping area.

As such, as recently as the 1970s, Crowley’s ‘inner ring’ had been crammed with working mills and factories, their forest of tall chimneys pumping smoke into the air above the Greater Manchester township day and night. It had certainly given the place some character back in the day, and it did so now – to a degree – a succession of immense industrial structures towering over the red-brick terraced neighbourhoods which for so many decades had supplied their workforces.

Of course, in the twenty-first century such buildings were an anachronism. Some, rather ambitiously, had been renovated into blocks of ‘desirable apartments’ (many of which were still for sale), while others had become visitor centres. Of the rest, most had been boarded over and left. To some this was a blight on the environment, but others saw it as an opportunity. For example, it was in Rudyard Row, a weed-filled backstreet snaking its way between several of the most decrepit of these empty Edwardian monoliths, where Roy ‘the Shank’ Shankhill ran his ‘business’.

Rudyard Row wasn’t an alley you’d stumble into by accident, because you had to work your way through a warren of similarly-squalid passages just to reach it, and so most folk, even locals, didn’t know it was there. In addition, there was next to no reason to go there. Some of the former workshops that lined it on either side were still used, but most of them were soulless facades of brick, with plank-covered windows.

It looked as dismal as ever on that dull, damp day in mid-October, when Malcolm Pugh showed up there. This was nowhere near his first visit, and highly likely it would not be his last, but he was no less nervous for that.

He’d come into town from Bullwood by bus. It was late-morning, rush hour long over, and so he’d travelled on the top deck alone, mulling endlessly over his plethora of problems. As he walked warily down Rudyard Row, he felt even more alone, but now he was frightened too.

In many ways, it was a good thing he was doing here today. He expected it to curry favour, but you could never be absolutely certain what the outcome might be when dealing with the Shank. He glanced left and right before knocking on the door to No. 38, the two numerals hanging rusty and limp amid strips of peeling paintwork.

What he neglected to do was look directly behind him, so he didn’t see the door to the derelict building opposite swing silently open on recently oiled hinges.

Initially there was no sound from inside Shankhill’s premises. Pugh was about to knock again when he heard what sounded like a rustle of newspaper on the other side of the door. He knew what that would be: Turk, that great slab of meat and bone that Shankhill called a minder, getting irritably up from his stool, rolling up whichever of the daily rags he’d been reading – probably something with lots of tits, bums and suspenders – shoving it into his jacket pocket, and …

‘Yeah, who is it?’ came Turk’s voice through the wood.

It was a curious accent. Pugh couldn’t place it. He’d always assumed from the guy’s nickname, and because of his swarthy complexion and short tangle of oily black hair, that he’d originated in the Middle East somewhere. Not that it was important. All that really mattered where Turk was concerned was that he was six-foot four at least, and that he worked out daily, and/or did lots of steroids, which had built him a herculean physique. Reputedly, he liked nothing better than to imprint his many sovereign rings on the bodies and faces of those his employer took issue with.

‘It’s Malcom Pugh. I need to see Roy.’

A snicker of laughter sounded on the other side. ‘You never get tired of it, do you?’

‘I’m not here for a loan … I want to pay him back.’

‘Yeah?’ Turk sounded amused, as though this had to be a scam and he wasn’t buying it.

‘Seriously. Come on, Turk … Roy’s expecting me.’

There were two resounding clanks as, first, a top bolt was drawn back, and then a lower bolt. The door started to open, and Pugh put his foot on the step only to be struck from behind as somebody barrelled into his back.

It threw him forward into the door, which bounced inward with tremendous force, impacting massively on the guy behind it. There was a crump of splintering wood and a garbled grunt from Turk, and Pugh – who was too stunned to know what was happening – was grabbed by the back collar of his anorak, a gloved hand slapped across his mouth, and forced inside.

The immediate interior was a narrow space at the foot of a steep, dank stairway. A single grimy fanlight only weakly illuminated its wet brick walls and the stool to one side. Turk lay sprawled backward on the foot of the stairs, the lower half of his face spattered crimson from a smashed nose. Pugh, meanwhile, had his legs kicked from under him, pitching him down onto his knees, as two burly bodies crammed into the tiny space behind him, moving with catlike stealth. The door closed with a thud, but its top bolt was shoved back into place as quickly and quietly as possible.

Blinking with shock and pain, Turk groped for the Colt Python he kept in the armpit holster under his tan leather jacket. But before he could reach it, the muzzle of what looked like a sub-machine gun was jammed against his chin. His hand froze.

Pugh cowered where he knelt, a crumpled adult foetus, only glancing up slowly and fearfully. The two intruders, who hadn’t yet said a word, let alone shouted out a threat or warning, both carried automatic weapons with shoulder straps. Pugh had no clue what make or model they were, but they looked terrifying, especially as they had big magazines attached to their undersides.

The intruders wore zipped-up black leather jackets, black leather gloves and bright red woollen ski-masks with only narrow slots for the eyes. They were about average height and size, though one was slightly taller than the other. This taller one kept his gun under Turk’s jaw. It was firm in his left hand, as he put the index finger of his right to the place where his lips should be, and said: ‘Shhhh.’

Turk watched him balefully, but said nothing. Pugh, of course – a much smaller and older man than Turk, with a reputation even at home for being a weakling and failure – whimpered aloud, which earned him a vicious side-kick. The taller gunman leaned even closer to Turk, forced the muzzle into his Adam’s apple, and pressing it in hard, dragged a glottal gurgle out of him. With his right hand, he rummaged around under Turk’s jacket until he found the grip of the Colt Python and drew it out, slipping it into his own pocket.

He straightened up and backed off, but only for half a foot or so, the sub-machine gun trained squarely on his captive’s battered face. ‘Get up,’ he said quietly.

Turk did as he was told. At full height, he stood several inches above even the taller of the two gunmen, but that scarcely mattered. He now fancied he recognised the weapon under his nose as a SIG-Sauer MPX. At this range, its 9mm slugs would cut him in half like a buzz saw.

‘Arms out where I can see them,’ the taller gunman said. ‘Then turn around.’

Turk complied, spreading his empty hands and shuffling round in a semicircle.

‘Upstairs,’ the gunman instructed. ‘Make a sound out of the ordinary … anything I think is meant to be warning, and you’re on your way to Allah sooner than you ever imagined possible.’

Slowly, with heavy but careful footsteps, Turk ascended the stairs, the gunman close behind, the muzzle of the SIG jammed into his spine.

The second, shorter gunman nudged Pugh with his foot to indicate that he should go too.

‘Please,’ Pugh whined. ‘I’m not even supposed to be here …’

A strong hand snatched Pugh by the collar and hauled him to his feet. Pugh headed up the stairs at a petrified stumble, the second gunman treading stealthily at his rear.

There was a corridor at the top, all loose boards and rotted, hanging wallpaper. Only one door led off it, down at its far end. The occupant of the room beyond, Roy ‘the Shank’ Shankhill, a hefty porcine individual with pinkish features, slit-eyes, a mat of lank, gingery hair, and as always, wearing a patterned house-robe over his stained shirt and scruffily-knotted tie, sat behind a broad, leather-topped desk, which, aside from the free-standing electric fire in one corner and the small, steel safe in another, was the only furnishing in an otherwise empty shell of a room.

Shankhill thought he’d heard a bump downstairs – he even put on his glasses, which normally hung on his chest from a chain, and squinted across the room at the half-open door. But no other sound had followed, and he’d soon written it off as Turk knocking over his stool or something. It might even be Malcolm Pugh arriving for his appointment – though frankly Shankhill would believe that when he saw it. It wouldn’t be the first time the inveterate gambler had failed to show when he was due to make a repayment. Even if it was Pugh, it wouldn’t be the whole whack. It was never the whole whack – and it wouldn’t even suit Shankhill if it was. He could hardly have his debtors paying him back before they’d accrued some real interest. It wasn’t like he needed full and immediate repayment anyway, as the heaps of used banknotes on his desk, which he was currently sorting into orderly piles, would attest – along with the chunky gold rings on all his fingers, the chains around his neck and the various bracelets adorning his wrists, not to mention his diamond-studded Rolex.

Then the door to his office slammed open, hitting the wall with such force that plasterwork flew, and Shankhill – a juggernaut of a bloke in physical terms – almost leapt from his seat.

Turk came wheeling in as though pushed, the lower half of his face a mask of glutinous blood. A balding, runty short-arse of a bloke – Malcolm Pugh, Shankhill realised – tottered in alongside him. The pair had been kicked through the door with such energy that both now fell onto all fours. Their two abductors came in behind them, also side by side, sub-machine guns levelled.

Shankill went rigid with disbelief, regarding the intruders through his lenses with a blank, fishlike stare, his podgy, sweaty hands hovering over the piles of money. Then he turned sharply – a Winchester pump was propped against the wall, perhaps only a yard away.

‘Uh-uh!’ the taller gunman said, cocking his weapon.

Shankhill scrutinised them intently, eyes almost popping behind his thick glasses.

Their guns hung from leather shoulder straps, making them immediately accessible. They’d spaced out so they were about two yards apart, making a more difficult target of themselves and yet at the same time easily able to cover the whole room. Their stance was solid, unflinching; they wielded their weapons with the look of expertise.

Professionals, then. Resistance would be extremely ill-advised.

The slightly shorter of the two stood on the left; he now circled around the kneeling figures of Turk and Pugh, before heading around Shankhill’s desk, where he took possession of the shotgun. He backed away, cradling it under his right arm while balancing the SIG in the left, in effect, covering the three hostages with both weapons. The taller one, meanwhile, let his SIG hang from its strap, while he took a rolled-up black canvas bag from his coat pocket, shook it open, came forward and commenced sweeping the money off the table into it.

This took no more than twenty seconds. The kneeling captives could do nothing, fresh blood still trickling down the front of Turk’s shirt, Pugh hunched forward, eyes screwed shut, a pool of yellowish fluid spreading out around his sodden knees.

When the taller gunman had cleared the desk, he dug into a large holdall alongside it, lifting out several more bricks of banknotes and cramming them into his sack.

‘Do you know who I am?’ Shankhill couldn’t resist asking.

‘I couldn’t care less if you’re Donald Trump’s condom supplier,’ came a voice from behind the taller intruder’s scarlet ski-mask. ‘Open the fucking safe.’

Shankhill pursed his lips and gave a tight shake of his head.

The gunman’s eyes widened in the holes in his mask – not so much with anger, Shankhill felt, as with fascination. ‘Seriously?’ the guy asked.

‘Seriously,’ Shankhill replied in a stern but patient tone, like a teacher trying to impart a lesson. He’d decided that he was going to tough this thing out. ‘You’re on very fragile ice, boys, let me tell you. Time is not on your side, and if you actually do know who I am … you wouldn’t even be here. Now, I strongly suggest you don’t push your luck any more, and you get out while the getting out’s good. As it is, you’re going to be hunted for the rest of your life.’

The taller gunman regarded him with apparent deep interest. ‘The safe?’

Shankhill shook his head again, slowly and deliberately.

The gunman seemed to consider this, and then whipped around, grabbed Turk by the collar of his jacket and yanked him up to his feet, before pushing him hard towards the far corner of the room. ‘Turn around!’ he barked.

Still with his arms out, Turk shuffled around until he was facing them, eyes expanded to an amazing size in a face not just bloodied but now pale and damp with fear. Without warning, the taller gunman raised the SIG and, single-handed, fired a deafening burst at his legs.

