Читать книгу Shadows: The gripping new crime thriller from the #1 bestseller - Paul Finch - Страница 9

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.’