Both limbs were visibly shattered as the shells ripped through them, hammering into the wall behind, spraying it with blood and bone and meat. Turk fell full-length onto his side, gagging in almost unimaginable pain. Malcolm Pugh screamed in terror, clapping his hands to his ears, fresh streams of piss seeping through the front of his trousers. Shankhill, who’d banked that his temporary tough talk might do the trick, could only goggle in horror. He too had half put his hands to his ears, and now, as the echoes died away and the dust cleared, could do no more than blink in rapid-fire shock at the sight of his fallen comrade.

‘He gets the next lot in the head,’ the taller gunman said. ‘After that, we start on the little fella.’

‘No … please!’ Pugh squawked.

‘Be quite a fucking mess for you to clean up given that you run an unlicensed money-lending business from these premises,’ the gunman added. ‘And you won’t even be able to call a friend when your own knees and elbows are shot through, will you? Because trust me, pal … we’ll get round to you too before we leave here.’

Shankill’s mouth sagged open as he gaped first at one, and then at the other.

This was serious. This was absolutely for real. Roy ‘the Shank’ Shankhill was being robbed inside his own office.

‘The safe!’ the taller one said again. ‘You fat, greasy-headed fuck!’

The money-lender held his position for another moment – just long enough for the various bits and pieces to finally fall together inside his stunned mind. Beaded with sweat, he stumbled away from his desk to the safe and squatted down, where he adjusted a dial, turning it back and forth to listen to the requisite number of clicks. When the door clunked open, Shankhill rose to his feet and backtracked away.

At the far side of the room, the wounded Turk gave a low, animalistic whine. The gunmen ignored him, the shorter one stepping in front of Shankhill so that he could cover him with the SIG while keeping the shotgun trained on the fallen henchman. The taller, meanwhile, hunkered down at the safe, and began lifting out rolls and rolls and rolls of banknotes, all of which he shovelled into his sack. After that, he helped himself to jewellery – bracelets, brooches, necklaces – quality stuff too, not of the bling variety that Shankill generally adorned himself with, but platinum and white gold, embedded with diamonds and other gems. When he’d finished, he straightened up and turned to face the Shank.

He offered an empty hand. ‘We’ll take your neck chains and your rings, while you’re at it. And the Rolex. Jesus … you wash your hair in chip-fat, or what?’

Shankhill scowled as he handed the valuables over. ‘I’ll find you,’ he said quietly.

‘Yeah?’ The taller gunman stepped backward. ‘Maybe my bootprint’ll give you a head start.’

Then he opened fire at Shankhill’s legs. A fusillade of lead shredded through muscle and bone, all but blowing the ungainly limbs away completely, hurling the overweight money-lender down onto the blood and urine-spattered floorboards.

To prove he was a man of his word, the taller bandit concluded by stamping on Shankhill’s pale, sweat-soggy face some two, three times. When he’d finished that, the two of them rounded on Malcolm Pugh, who wailed even more loudly than before.

‘Shut it or you die!’ The taller one stabbed a warning finger into Pugh’s face.

But the little gambler was wild-eyed and wet-mouthed with fear. ‘My inside pocket!’ he gibbered. ‘It’s in my inside pocket … all of it. Take what you want …’

‘We don’t want your money,’ the taller one said.

When Pugh filched a handful of twenties from under his jacket and waved it at them, the shorter one simply knocked it out of his grasp, sending it fluttering across the room, and then twisted his hands behind his back, causing him to shriek again, his time with agony, before binding them together with duct tape. He repeated the process with Pugh’s ankles.

‘It’s dead simple … Malcolm,’ the taller bandit advised him, when Pugh lay trussed in a corner. He’d read the first name on a credit card from Pugh’s wallet, though he now reinserted the card into the wallet, and replaced it in the captive’s pocket. ‘You’ve survived this. You even get to keep your own cash … you’ll be able to get yourself free in a few minutes. But it isn’t over. We know who you are. So, you go to the cozzers about this … you even call an ambulance for these two goons, and we’ll come back for you. And you won’t need me to tell you … it won’t just be your legs we shoot off.’

Pugh said nothing, closing his eyes against the stinging sweat dabbling his lashes.

When he finally risked opening them, the masked assailants had gone.

Chapter 5

Lucy was back in Robber’s Row CID not long before one o’clock, the case against Darren Pringle proved and the regular offender finally in receipt of the custodial sentence he’d deserved for so very long. He’d been led down to the cells, looking totally stunned that four months’ imprisonment now hung over his head, but Lucy knew that it was a minuscule punishment in reality. If he kept his nose clean, and he likely would given that he’d be in a short-stay facility where it was in everyone’s interest to behave themselves, he’d be out in two. And then, not long after that – who knew, maybe at the end of his first-night-of-freedom party – he’d come reeling out of the pub plastered, and start throwing more drunken punches. If or when he did that, she wouldn’t be too far away, and so they’d go through the whole dispiriting, time-consuming procedure again. But at least it wasn’t her problem for the time being.

The detectives’ office – or ‘DO’ as it was known locally – was its usual hive of midday activity, with many comings and goings, keyboards chattering, phones ringing.

‘Result, Luce!’ DS Banks shouted from across the room, briefly breaking off from a phone call. Lucy acknowledged with a thumbs-up, before stripping her mac off, draping it over the back of her chair and slumping down at her desk. Here, she found a note from Harry, explaining that he was now over on the Hatchwood, getting the ball rolling by re-interviewing the various burglary victims that DI Beardmore had linked together. She was welcome to join him whenever she was able to.

Before she drove over there, Lucy grabbed herself a cheese sandwich and a cola from the machine outside the DO’s main doors, and opted to check through her emails.

Almost immediately, a piece of apparent junk offering cut-price Viagra caught her eye, the main reason being that it had slipped past the spam filter. She swilled cola and crammed down her butty as she made a note of the final few characters on its subject line.

TC – Borsd 1-15.

Meaningless to anyone not in the know, of course – more internet gobbledegook – but to Lucy it was as familiar as a street sign. She checked her watch. It was almost quarter past one now. The service would be departing the town centre imminently, which meant it would be calling outside the police station in the next ten minutes or so.

She got up and pulled her coat on. Technically, she wasn’t supposed to attend meetings like this on her own. According to GMP rules, Harry ought to be present as well, but he wouldn’t get back here from Hatchwood Green in time, even if he was able to set off straight away – which he likely wouldn’t be if he was mid-interview. But it wouldn’t be the end of the world. If anyone asked, she was feeling out a possible lead. If it looked promising, she and Harry could do this thing together, officially, later on today or maybe tomorrow.

She rounded the front of the building to Tarwood Lane and joined a couple of mothers with prams waiting at the bus stop there. She probably made a slightly incongruous figure, still dressed for court in a smart blouse and slacks, heeled shoes and her poshest beige raincoat, but if this was the way she had to do it, there was no real argument. Besides, she only had to wait a short time before the one-fifteen from Crowley town centre to Borsdane Wood turned up. The two young mothers clambered aboard first, Lucy assisting them with their prams. After she’d paid for her own ticket, she climbed the tight stairway to the top deck, where a single fellow passenger rode in the front seat – this was his usual position, mainly because the upstairs security cameras on this bus route were also located at the front, and thus unable to see the persons sitting directly below them.

There was no one else anywhere near, so Lucy slid into the seat immediately behind.

You wouldn’t be able to tell it while he was seated, but Jerry McGlaglen was a tall man, about six-foot three and now aged somewhere in his early sixties. Almost invariably, he dressed in elegant fashion – flannel trousers and matching blazer and tie were his preferred combination, often with a carnation in the buttonhole – though this often jarred with his thin features, sunken cheeks and wispy grey beard and moustache, not to mention his mop of grey hair, which had something of the feather duster about it. When you spoke to him face-on, he had odd-coloured eyes, one blue and one green, and unhealthy, brownish teeth; his personal hygiene wasn’t quite what it had used to be, either. As such, while he might strike an imposing figure from a distance, up close it was strange and rather scuzzy.

‘Why are we persisting with this cloak-and-dagger stuff, Jerry?’ Lucy asked quietly, after the bus recommenced its journey. ‘Can’t we just meet in the pub like everyone else?’

McGlaglen didn’t look around. ‘Because what I am giving you today, my dear, is the biggest tip-off you’re ever likely to receive.’

Lucy nodded. She’d heard this kind of promise before, but to be fair to McGlaglen, he rarely offered anything that wasn’t at least interesting. She clutched the horizontal bar at the top of his seat as they swung around a tight bend.

‘A particularly unpleasant fellow,’ McGlaglen added, ‘a true reprobate and degenerate is in town.’

He’d been given to using flowery language for as long as Lucy had known him; he even delivered it in a dramatic, Shakespearean tone, all traces of his local accent suppressed. It was something to do with his past, she understood, though she’d never questioned him on it. Police informers came in every shape and size; all that mattered was the reliability of their intel.

‘A true degenerate, eh?’ she said. ‘Go on. I’m all ears.’

‘The Creep. You know of this beast, I take it? He’s in the town now … as we speak.’

At first Lucy thought she’d misheard. ‘Sorry … what?’

He neither looked round nor raised his voice. The one thing Jerry McGlaglen defended more zealously that his air of faded flamboyance was his right to anonymity; when imparting information to his police handlers, he was never less than exceptionally wary. He would do nothing whatsoever to attract attention to himself from the ordinary public. To Lucy’s mind that somewhat contradicted his manner of dressing and speaking, but when she’d raised this with him once in the past, he’d replied that his attire served its purpose as a double bluff.

‘They look twice, that is undeniably true. But when all they see is a well-known eccentric, they rarely look again.’

‘The Creep?’ she said, puzzled. ‘You mean the lunatic who hangs around cashpoints in Birmingham late at night, robbing people at sword-point. You say he’s in town? You mean here … in Crowley?’

‘This is the story I’ve been told, my dear.’

‘Jerry … how is that possible?’

‘Why … I’d imagine he bought himself a ticket at New Street, climbed onto a train and headed north.’

‘Funny man. I’ll rephrase the question. Why is he here … I mean in the Northwest?’

‘How could I know? Perhaps he has relatives here. He was unlikely to linger in the Midlands after what happened during his last attack, don’t you think?’

Lucy pondered the info with rapidly growing interest. Even though Birmingham was eighty miles south, she’d read all about the case on various bulletins. The offender was basically a mugger, but the West Midlands press had named him ‘the Creep’ because of his crazy fixed grin, which owed possibly to a mask or heavy make-up. A Joker lookalike, then; a comic-book madman. But there hadn’t been much to laugh about for his victims, who’d not just lost wads of cash but, even when they’d complied, had been slashed with what appeared to be an old-fashioned but well-honed cavalry sabre. Invariably it had inflicted gruesome wounds, and in the case of the most recent victim, had proved fatal.

She leaned forward. ‘How’ve you heard about this, Jerry?’

‘Now, my dear … as you know, I never divulge such things. But as you also know, my sources are impeccable.’

‘What’s the Creep’s name? I mean his real name.’

‘This I cannot tell.’

‘Cannot, or will not?’

‘Cannot.’

‘So where will I find him?’

‘Alas, I have no answer for that either.’

‘Jerry …’ she leaned closer to his ear, ‘you seriously think you’re going to get paid for this? Passing on an unfounded rumour that this guy may be in Crowley … may be? And giving us nothing else whatsoever?’

‘I suspected you’d be hostile. Ignorance, as always, breeds contempt. I imagine I will only get paid if you apprehend this scoundrel … as per our usual arrangement. How you make that happen is beyond my control.’

‘Do you have anything else on him at all?’

‘It is my belief that he will have come here to work.’

‘Work?’

‘To continue his bloody reign.’

‘Seriously?’ Lucy wondered if he was winding her up. ‘You think this bloke’s on the run from a murder charge, and a few weeks later he’s just going to blow all that by starting again only an hour up the railway line?’

McGlaglen shook his head. ‘I know no more about this case than you, Miss Clayburn, but I have read sufficient disgusting detail to form an opinion that for this malefactor it is as much about the swordplay as it is the money. I appreciate that sudden fear has driven him to change towns. But really … how long can such a depraved individual resist temptation?’

Lucy had also read plenty of material regarding the Creep, and on reflection, it wasn’t difficult to draw a similar conclusion. In each incident thus far, the offender had inflicted unnecessary violence; the slashing of the APs with his sword after they had handed over their wallets was completely uncalled-for, which implied that at least part of the abnormal gratification he drew from these attacks was from seeing first the terror of his victims, and then their blood. It might indeed be that this was all of it, the cash obtained little more than a bonus. And if that was the case, it seemed likely that he’d struggle to resist the impulse when it came. It could even be that, while here in Manchester lying low, maybe staying with friends or holed up in a B&B, he would feel more secure than he had in Birmingham, where the hunt for him was now really on, and so he might be even more encouraged to renew his violence.

‘How long’s this guy supposed to have been in Manchester?’ Lucy asked.

‘I only heard about him a couple of days ago, my dear,’ McGlaglen replied. ‘But it must be longer than that, surely.’

She considered this. The last Creep attack in Birmingham had made the papers about two weeks ago. Prior to that, he’d struck every few days or so. He could well be getting itchy fingers.

‘Jerry … you’re absolutely certain about this? People you know and trust are saying the Creep is in Crowley? I mean, this isn’t some flight of fancy?’

He finally turned and frowned round at her, his odd-coloured eyes alight with intensity. On the basis of past information he’d provided, he probably had the right to look a little indignant.

‘Okay,’ she said. ‘I’ll go back to the nick and make this official.’ She saw a stop coming up where it would be convenient for her to jump off. There was another one on the other side of the road; she could catch a bus back to the station from there. She stood up. ‘If it happens, you’ll get your usual fee. But if it doesn’t … if we end up wasting a load of time and resources, they’ll mark you down as a bad bet.’

McGlaglen sighed melodramatically. ‘It is a sad state of affairs when a generally reliable man can only be allowed to fail once.’

‘We’re talking about someone who, for his hobby, hacks people up with a sword.’ Lucy swayed her way to the top of the stairs. ‘Forgive me, Jerry, if I’m keen to get it right.’

Chapter 6

He might have entered the criminal world relatively late in life, but Joe Lazenby had soon come to recognise this as a benefit rather than a drawback. It obviously helped that he didn’t have a rap sheet, and it helped enormously that after years of normality, he didn’t look like a criminal.

Whatever people said about the monsters in our society mingling easily and comfortably with the rest of us, that only really applied to the successful ones. As far as Joe Lazenby was concerned, some shaven-headed moron decked in cheap bling and wearing tattoos on his face and neck wasn’t even going to enter a street-corner boozer without the punters edging away from him, so his chances of getting close to someone it was actually worth robbing or conning were beyond zero. Not that Lazenby went in for primitive tricks like robbing or conning, but in complete contrast to those tattooed, knuckle-dragging apes, he still regarded his ‘ordinary joe’ appearance as his best asset.

In fact, that was the street name he used: ‘Ordinary Joe’.

He’d chosen it, himself, and almost unbelievably, it had caught on. Even so, as he sat here in the genteel environs of Hogarth’s Cocktail Lounge, working through his daily accounts, no one would ever know what he was really up to. They’d just see a guy in his mid-thirties, slightly stout of build, average height, with curly brown hair and a neatly trimmed beard and moustache, a wedding ring on one hand, a none-too-expensive Nautica watch on the other, wearing black horn-rims and a three-piece suit, sipping Perrier water as he tapped away on a laptop; clearly an averagely successful businessman wrapping up the day’s work with a few final, essential adjustments before winding his thankful way home – no doubt to a semi in the suburbs, where his pretty wife and two-and-a-half nerdy children awaited him.

It helped, of course, that most of the clientele at Hogarth’s were cut from exactly that cloth, though mainly that was down to the time and place – late afternoon on a Tuesday, and Pearlman Road in the very centre of Crowley, where, for the most part, it was office and retail staff now disgorging from the workplaces close by.

Outside, the mid-October dusk was falling quickly, and with it the temperature. But Hogarth’s prided itself on providing a warm, snug environment. The mullioned windows were shaded with velvet, the lamplight low-key, the various loungers and armchairs of the deepest, most comfortable variety. The music playing was easy jazz, while the real fire crackling in the grate threw cosy orange-gold patterns across the hardwood floors. There was no actual bar service in here; all drinks were supplied by waitresses, who would attend your seating bay or booth or coffee table, in response to the ornate Edwardian bell-pushes located nearby.

It wasn’t too busy at present. No one would really expect it to be, but that suited Lazenby. He might be confident of his anonymity, but it was still easier to relax when people weren’t constantly edging past your table, perhaps throwing covert glances at your laptop screen. There were perhaps six other patrons in Hogarth’s at present, all dotted around, either alone or in couples, those together chatting quietly over drinks, the others reading evening papers, or, like him, fiddling around with electronic devices.

Either way, it left plenty of spare places all over the wine bar’s comfy interior.

Which is why it was so annoying to Lazenby when another guy in a suit, someone he didn’t know from Adam, suddenly inserted himself into the same booth and sat down on the other side of the coffee table, on top of which he nonchalantly plonked a large G&T.

Lazenby tried not to look at him, but couldn’t help stealing a couple of irritable glances.

The guy was in his mid-fifties and sharp-suited, with an average build, lean features and silver-grey hair razored into a crew cut.

Lazenby didn’t like his personal space being invaded for no reason, but for the sake of appearances – he was Ordinary Joe, after all – he didn’t make an issue of it, merely nodded when the newcomer’s dark eyes flitted towards him, and continued working at his accounts.

‘You picked the wrong place to try and get some work done, I’d say,’ the guy commented.

Lazenby didn’t at first realise that he was being addressed. ‘Sorry, what?’

‘Noisy bar.’

It wasn’t an especially noisy bar – not at this time of day.

‘Didn’t notice,’ Lazenby replied, pointedly not looking up.

‘Hard to concentrate.’

The air hissed between Lazenby’s clenched teeth as he finally met the newcomer with his best blank-eyed stare. Ordinary Joe might value his average appearance and air of affability, but he was also a Scouser. He originated from Childwall, which wasn’t a poor part of Liverpool, but nevertheless, in archetypical Merseysider fashion, he didn’t take well to being hassled.

‘Especially when people keep talking to me,’ he said, ‘and only politeness is preventing me telling them straight that I’m not interested.’

He went back to his laptop, pink-cheeked, but reasonably confident that the unexpected show of no-frills hostility would have done the trick. It couldn’t be very often that tired, bored business guys encountered a straight-talking response like that in Hogarth’s.

‘You a polite guy, then?’ the stranger said. ‘Perhaps they should call you “Joey the Gent” rather than “Ordinary Joe”?’

Lazenby glanced up at him again, this time shocked.

The guy took a sip of his G&T, unfazed by the turn in the conversation. ‘But hang on, I don’t suppose that would work. “Joey the Gent” sounds like “Jimmy the Gent” … and wasn’t he some kind of gangster? That would never do, would it?’

‘Who are you?’ Lazenby asked, instinctively closing his laptop to protect the information it contained.

‘Me? Oh, I’m no one important enough to have a cool nickname.’

‘You a cop?’

The man smiled to himself. ‘I’m guessing they call you Ordinary Joe because you look and act like an everyday Charlie. Perhaps we should call you that, instead: “Everyday Charlie”.’

‘I could ring my solicitor right now,’ Lazenby said, talking tough, though in truth his hair was prickling because he didn’t know if he could; he had no clue how much the law might have on him. ‘This is harassment.’

‘Be my guest,’ the guy said. ‘Ring him.’

‘I’ll see you around, officer.’ Lazenby did his best to look relaxed as he lifted his briefcase, slid his laptop into it, and clicked it closed. ‘Come back when you’ve actually got something.’

He stood up.

‘You know harassment’s hard to prove,’ the man said. ‘I should know … me and my associates have made that call a few times. Never got anywhere with it.’

Lazenby was about to leave the table, when these words sank in.

He turned back, regarding the newcomer with careful deliberation, before sitting down again.

‘You’re the Crew, aren’t you?’ he ventured.

The man looked nonplussed as he sipped more gin. ‘The Crew? Never heard of them.’

One second ago, Lazenby had been stiff and numb; his spine had gone cold – internally he’d been reeling with shock that the law had so unexpectedly caught up with him. He’d tried to brazen it out, praying that whoever this interloper was he was merely on a fishing trip. Now he felt only relief, though there was no guarantee he was on safe ground yet.

‘Look …’ he said warily, ‘we don’t need to have a problem here. I’m more than willing to do a deal.’

The man raised an eyebrow. ‘Perhaps it should be “Co-operative Charlie”?’

‘I know what this is about. I’ve got somewhere you can’t. I’m selling all over suburban Manchester. Middle-class districts which you have no access to. I’m also in with the white-collar crowd in the commercial area. And believe it or not, they gobble the stuff like it’s free.’

‘Oh, I believe you.’

‘But it isn’t free.’ Lazenby leaned forward confidentially. ‘And I’m making good money without setting a single foot on the mean streets.’

This was an unashamed boast, and maybe that wasn’t always advisable where the Crew were concerned. They weren’t the Northwest’s premier crime faction for nothing; internally, Lazenby’s nerves were jangling. But it suddenly seemed important to him, if he was going to deal with these guys on an equal basis, to underline the fact that he was a real player who had something valuable to trade.

‘Yeah. Everyday Charlie and his gentlefolk customer base.’ The newcomer’s tone wasn’t quite derisory; he sounded vaguely interested. ‘I’ve seen it actually, and I am impressed. Ice cream vans, pharmaceutical deliveries, driving instructors … touch of genius, all that. Great cover.’

‘Look, I’ll be blunt with you,’ Lazenby said. ‘For two reasons. Firstly, because I’m a straight player. I always believe in saying it how it is. That’s how I’ve got where I am today, and I’ve no regrets about it. Secondly, because I figure you guys are smart enough to know what side your bread’s buttered on.’ He lowered his voice even more, increasingly confident of his position. ‘You can’t get into the leafy parts of town. But I’m already there. So why don’t we hook up? I don’t have to move my own product solely. I can move yours too. I’ll open a completely new market for you. But the terms have got to be favourable.’

The stranger mulled this over. ‘Like you say, straight to the point. Least that’ll make things easier.’

Lazenby made an expansive gesture. ‘That’s how I roll.’

‘What’s your annual turnover, just out of interest?’

‘Well, in the last nine months alone, I’m …’ Lazenby checked himself. It couldn’t be wise revealing too much about his operation. But then again, if he wanted to win their trust and at the same time impress on them that he’d be a serious asset … ‘In the last nine months, I’m two hundred-thousand net.’

‘And you’ll be looking at … what?’ the stranger said. ‘Ten per cent?’

‘Erm, no.’ Lazenby had to chuckle. ‘I like to earn in a way that’s commensurate with the risk I’m taking. I’ll take twenty-five, and that’s being generous. That’s out of respect for your status.’

‘Twenty-five eh?’ The stranger pondered this.

‘And of course, it depends on the quality of the product you’re pushing. I mean, I deal with discerning people. They smell chalk or talcum powder, it’ll be no more dice from them and no more dice from me.’

‘Everyday Charlie and his discerning customer-base, eh? I’ll have to bear that in mind.’

Lazenby glanced over his shoulder before leaning even closer. ‘What do you say? I was hoping to meet you guys anyway, at some point, so we could square this very deal.’

The man eyed him, for the first time closely; it was slightly disconcerting – there was steel in that gaze. ‘You want in, basically?’

‘Sure I do.’

‘Into what, though?’

‘The Crew. What else are we talking about?’

‘There’s no such thing as the Crew. Least, I’ve never heard of them.’

Lazenby sat back exasperated. ‘Listen mate …’ He knew he shouldn’t do it, but he couldn’t really control the snap in his voice. He needed to advise them that he was serious about his business. ‘There’s something you need to know. I’m not Mickey Mouse, all right …’

‘No, you’re Everyday Charlie.’

Frustrated that they were still playing this silly game, Lazenby grabbed his briefcase. ‘When you find out who the Crew are, and more importantly, where they are, let’s talk again.’

‘I’ve got another deal for you,’ the man said.

Lazenby stayed in his seat. ‘I can do twenty per cent, but that’s got to be it. That’s as far down as I’ll go.’

‘Let’s stop talking figures, and focus on responsibilities.’

Lazenby shrugged.

‘Because, I think you’ve got me confused with someone else.’ The man took another sip of G&T – in ludicrously genteel fashion; he even raised his little finger. ‘You see … I don’t have any product for you to sell. That’s not my line at all.’

‘So why are we having this conversation?’

‘We’re having this conversation because, like I say, I think you seem like a decent, straight-to-the-point kind of fella, and in addition, you’ve got this ingenuity thing going on. You’re someone who deserves a bit of a heads-up.’

‘To what?’

‘Well, not to how much you’re going to earn.’ The guy treated Lazenby to that steely gaze again, now coupled with a wire-thin smile. ‘But to how much it’s going to cost you.’

‘Ahhh …’ It was several moments before Lazenby was able to work enough saliva into his mouth to reply properly. ‘You’re a tax collector, is that it?’

‘No.’ Though the man’s smile broadened, it still didn’t reach his eyes. ‘I’m the tax collector.’

‘You’re Frank McCracken.’

‘Never heard of him.’

‘Don’t they call you “the Shakedown”?’

To a degree, Lazenby was honoured, and not a little proud of himself, to have attracted the personal attention, not just of a senior lieutenant in the Crew, but the lieutenant whose main purpose it was to get the syndicate its cut from all those criminal enterprises in the Northwest of England that weren’t actually their own. But he couldn’t deny that he was unnerved too; his hands now shook, their palms moist. The approach had been gentlemanly enough, but Lazenby wasn’t deceived. He’d heard some bone-chilling tales.

‘So, let me see,’ he said, biting down on his fear – this was only going to end one way, so the best he could do now was try to affect some kind of damage limitation. ‘I’ve got to source my own product, pay the advance on it, arrange importation, storage, security, distribution, delivery … with no input from you whatsoever, and you still get paid? Is that correct?’

The man who had to be Frank McCracken sat back. ‘You make it sound like you don’t win.’

‘It depends how much.’

McCracken made a show of thinking this through – for about two seconds. ‘I reckon sixty/forty’s a fair split, to be honest.’

‘Sixty/forty?’ It could have been worse, Lazenby supposed.

‘In our favour, of course.’

‘In your favour …?’

‘You sound doubtful, which I suppose is understandable.’ McCracken thought it through, again. ‘So, let’s make it seventy/thirty. Until we get to know each other better. Oh, and we’ll take our first payment from the two hundred-thou you’ve pulled in so far this year.’

‘This … this …’ Lazenby struggled to suppress his helpless rage. ‘This always the way you do business?’

‘Not at all. We’d normally be having this conversation out back. But out of respect for your status, I thought we’d do it differently today.’

‘And I suppose if I say “no”, those gloves will come off, will they?’

McCracken shrugged. ‘No rush for that. But anything can happen.’

‘I could’ve been a good friend to you.’

‘You still will be, I’m sure.’

‘You reckon?’

‘You live off Mulberry Crescent, don’t you? Nice part of Crowley, that.’

Lazenby didn’t suppose he should be surprised that they knew where he lived. He said nothing, however, neither confirming nor denying it.

‘Not as nice as Carrwood in Altrincham, mind you,’ the gangster added. ‘Or Bromley Cross in Bolton, or Worsley in Salford, or Ellesmere Park, or Hale, or Timperley …’

Neither, Lazenby supposed, should he be surprised that they knew his main sales areas.

‘Nice places,’ McCracken mused. ‘Tree-lined streets, green lawns at the front of every house, couple of cars on each drive.’ Suddenly, there was a mischievous twinkle in his eye. ‘Be a real shame if things changed. You know, if the yobbos turned up … and the crackheads, and the gangbangers, and the boy-racers. Looking to party every night up and down those quiet streets. The residents would call the fuzz of course. Probably again and again. I mean, they’re not used to that kind of disorderly conduct. But is that really what you want, Joe?’

‘And let me guess … if I pay my taxes, none of that happens?’

McCracken finished his drink and stood up. ‘There are no guarantees in this line of work. But if I was you, I’d hedge my bets. I mean, you may be a refined kind of guy, you may live in a detached house and mix with culturally correct people, but I reckon you’re a gambler too. I’m sure you know a safe option when you see one.’

He edged around the table, to leave.

‘I’ll think about it,’ Lazenby said.

‘No, you won’t.’ McCracken backed towards the cocktail lounge door, still smiling. ‘You’re not that stupid.’

Chapter 7

Detective Inspector Stan Beardmore was a short, squat chap in his mid-fifties. He had snow-white hair, which he always kept close-cut, and was habitually clean-shaven and well-groomed, though this tended to clash with his shabby tweed jackets; he had a brown one and a green one, and he alternated them on a weekly basis – even though both had seen better days, with frayed cuffs and leather-patched elbows. He was a good boss, though. Lucy had quickly come to realise that his affable nature masked a sharp mind and years of experience. On top of that, rather than being a stickler for paperwork or procedure, he was trusting of his detectives and encouraged independence of thought.

On this occasion, however, he seemed a tad dubious.

He sat behind his desk in his own office, an annex to the DO, and leafed through the pile of print-outs that Lucy had handed him. For the most part, these were selected extracts from the policy file of the Major Investigation Team down at West Midlands CID, mainly crime-scene reports and glossies, witness statements (for what they were worth, which wasn’t much), several e-fits, and a detailed psychological profile, as prepared by a forensic psychologist.

‘So, West Mids were happy to share?’ Beardmore flipped pages but only really skimmed what they contained.

‘Think they’re keen to wrap this thing up,’ Lucy replied. ‘Any help GMP can give them and all that.’

‘And what exactly do we know about this Creep fella?’

‘According to the notes, he’s a biggish bloke. About six-one, six-two, heavy build. The psyche profile makes him a young-to-middle aged male, most likely white, probably out of work or in low-paid employment.’

‘No kidding.’ Beardmore turned one of the e-fits around; it depicted a pale moonlike face under a heavy hood, with tiny, narrow eyes, a near non-existent nose and a jack-o’-lantern grin which split the visage from ear to ear. ‘Thought they’d be queuing up to recruit this fella.’

‘I spoke to a DS Broadhurst, who’s Document Reader in the West Mids MIR,’ Lucy replied. ‘He says they reckon this Creep business is a bit contrived. The manic grin, the sword … it’s his theory that they could be looking for someone a bit more stable than that suggests.’

‘Someone who’s capable of putting an act on?’

‘Yeah.’

‘And if that’s the case, why do we assume he’s going to reoffend while he’s on his holidays up here?’

Lucy paused before responding. She’d been through all the November Division crime reports taken that last week, and though there was the usual quota of assaults and street robberies, none were like-for-like with the attacks in the West Midlands. As such, with no actual crime for Crowley CID to investigate, she was now proposing that they put some spotters on the street at night in anticipation; maybe even use decoys. If the Creep’s past form was anything to go by, he’d commit his offences in proximity to town centre cashpoints. Lucy had even produced a map of central Crowley and had earmarked certain hotspots they could prioritise.

‘In answer to your question, boss,’ she said, ‘we don’t know whether he’ll reoffend while he’s here, or not. But just because the psyche evaluation suggests he’s an organised offender, that doesn’t mean he doesn’t have mental problems. It also, see …’ she indicated a particular paragraph, which she’d underlined with red biro, ‘… it proposes the possibility that, whoever he is, he’s suffering from Antisocial Personality Disorder.’

‘So, he’s a sociopath. There’s a surprise.’

‘At the very least he’s a sociopath, I’d say. Look at this section.’ She read aloud: ‘“The offender demonstrates a considerable degree of delusion. For example, taking precautions to avoid identification but at the same time not realising that such a distinctive and exaggerated MO will in itself narrow his chances of remaining at liberty. The same conclusion may be drawn from his chosen attack-zones, the vicinities around cash machines, which any ordinary thief would surely expect to be progressively more heavily policed. Highly likely, the offender knows right from wrong, and is thus able to function normally when it pleases him, which will be most of the time. However, there are clear indications that when his desire to inflict violence becomes overwhelming, there is little to hold him back.”’

Beardmore looked to be lost in thought.

‘In other words,’ Lucy said, ‘it’s quite possible that when he slips back into this deluded state, whether he’s down in Brum or up here in Crowley, he’ll go straight back to work, as Jerry McGlaglen calls it.’

‘That McGlaglen’s an oddball. Are we sure he’s given us everything on this he’s got?’

‘Well … we’re never sure of that, are we.’

‘He’s grassed for us a few times, hasn’t he?’

‘Been good as gold up till now.’

Beardmore eyed her carefully. ‘What does Harry Jepson think?’

She shrugged. As Jerry McGlaglen’s joint handler, Lucy had spoken about it to Harry on the phone, but in truth he hadn’t been especially interested, pointing out in his usual frustrated way that they had more than enough work to be getting on with already.

‘He thinks it sounds promising,’ she lied, feeling certain she could pull Harry along.

‘Well …’ Beardmore planted both hands on the spillage of paper in front of him. ‘I can see you’ve done quite a bit of spadework on this, Lucy. An impressive amount, given the short time you’ve had available.’ He arched a busy white eyebrow. ‘But I can’t help wondering what it’s got to do with the burglaries I assigned you and Harry to look into on Hatchwood Green?’

Her cheeks coloured, but she’d been expecting this. ‘Harry’s still over there.’

‘I wanted both of you over there.’

‘I’ll be going there soon … I just thought you’d want this bringing to your attention.’

‘Hmm.’ He pondered. And then sighed. ‘Crowley CID certainly hasn’t got the time or resources to mount a surveillance on every cashpoint in town on the off-chance this nutcase breaks his cover. But … DI Blake may be a different story.’

‘DI Blake?’ Lucy was a little surprised. ‘You mean the Robbery Squad?’

‘Why not?’ Beardmore scrabbled the various documents and photographs together. ‘They’re in trouble, aren’t they? Could be just what they need, this, a big case to get their teeth into. A result wouldn’t do them any harm, either.’

No, Lucy thought to herself, somewhat ruefully. Nor me.

Chapter 8

Crowley Robbery were a branch of Greater Manchester Police’s Serious Crimes Division, and were formerly the Manchester Robbery Squad, whose original purpose was to investigate commercial armed robberies across the whole of the Greater Manchester area. However, the current age of cascading budget cuts had seen them reduced significantly in size and divided into smaller units which were now allocated to GMP’s various divisions. Highly likely even that wasn’t the end of it; as Beardmore had alluded to, with police expenditure still being slashed across the board, talk was rife that Crowley Robbery – like Salford Robbery, Rochdale Robbery, South Manchester Robbery and so forth – were luxuries that local law enforcement could not really afford, at least not currently.

Despite this, Crowley Robbery – or ‘Robbery Squad’ as they were still referred to in rank-and-file parlance – were highly valued by most CID officers, who saw them as an elite outfit. Headed up by the highly decorated Detective Inspector Kathy Blake and, in the short time they’d been operating from out of Robber’s Row, already responsible for taking down a number of high-profile blaggers, Lucy in particular had been fascinated that the fabled bunch of thief-takers were suddenly working only a couple of floors overhead.

Not that she wasn’t nervous in their presence, even with Beardmore by her side.

Though she’d passed various Squad members in the station corridors and the canteen, this was the first time she’d been up close to them, particularly to their mythical leader, whose desk she and Beardmore now stood in front of, though she also felt vaguely surprised. Lucy had half been expecting a policewoman with DI Blake’s reputation to be a real hard-bitten toughie. But in fact, she was attractive and looked rather refined. She was also surprisingly young. Lucy was thirty-one, but she doubted DI Blake was more than a year older than her, if that. In addition, she was short – perhaps no more than five-six, whereas Lucy was five-eight. She had long, honey-blonde hair, which she wore in a ponytail, and was ‘peaches and cream’ pretty, with a dusting of freckles and intense green eyes. In fact, DI Blake’s unblinking, laser-like gaze was something Lucy had heard about before; even the most rugged customers were said to have struggled to meet it during interrogation.

However, that intense gaze was now directed downward as she rifled through the heap of documentation that Stan Beardmore had brought up from CID.

Lucy glanced around the Robbery Squad office, while she waited. It was a big room, which had been put to lots of different uses in the past, but currently was cluttered with desks, tables, filing cabinets, VDUs and whiteboards covered in scribble, its walls adorned with paperwork and pictures. One thing she noticed in particular was an entire section of room that appeared to have been cordoned off with workbenches. Two detectives were currently in conflab there, discussing a series of blown-up CCTV screen-grabs pasted onto a Perspex screen and apparently depicting an armed robbery in progress: two figures in khaki fatigues and stocking masks were unloading money bags from a G4S security van on a shopping centre forecourt. The security staff lay face down, and were covered by two other masked figures, one wielding a pickaxe handle, the other a sawn-off shotgun.

DI Blake’s desk was at the opposite end of the room from this, set against the wall, to an extent lost among the desks belonging to the bulk of the lower ranks, and certainly no larger or grander. However, one thing that was different was the wall behind it, on which a series of large square photographs had been pasted in seven orderly rows. Each one depicted a face, the bulk of them ugly and brutish – clearly the headshots of known criminals, one or two of whom Lucy thought she recognised straight away – but approximately half of them defaced by a big red X, which had been drawn in vivid marker-pen, and with some vigour.

It fleetingly distracted Lucy from DI Blake herself. But not for long. While most of her team wore casual gear – jeans, sweat-tops, trainers and the like – the DI was almost formally attired in a neat grey skirt-suit, pearl blouse and heels. She tapped her pen on the desk as she checked through the last few pages that Beardmore had supplied her with.

‘Do you trust your informant, DC Clayburn?’ she suddenly asked.

‘I suppose so, ma’am,’ Lucy replied.

‘He’s no track record for giving you duff intel?’ Blake wondered.

‘Not so far. This one’s thin on detail though, I must admit.’

‘Well …’ Blake had another long think, ‘technically, these are robberies and that puts them in our ballpark.’ She glanced at Beardmore. ‘I think we can run with this for a couple of weeks, Stan. But we haven’t got the resources to cover every cashpoint in the borough.’

‘I anticipated that, ma’am,’ Lucy said, unfolding another sheet of paper, this one a street-map of central Crowley. ‘That’s why I suggest we focus on these particular cashpoints here.’ She spread it on the desk, indicating ten separate locations which she had marked with biro crosses.

DI Blake stood up to assess it properly.

‘Ten of them,’ she said. ‘Only ten?’

‘I guessed we’d have to concentrate our resources to a degree,’ Lucy explained. ‘So, these, to me, will be his most likely targets. I’ve chosen them on the basis that he’ll do his research. He’ll have to – he’s a stranger in town, or at least he’s not a resident, so he’s not going to be overly familiar with the layout.’

She glanced at Beardmore, who remained studiedly indifferent. She could imagine that he wasn’t best pleased at the amount of attention she’d clearly been paying to this particular case, when she was supposed to be concentrating on something else. On the other hand, he ought to be a little proud that she was now demonstrating to the head of a specialist unit just how thorough and professional his own divisional officers could be.

‘Go on,’ Blake said. ‘I’m listening.’

‘Well … all of these work in his favour, ma’am,’ Lucy said. ‘They’re all in areas extensively covered by CCTV, but he’s got a hood. And the fact it’s a mucky October means he can walk the streets with his hood drawn up and not attract any attention. So, he’s got that base covered. In addition, they’re all out in the open.’ She moved her index finger from one point to the next. ‘A high street, a junction with traffic lights, the edge of the market square …’

‘And that’s an advantage to him?’ one of Blake’s underlings asked.

Detective Sergeant Danny Tucker had been summoned over to join them by Blake as soon as she’d learned about the case. Lucy had spotted him walking around the station before, but hadn’t really known who he was. This was the first time they’d been up close together, let alone had spoken. It was perhaps a minor distraction that Danny Tucker was just about the best-looking guy Lucy had seen in the job for quite some time. Of West Indian extraction, but by the sounds of it born right here in Manchester, he was tall, about six-three, with hair cut short and an athlete’s build, which was visible even through his figure-hugging polo-neck sweater. He had a square jaw, high, strong cheekbones, and bright, intelligent eyes.

‘Well, yeah,’ Lucy said. ‘He attacks late at night, and not many people are likely to go out to a cashpoint late at night unless they feel relatively safe. These particular cashpoints, because they’re out in the open, will probably be deemed safer than most.’

‘So, if he hangs around these, there’s basically more chance he’ll get lucky,’ Blake said.

‘That’s my reading of it, ma’am, yes.’ Lucy’s finger roved further across the street map. ‘These points also benefit from having getaway routes everywhere. A side passage through to a pedestrianised shopping mall, from where there are half a dozen other points of egress. A subway … An overpass that leads to a housing estate. Plus, and this could be very important, they’re all in close proximity to free on-street parking.’

‘You think he’s mobile?’ Blake said.

Lucy shook her head. ‘I don’t know, ma’am. You dress up like a lunatic, pick someone at random, cut them down with a sword and just run off into the night, in most cases leaving them alive to shout for help … you’d normally be asking for trouble. I mean that wouldn’t just draw attention to the scene of the crime, but to you and to whichever route you’ve used to get away. That would normally be the trademark of a disorganised attacker who’s doomed to get nicked pretty quickly. Unless, as we’ve already said, it’s a part of an act, the purpose of which is to conceal the fact he’s actually a very organised offender indeed. I mean, while the cops are running around looking for a grinning maniac, he’s removed his disguise and miraculously become an ordinary citizen again, happily driving home to his house in the suburbs … or something like that.’

Blake contemplated this.

‘Of course, he’s not going to leave his motor on an actual car park,’ Lucy added. ‘I mean, they’re covered much more intensively by security cameras than on-street, and that would reveal his VRM.’

‘You’ve really done your homework on this, haven’t you?’

Lucy shrugged modestly.

Blake sat back on her swivel-chair to chink. ‘DC Clayburn? Aren’t you the lass who arrested Timothy Lennox? Cleared up a whole bunch of historical murders?’

‘That’s right, ma’am. Last winter.’

‘Good collar, that. You also led the undercover op that brought down the Twisted Sisters over in Longsight, didn’t you?’

‘I didn’t lead the op, ma’am.’

‘She was a leading light in it,’ Beardmore grunted. ‘They couldn’t have done it without her.’

Blake chewed on her pen. ‘Have you ever thought about coming to work for me in Robbery Squad?’

Beardmore pointedly harrumphed – a message Lucy received loud and clear.

‘It’s certainly something I’d be interested in, ma’am,’ she said. ‘But well, I’ve got quite a bit of work on in CID at the mo.’

Blake shrugged. ‘We haven’t got any vacancies at present, anyway. But if something comes up, I’ll get Danny here to give you a shout, so you can get your application in early.’

‘I will, ma’am. Thank you.’

‘Okay.’ Blake shuffled the paperwork. ‘Leave this lot with me. I’ll keep you informed.’

Lucy nodded and smiled, and as she left the office, walking side by side with Beardmore, felt completely re-energised. It was always a thrill to think you’d made an impact on someone who counted.

But they were only halfway down the stairs, when Beardmore said: ‘Don’t get any ideas about that. Robbery Squad are an effective unit, but you know what things are like. One day the money’s there, the next it isn’t. Friday night, they lock up a load of blaggers. Saturday night, they celebrate it. Monday morning, they’ve all been shunted back to Division.’

Lucy wasn’t sure how to respond, but she knew that he was right.

‘Hey, Lucy!’ someone called down from the top of the stairs.

They turned and saw Danny Tucker descending.

‘Sarge?’ she replied.

‘Quick word?’ he asked.

Taking the hint, Beardmore turned and continued down. ‘Just remember, the jobs are piling up,’ he said over his shoulder.

Lucy turned back to Tucker, who grinned, displaying a neat row of pearly whites.

‘This is good stuff you’ve brought us,’ he said. ‘Thanks very much.’

Unsure how to reply, she nodded.

‘We’re actually working a big case at present,’ he said.

‘Yeah, I saw the pics. That’s the Saturday Street Gang, isn’t it?’

‘Oh, you heard about that?’

‘How could I not? Seven cash-in-transit robberies in two months. But I didn’t know Saturday Street had done any jobs on the N.’

‘Well … they haven’t,’ Tucker admitted. ‘But when we were still the Manchester Robbery Squad, our unit was getting very close to them. It only seemed reasonable we should continue the enquiry after they broke us up. It’d be a feather in our cap if we could pull those bastards in. But it’s the same with this case you’ve brought us. I mean, we’re busy … but we can never be too busy at present, if you know what I mean. Got to justify our existence somehow. Anyway …’ Fleetingly, he seemed awkward, as if he wasn’t quite sure what to say next. ‘You’ve done a lot of groundwork for us here. This is great, so thanks very much for that. I’ll keep you clued in, let you know how we get on.’

‘Thanks, sarge.’ Lucy couldn’t help wondering why he’d come downstairs to repeat DI Blake’s promise.

‘Hey, listen …’ He smiled again, which he seemed to do a lot – and why not, it was far from unattractive. ‘This is Robbery Squad. We don’t do titles. Call me “Danny”.’

‘I will … thanks.’

He headed back upstairs. Lucy watched him go for a teensy bit longer than she perhaps normally would, before turning and walking on down to CID.

Chapter 9

Ordinary Joe Lazenby didn’t particularly want to go home that evening.

Immediately after the incident in Hogarth’s Cocktail Lounge, he drove aimlessly around the town for perhaps an hour. All along of course, he’d known that there were higher powers in this world he’d infiltrated. Yet, things had gone so smoothly for so long that he’d begun to feel, perhaps not invincible, but certainly a master of his own destiny. During the working day, he headed up a relatively lowly admin department at Crowley Technical College. He earned a reasonable wage from it, and he was treated with civility and taken fairly seriously by the academics on campus, even if in truth he suspected that they thought him a jumped-up little jobsworth who was no more than a glorified paper-pusher. But he made an okay living. He owned a large detached house on Coxcombe Avenue, which was on the Cotely Barn estate on the edge of Crowley golf course, an affluent part of town; he drove a decent enough motor – a metallic beige Ford Galaxy; and he and his family went on a nice holiday once a year – cruising was the in-thing currently, and they’d so far done the Western Med, the Eastern Med, the Caribbean and next August they were looking forward to doing the Norwegian fjords. On the surface, everything was hunky-dory.

But in actual fact, this commonplaceness was the problem.

For quite some time, Joe Lazenby had been deeply frustrated by his none too awe-inspiring status. Throughout his adulthood, he’d felt that, unless he was to diversify into something much more lucrative, and dare he say it, dangerous, he was never going to fulfil his lifetime’s ambition, which was to be a man of substance, of ingenuity, of latent but undeniable power.

And so he had diversified, and it had been a rocky road – he’d taken chances, both financial and actual, first getting into the drugs-importation market through former school-friends who’d long ago taken to crime and shipped their produce in through the Liverpool docks. But having earned the trust of his Colombian suppliers by providing all the cash required upfront and on time, and wowing them with tales of his previously untapped middle-class market, he had completely divested himself of those awkward, insolent middlemen. Lazenby got a huge kick from this alone, convinced that his forward-planning was second-to-none, and that his nose for a deal and an innate working knowledge of the real world made those elitist, muddle-headed book-dwellers at the college shrink to childlike insignificance. He’d been running his low-key op for three years now, the money had poured in, and the respect he’d so long yearned for had finally arrived; perhaps not up there in the surface world, but certainly among those who mattered.

And then today had come along.

When Lazenby got home that night, he couldn’t settle. His wife, Geraldine, had already made dinner. He was late and so it had gone cold, but she didn’t comment about this because she knew he was putting in such enormously long hours at the college these days – at least, that was what he told her – which meant they were far better off financially than they’d ever been before.

After dinner, Lazenby kissed his two children, Maggie and Joseph junior, and Geraldine put them to bed. The normal process now would be for Lazenby and his wife to shower, change into their pyjamas, slippers and dressing gowns, and snuggle up on the sofa in front of the real-flame gas fire and mid-evening TV, sipping mugs of cocoa and commenting casually on the events of their respective days; Geraldine cosy in her knowledge that they were living the middle-class dream, Lazenby cosy with thoughts of his secret but ever-expanding empire.

But tonight when Geraldine came back downstairs changed, her husband was still in his work clothes and sitting stiffly in one of the armchairs. He looked pale-faced and distracted, and even though watching the day’s second instalment of Coronation Street, he clearly wasn’t following the events on screen; his eyes were almost glazed. When Geraldine tried to speak to him, he was curt to the point of being dismissive. A few minutes later he apologised, explaining that he’d had a tough day and that there were some difficult decisions to make in the department. She perched on the chair’s armrest and tried to cuddle him, cooing that it would be all right, that he was a good departmental boss and that he knew what was best for everyone. She even tried to massage his shoulders through the back of his suit jacket, but he remained rigid as a board, his eyes locked on the TV screen despite not seeing anything that was happening there.

‘It’s just, I wish …’

He’d been about to say: ‘I wish things were as normal as that. That all I had to do was either sack someone or put them on a warning, or something.’

But even if he had said that, it would have been a lie. Because deep down he didn’t wish for normality at all. He wanted his dukedom back; he didn’t want to suddenly be a servant again.

Which started him on a new train of thought: How much of a servant would he actually be?

The Crew must see some value in him, otherwise they’d have – what was it McCracken had said? – had the meeting ‘out back’. That encounter could have been a lot more frightening, and perhaps considerably more painful. Maybe this meant that an equal partnership still awaited him somewhere up the line? Assuming he proved his worth.

But how far up the line? How much would he have to demean himself to make this happen?

How much more humiliation could he go through when he’d thought he was past all that?

But then, did he even have a choice? It wasn’t as if Frank McCracken had been negotiating. If anything, he’d been laying down ground rules. And how had McCracken even known that Lazenby would be in Hogarth’s, or who he was for that matter? Had they been following him?

Lazenby’s anxiety grew exponentially, his shoulders stiffening even more under his wife’s fingers.

‘My God, Joe … you really need to try and relax,’ she said.

Lazenby couldn’t answer; his mouth was dry, his teeth locked.

They clearly knew everything about him. How else would they have closed in on his business affairs so quickly? But there was still no need to panic. This was the Crew, after all, not some bunch of drugged-up nutcases. But even so, why make it easy for them?

Abruptly, he stood up.

‘What’s the matter?’ Geraldine asked. ‘I didn’t hurt you, did I?’

‘No, it’s fine.’ He walked across the room, opened the door and went out into the hall. When he reappeared, he’d donned an anorak over his suit. ‘I’m going for a drive.’

‘Joe, what’s the matter?’ she pleaded. ‘Tell me what’s bothering you.’

‘It’s nothing … it’s really nothing. There are some things I need to work out, and to do that I need to get some peace and quiet. Okay?’

She regarded him worriedly. ‘Do you want me to get Mrs Gallagher to sit in, so I can come with you? We can talk about it.’

‘For Christ’s sake, no … it’s fine!’

As he climbed into his Galaxy on the drive, he realised that that parting shot had been far sharper than he’d intended it to be. He loved Geraldine and the kids. He loved everything about his family. They were the ones he was doing this for. He wanted them to share in the dream, even if they didn’t know about it. And by the look on Geraldine’s face after he’d snapped at her, he’d upset her, which he regretted – but that couldn’t be helped at present.

As he drove out of Coxcombe Avenue and onto Mulberry Crescent, and then onto Leatherton Lane, the main thoroughfare connecting Cotely Barn with central Crowley, he wondered if he was now about to do something he’d come to regret even more.

Only slowly, after driving a mile or so, did he finally conclude that he probably wasn’t.

The Crew hadn’t become who they were through cowboy antics. Okay, working on the basis they already knew everything there was to know about his operation, it was safe to assume they would soon twig what he was up to now – if not tonight, probably as soon as tomorrow. And they wouldn’t like it; it would certainly inconvenience them, but perhaps, being arch-professionals, they’d expect nothing less. Surely, they’d anticipate that he’d try to protect his own corner at least a little bit? It might even impress them, and from his own point of view, though it would be no more than a gesture – as effective an act of defiance as flipping them a V-sign – he might even feel that he’d regained a little bit of what he’d lost.

In truth, he might regain even more than that.

He and McCracken had been talking in round numbers earlier on. The Crew might know an awful lot, but it wasn’t as if they had access to his secret accounts, for God’s sake.

Unless they’d hacked him.

That was an ugly thought. It would also explain a lot. But all Lazenby could do was shake it from his head. What would be would be, and anyway, unless they were still following him, there was no way they could know what he was up to at this moment. He checked his rear-view mirror, but it was half past nine at night: the streets, which were dark and wet from the rain that had fallen earlier, were deserted.

‘It could be you’re flattering yourself,’ he said under his breath. These guys ran what amounted to an underworld corporation. ‘Don’t kid yourself into thinking you’re so important that they’ll watch you every minute of the day.’

He told himself this with growing conviction. It was a realistic assessment of the way things were. But his hands still sweated on the steering wheel. Until this evening, everything had been fine. Now his road felt much, much darker.

When he arrived at the Bellhop Industrial estate, it was nearly ten.

At this time of night, there was nobody around, the corrugated metal warehouses and workshops all standing in darkness, their windows and entrances covered by roll-down security shutters. There would be CCTV in operation, of course, but Lazenby was not an unfamiliar figure on the site – he’d been a regular visitor in the three years since he’d taken out a lease here for one of the privately rented lock-ups – so if anyone was watching from a security office somewhere, or a mobile patrol made an unexpected drive-by, his presence, even at this hour, would draw no comment.

In truth, if you wanted absolute certainty that your goods were in strong safekeeping, the Bellhop wasn’t the ideal spot – there were certainly safer facilities in Crowley, but having lots and lots of officialdom around would hardly have suited Lazenby’s purpose. In any case, from the outside, the lock-ups here looked like old garages and so were unlikely to be tampered with by opportunist thieves, while those who knew there were personals stored here would also know that, because of the low rates, it was mostly rubbish: old furniture, moth-eaten clothes, a few corroded car parts. Slim pickings indeed. Nothing worth bothering with.

From Lazenby’s perspective, such anonymity was ideal. Because in his private little depot, along with various knick-knacks he’d installed to provide window-dressing, he also stored the bulk of his product, and just in case there was ever a real emergency, a supply of liquid cash.

On this occasion, he approached with more trepidation than usual, turning his Galaxy slowly into the narrow lane between the last two rows of lock-ups, half expecting to find the roll-down door to No. 17 jemmied open and all his goods, or what remained of them, scattered on the tarmac – though an inner voice kept telling him that this was unlikely. No one knew that he kept his stash here. Even among his electronic records, all of which were meticulously coded, there wasn’t a single reference to it, and he’d taken out the lock-up lease under a fake identity. The only way the Crew could have come to know was if they’d been following him around, and while he suspected they’d done a bit of that, surely they hadn’t been doing it for weeks on end; he hadn’t been here for at least a month and a half.

He rounded the corner and halted, his headlights flooding the straight ribbon of tarmac running ahead of him, the brick backs to the penultimate row of lock-ups on the left, the row of garage-like doors on the right. It was bare of life. The shutter on No. 17, which was three doors down, was locked in place, as it should be.

Relieved, Lazenby edged his Galaxy forward. The motion-sensitive lights overhead activated. So far so normal. He drove past his own unit, and parked across the entrance to No. 16. Climbing out, he looked around and listened. The only sound was a distant thrum of night traffic. There were no voices, no metallic clatters as other shutters were opened or closed.

He peered once more to the far end of this particular lane, seeing only the distant boundary wall. Satisfied, Lazenby opened the back door to his car, took out the overlarge sports bag that normally travelled there, and emptied his unused squash gear into the footwell; he hadn’t played squash in ages, and only kept his kit in the car as cover for keeping the bag, which he always wanted handy in case of occurrences like this. He took his keys from the ignition, closed the car and locked it, and, squatting down, opened the padlock at the base of the shutter.

The shutter wasn’t heavy and he was able to lift it easily, its own momentum pulling it up the last few feet, at which point a steel catch clicked into place.

The interior of the lock-up was rectangular, about twenty-five feet by twelve, enclosed by breeze-block walls. When he hit the light switch, an electric bulb shuddered to life, exposing what he thought of as his ‘knick-knacks’ but which, in reality, was a clutter of junk expanding wall to wall and comprising all the odds and ends he’d assembled over the last few years: from disused garden furniture and dated, dust-coated office-ware, to boxes of second-hand books that he’d bought cheaply at auction for this sole purpose. Even the hooks on the walls had come in handy, and now dangled with rusted, cobwebby tools, both of the garden and DIY variety.

The good stuff was right at the back, but even if some intruder managed to navigate his way through to that distant point, all he would see, jammed between a rusty fridge and a stack of propped-up bamboo matting, were two ratty old armchairs. The one on the left had a cardboard box crammed with video tapes on top of it, but underneath this, and underneath the cushion, the chair’s base had a false bottom, and a hidden compartment in which there was a steel strongbox containing twenty rubber-band-wrapped blocks of clean twenty-pound notes, each one totalling around £8,000, an overall sum of one hundred and sixty grand. The chair on the right was weighed down by a long-broken television, but the strongbox concealed inside it contained the real gold in Lazenby’s stockpile: eight one-kilo bricks of cocaine wrapped in cellophane, the street value of which came to just under half a million pounds.

He unzipped his sports bag and went first to the chair on the right, loading the bag with the eight bricks of coke. When he’d finished, he moved to the chair on the left. One-sixty K wasn’t humongous money in gangland terms, but it would serve to give him some kind of safeguard, a final fall-back if everything else went pear-shaped. He got it all into the bag, which was now heavy and cumbersome, but he was still able to zip it closed and lug it back through the junk and out into the fresh air, where he humped it round to the Galaxy’s boot.

He wasn’t overly keen on taking this stuff home with him, but it would only be for one night – tomorrow he’d find somewhere else, somewhere better.

‘That would be ours, wouldn’t it?’ a muffled voice said.

Lazenby spun around, startled.

Two men faced him from about ten feet away.

He hadn’t heard them approach, which was probably no surprise given that he’d been banging around inside the lock-up, lost in his thoughts. But even if he had, it didn’t look as if there’d have been much he could do – their intentions were pretty clear.

The one on the left was of average height and broadly built, while the one on the right was equally broad but a little taller. Both wore dark clothing, including black leather jackets, but also scarlet woollen ski-masks with holes cut only for their eyes. Each was armed with what looked distinctly like a sub-machine gun, the two weapons levelled on him.

Strangely, almost as quickly as the shock had hit Lazenby, it subsided.

All along, he’d perhaps expected something like this. It hadn’t seemed terribly probable, not in that safe, average, everyday world that Lazenby’s success had lulled him into believing he still occupied. But there’d still been that constant, nagging doubt, which is why the stuff had been ready to move at a moment’s notice.

‘What … what do you mean, this is yours?’ he stammered, breathing hard from his exertion. He hadn’t yet given up on the idea that a deal could be made. Maybe they were simply testing him here?

‘Just what we say, arsehole,’ the taller one said. ‘The bag.’

As if to emphasise that this wasn’t a joke, the shorter one raised his weapon to chest height and squinted along its barrel. Helpless to do otherwise, Lazenby rocked forward on the balls of his feet, and hurled the heavy sports bag over the two or three yards between them.

The taller one let his firearm swing from a shoulder strap while he hunkered down and tugged the holdall’s zip open. Almost immediately, he glanced up. Lazenby could only see his eyes – which were colourless in the dimness – but he had no doubt there was a smile behind that woollen visage.

‘Good lad,’ came the voice.

The taller one drew something out of his jacket pocket, which, when he unrolled it, turned out to be a black canvas sack. Almost casually, he began cramming the blocks of cash inside it.

‘Seriously?’ Lazenby said as he watched. ‘This is the whole plan? A chicken-feed robbery? I thought you guys were supposed to be businessmen. Have you any idea how much money we could make if we reached some kind of agreement?’

They didn’t bother to reply.

Lazenby’s sweat rapidly cooled in the October night. His thoughts swam like directionless fish. There was still no need for despair. They weren’t for playing ball at present, but that didn’t mean they wouldn’t do in due course. These two were just crude muscle, no doubt; a pair of paid thugs. Making deals didn’t figure in their remit. And that really could not be the end of it. The Crew hadn’t got to the top of the criminal tree by knocking off a bit of bent gear here and there.

But throughout these ruminations, Lazenby increasingly found himself distracted by how small their canvas bag was. It didn’t look big enough, not for the coke as well. And indeed, once the money was loaded, the bag was zipped closed and kicked backward into the shadows. Lazenby watched, increasingly bemused, as the taller bandit now zipped up the original sports bag, with the coke still inside it, and tossed it back into the lock-up.

Were they simply here to teach him a lesson then? Taking every spare penny he had as a down-payment on future deals? He supposed that might be one underworld method.

But then something even more bewildering happened.

The taller bandit walked around to the other side of the Galaxy, bent down and picked something up. There was a metallic snick – the sound a cigarette lighter makes when being struck – followed by a burst of wavering light. When he came back, he was carrying a two-pint glass bottle full of greyish liquid, with a burning rag stuffed into the neck.

‘What the fu …’ Lazenby shouted, diving out of the way as the guy flung it into the lock-up.

It exploded furiously, the blazing payload engulfing the old clothes, the decrepit furniture, and the bag containing the cocaine.

‘Are you fucking nuts!’ Lazenby screamed, scrambling back to his feet and trying to approach the open doorway, but inevitably being driven back by the heat of the flame-filled interior. ‘There’s over four-hundred grand’s worth of dope in there!’

He never noticed the reply coming – in the shape of a sub-machine gun’s walnut stock, which slammed into the side of his jawbone with such force that he literally saw stars as the world cavorted around him, and the damp tarmac rushed up to his face.

As Ordinary Joe Lazenby lay there, groggy, only half aware of the hot blood filling his mouth, a wool-clad face appeared next to his ear, and whispered: ‘Not anymore.’

Chapter 10

Lucy clocked on at eight the next morning, and found a memo on her desk from DI Beardmore.

Report to Robbery Squad at 1st opp. Liaise with DS Tucker

(they’ve got you for one week – after that, we reappraise)

Lucy stood up from her desk just as Beardmore entered the DO.

‘You sure you can spare me for a week, boss?’ she asked.

‘No, I’m not,’ he said, pulling a face and stripping off his coat as he headed into his office. ‘But you started this thing, Lucy. Only seems fair you get a sniff of wherever it’s leading.’

She halted in his office door. ‘What about the break-ins on Hatchwood Green?’

Beardmore rustled distractedly through the usual pile of bumph that always seemed to accumulate on his desk during the hours of darkness. ‘I’m sure Harry can carry that for a few days.’

‘He’ll whinge.’

‘He always whinges. One thing he never does, though, is whinge to someone who cares.’ The DI didn’t look at her as he slumped down into his chair. ‘Go on … shoot up there before I change my mind.’

Lucy mounted the stairs with that usual mixture of elation and trepidation that always accompanied inclusion in major enquiries. It was a curious feeling, to be truthful. Most divisional CID officers had to juggle three or four minor investigations at any one time – sometimes more. It certainly kept them on their toes, but quite often it was routine stuff.

But the major investigations, or the ‘monster hunts’, were something else. On these occasions, you were after real predators, soulless psychopaths with an overwhelming urge and a huge potential to cause damage, deranged felons whose swift capture was deemed to be so important that you had to focus entirely on them, leaving everything else on the backburner. The thrill of these special investigations was often a reward in itself. This was certainly what Lucy had joined the police for.

The Robbery Squad office wasn’t too busy at this stage of the day. However, DI Blake and DS Tucker were already present, poring over a series of street maps spread on a desk in a corner of the room directly opposite from the one dedicated to the Saturday Street enquiry. Lucy also noticed that some maps had been tacked onto the walls, alongside photographs of the cashpoints she herself had earmarked as possible attack zones, plus the alley entrances and subway mouths in their vicinities. The majority of these were professional surveillance shots, taken from multiple high angles so as to fully recreate on film the anatomy of each environment. It might be early, but the Squad had clearly been busy.

DI Blake glanced up. ‘DC Clayburn … welcome.’ She herself had dressed down today, wearing only a jumper and jeans. ‘Glad you could join us.’

‘Delighted, ma’am,’ Lucy said, approaching the desk.

‘For the duration of the time you’re with us, it’s Kathy,’ Blake said, with half a smile. ‘Unless I need to pull rank on you. Which I’m sure I won’t.’

Unseen behind his boss’s shoulder, Tucker winked at Lucy.

‘I hear you’re a bit of an expert when it comes to undercover decoy work,’ the DI said.

‘I’ve done my fair share,’ Lucy replied.

Tucker grinned. ‘That’s putting it mildly, isn’t it?’

Lucy smiled coyly. ‘The last time it worked out quite well, I must admit.’

‘I’m guessing you know what I’m going to ask you?’ Blake said.

‘You want me to visit some cashpoints late at night?’

‘Correct.’ Blake indicated the spread of documentation, in particular the maps and the photos. ‘You’ve laid your plan to catch the Creep out pretty well for us …’

‘Thanks.’ Lucy nodded in sober appreciation.

‘No, it should be us thanking you.’ Blake gathered up some sheets of what looked like work schedules and shuffled them together. ‘I was impressed at the time, and I’m even more impressed since we haven’t really been able to improve on it. It only seemed right that you should be in for the takedown. Assuming there is one.’

‘I just hope I haven’t caused a lot of fuss for nothing.’

‘Not a bit of it. I think your reasoning was pretty sound.’ Blake pursed her lips. ‘As long as you trust your informant and the psyche profile from West Midlands isn’t way off the mark, I think it’s a reasonable bet that this lunatic will strike again. And in case he’s only half-tempted, well … we’re going to put it on a plate for him. Now, speaking of madmen, we’re also closing in on the Saturday Street boys. I anticipate that we’ll be making arrests in the next couple of days.’

‘Oh, wow … that’s great news.’

Blake nodded. ‘Yes, but it’s going to keep me and quite a few of the rest of the Squad pretty busy. So, I’m giving you all the resources I can, but that isn’t many. Danny’s going to take point, and I can spare you four other detectives. After that we’re using spare bodies from Uniform.’

‘No one else from divisional CID available?’ Lucy asked.

‘I think you’re pretty pulled-out down in the DO. But me and Stan go back a bit; at least I was able to get you.’ She gave another half-smile.

DI Blake was a distinctly warm presence, even if she wasn’t especially demonstrative.

‘Don’t worry about it,’ Tucker chipped in. ‘Uniform jumped at it. We’re only taking a couple from each relief, so we’re not thinning them out too much. The younger lads and lasses can do the decoy stuff, the older heads can ride in the support cars with us.’

‘You’ll be working awkward hours, of course,’ Blake said.

Lucy shrugged again. ‘Only to be expected.’

‘We’re looking at nine in the evening till five in the morning,’ Tucker added.

‘We’ve also had it cleared that we’ll be working clean through the next fortnight,’ Blake said. ‘No days off, but overtime will be paid as per the norm.’

Lucy nodded. That made sense too, but it was impressive that the DI had managed to pull this off. She might be supervising a unit whose existence was under threat, but she clearly still had influence.

‘You can get off home for now if you want,’ Tucker said. ‘Take a few hours R&R. Briefing in here at nine p.m., operation goes live at ten-thirty. Alternatively …’ He tapped a stack of bulging buff folders on top of the filing cabinet next to him. ‘Since we’ve copied West Mids in on what we’re doing, they’ve sent quite a bit more paperwork through. So, if you’re bored, or you fancy a quick shuftie, it might be of some interest.’

As it wasn’t inconceivable that her life could be in danger during this operation, Lucy agreed that the new material would probably, at the very least, be worth a skim-read.

She found a spare desk, and laid the folders in front of her.

‘Oh, ma’am … Kathy!’ she said, as Blake and Tucker wandered away.

The DI glanced back.

‘You say we’re on this for two weeks. But DI Beardmore says he can only spare me for one.’

Blake gave another of those bland but warm half-smiles. ‘Like I say, Lucy … me and Stan go back. Let’s see how it plays out.’

As Lucy expected, the new stuff from West Mids mainly comprised copies of crime-scene observations, forensic and medical reports, witness statements and plenty of additional photographic material. There was also an updated e-fit.

Lucy found herself staring at this long and hard. The face looking back at her almost seemed inhuman; its eyes little more than slits and yet possessed of an eerie glint, its mouth curved upward in OTT fashion, creating the most extravagant image of pantomime villainy she’d ever seen. As far as she knew, this picture, or others like it, had been screened regularly on the news bulletins, and had been appearing in all the papers and online ever since the most recent attack. Surely, if there was anyone walking the streets whose face even vaguely resembled this bizarre image, he’d be in custody by now?

Definitely a mask. It had to be.

‘No wonder they call him the Creep, eh?’ a voice said.

Lucy glanced up and, fleetingly, her enthusiasm for working with the Robbery Squad flagged.

Detective Constable Lee Gaskin had just come in, and now stood alongside the desk. He hadn’t changed much since she’d last worked with him, standing about five-ten with a stocky frame, a thick neck, broad, sloping shoulders and big arms with heavy-knuckled hands. What remained of his hair was thin and mouse-brown, while his face was notched and pitted all over as though he’d had chickenpox as a child and had vigorously scratched – Lucy had never thought any face could exist that was so well suited for the scowl Lee Gaskin habitually wore. On this occasion, ironically, he wasn’t scowling, but smiling. It was cold, though, and it offered more than a glimpse of the nicotine-yellow teeth clamped together underneath it.

‘DC Gaskin,’ she said. ‘What a delight.’

She had already known that Gaskin was a part of the Robbery Squad. She’d glimpsed him several times in other parts of the building during the intervening weeks since the Squad had set up its base here, but so far had managed to avoid him.

‘I heard you’d finally got your long sought-for CID post,’ he said quietly but intensely. ‘Un-fucking-believable. Anyway, the good news …’ He stuck his thumb in the direction of the door. ‘The local DO’s downstairs. There can’t be anything up here for you, so don’t trip on your way down. Or rather, do trip … but make sure you fall all the way to the bottom, so they have to deal with your body rather than us.’

‘You sure you’re not confusing me with one of your prisoners?’ Lucy wondered, standing up, determined not to be cowed by him. ‘Isn’t that what normally happens to them?’

‘Whoa!’ he snorted. ‘A smarty-pants too since she’s put her civvies on. I’ll have to be on top form from now on.’

‘Well … first time for everything.’

‘And a last.’ He leaned forward, bringing his scabrous face right into her personal space. She was resolute that she wouldn’t flinch, difficult though this was. ‘Whatever you’re up here for, love,’ he said quietly, ‘I really, really hope it’s nothing to do with this big obbo we’ve got starting tonight …’

Lucy glanced across the office to see if anyone else had noticed the altercation, but they were all too busy, and Gaskin was still keeping it low key.

‘But if it is,’ he added, ‘and you have another cock-up … well, I’ll just have to make sure the boss knows damn well that you’ve got a long track-record for that sort of thing.’

‘You finished?’ she said. ‘Because if you have, get your rotten fag-breath out of my nostrils … right fucking now.’

Grinning almost ghoulishly, he stepped away from her and turned.

Slowly and precisely, Lucy replaced the West Mids paperwork in its relevant folders. Re-stacking them on the filing cabinet, and checking again that no one else had observed the minor incident, she walked from the room.

‘Why does it have to be him?’ she said under her breath.

She could ride this complication out; she knew she could. But it undeniably put a dampener on things. Why the hell did it have to be him?

‘Now, stranger,’ Lucy’s mother said from over the counter at the Saltbridge MiniMart.

Cora Clayburn was fifty-four now, and since her long fair hair had finally started running to silver, she had begun cutting it to shoulder-length. She was still a handsome woman, though – Lucy remembered her as a stunner in her younger days; she could even make the unflattering blue smock and heavy plastic ‘Assistant Manager’ tag look good.

‘Thought I could take you for lunch,’ Lucy said.

‘Ooh, had a pay rise or something?’

‘No, it’s just …’ Lucy shrugged. ‘You know.’

Cora eyed her suspiciously, sensing something untoward. It was always the same; Lucy had once successfully lied her way into the inner sanctum of the two most dangerous female gangsters in Manchester, but she could never fool her own mum.

‘You trying to bribe me?’ Cora wondered.

‘It’s not really a bribe.’

‘But there’s something you need to tell me and you want to sweeten the pill?’

‘Mum …’ Lucy tried her most plaintive voice. ‘I don’t live with you anymore, so you wouldn’t have known about this otherwise, but I don’t like hiding things from you.’

‘Hmm.’ Cora busied herself along the counter. ‘Let me guess … you’re off on another suicide mission.’

‘It’s not a suicide mission. It’s just undercover work.’

Cora pointedly said nothing. Neither of them needed reminding how badly Lucy had been injured and frightened the previous time she’d gone undercover.

‘But it’s going to be nothing like last time,’ Lucy added hastily. That was completely true, but she didn’t bother to explain that, whereas last time she’d been standing with those suspected of committing violent crime, this time it would be the other way around – she’d be out there with the prospective victims of it. ‘It’s with the Robbery Squad. Which means I’ll have big, hard blokes with me at all times. Plus, it’s here in Crowley … it’s only round the corner.’

Cora didn’t look mollified, but she didn’t raise any further objections.

It had never been the case that Lucy and her mother ‘didn’t get on’. Cora, a single parent living in Saltbridge, one of the older terraced districts in the town, which had suffered deprivation even into the twenty-first century, had raised her daughter alone, and with the odd exception of a few ‘wild child’ phases during Lucy’s youth, had turned her at length into a model citizen. However, Lucy’s joining law enforcement at the age of twenty had been a bone of contention between them, which had persisted for the last ten years. It was not that Cora disliked the police per se, but she considered that she’d seen some terrible things in her time – she knew ‘what went on’, as she was fond of saying. And every time her daughter climbed into her uniform, or now, as it was, plain clothes, she feared that something awful was going to happen. But, these days at least, these were concerns that Cora only paid lip service to, which Lucy took as a sign that she was at last getting used to the fact that her daughter was a copper for life.

Lucy left her Jimny in the MiniMart car park, and they walked together across the road to the Wagon & Horses pub, which, though popular with both factory and office workers at lunchtime, usually had a couple of tables spare. Today was no exception.

Cora ordered tagliatelle, Lucy a small portion of salad with poached salmon.

‘You eat like a rabbit,’ Cora said disapprovingly. ‘I don’t know where you get the energy from to do your job.’

‘Don’t like filling myself up at lunch,’ Lucy replied. ‘Makes me sleepy in the afternoon.’

‘Does that matter … if you’re working funny hours again?’

On reflection, Lucy supposed it didn’t, given that she was mainly going to be on nights. It would probably help if she could get some kind of shut-eye today, even if it was only short-lived. But she still wasn’t hungry, and that was probably down to the excitement of her forthcoming assignment.

‘I just didn’t inherit your miraculous metabolism, Mum, that’s all,’ Lucy replied.

Cora gave a sweet smile. Before spotting someone she knew across the pub, and waving.

‘All right, Cora … looking gorgeous today, as always!’ a burly builder shouted as he and his mate trundled across to the exit in their dingy overalls and heavy, dust-caked boots.

‘That Jimmy Ogden?’ Lucy said after he’d gone. ‘Now … he has put weight on.’

‘And he probably puts in a tougher day’s shift than the two of us together,’ Cora replied. ‘Just goes to show … we’re all different, lovie.’ She leaned across the table and playfully patted Lucy’s cheek. ‘So don’t feel inadequate.’

‘Get out of it,’ Lucy chuckled.

They continued in this fashion for the remainder of the meal, enjoying each other’s company, easily and idly avoiding any risqué subjects. Until inevitably, almost unavoidably, Lucy sat back, dabbed her lips with a napkin and, after the barmaid had taken their empty dishes away, asked: ‘I don’t suppose you’ve heard anything from him, have you? He’s not tried to contact you?’

Cora looked unperturbed by the question. She wore her readers as she perused the sweets menu. ‘Not at all. He said he wouldn’t, didn’t he?’

‘And he’s the kind of guy who keeps his promises?’

‘He kept them for thirty-odd years, love.’

And that, from her tone, was the end of this particular matter.

The ‘he’ in question was Lucy’s estranged father, who in so many ways signified a distant but dark past that still haunted and embarrassed her. Long before Lucy was born, Cora went through a wild child phase of her own, leaving her family home under such a cloud that she’d never speak to her parents again, and finally earning a living by performing nightly at a strip-club called SugaBabes on the other side of Manchester. She’d only been in her late teens at the time, and had been easily smitten by a handsome bouncer at the club, with whom she’d commenced a romantic relationship. However, when she unexpectedly fell pregnant with Lucy, she re-evaluated everything, and drew the conclusion that these underworld figures with whom she was increasingly involved could never be part of her daughter’s life. She thus packed the stripper job in, broke it off with her boyfriend, who was surprisingly amicable about it – most likely because he could (and did) take his pick of the rest of the girls there – and crossed the city to commence a new, more respectable life. In time, the ex-boyfriend, as he rose through the ranks of the mob, doing worse and worse things and yet reaping ever greater benefits, contacted Cora again, offering financial assistance in the raising of their daughter. But Cora, always an independent soul, continually resisted. In due course, she lost touch with him altogether … until last year, when unusual circumstances brought him back into both her and her daughter’s lives with shattering force.

It was a particularly horrific experience for Lucy, learning that her father was a villain. She’d grown up with the lie that her real dad had been a cheeky-chappie bus driver who’d abandoned them both because he couldn’t face the responsibility of parenthood. Of course, it didn’t make it any better that she was now a police officer; in fact, it made things a whole lot worse. If word of this revelation had got out, both father and daughter would find their respective careers imperilled. As such, they’d agreed to keep it quiet, and even now only a very tight circle of select acquaintances knew the truth.

Not that this prevented Lucy losing sleep from time to time.

Against her better judgement, she occasionally had to raise the subject with her mother. Even when, as now, it was patently obvious that Cora didn’t want to discuss it, Lucy just had to check that there had been no further contact from her long-absent father, aka ‘The Shakedown’, Frank McCracken.

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