No Name Lane (Howard Linskey)

Howard Linskey

NO NAME LANE

Contents

Prologue

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

CHAPTER TWENTY

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

CHAPTER THIRTY

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

CHAPTER FORTY

CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN

CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT

CHAPTER FORTY-NINE

CHAPTER FIFTY

CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE

CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO

CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE

CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR

CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE

CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX

CHAPTER FIFTY-SEVEN

CHAPTER FIFTY-EIGHT

CHAPTER FIFTY-NINE

CHAPTER SIXTY

CHAPTER SIXTY-ONE

CHAPTER SIXTY-TWO

CHAPTER SIXTY-THREE

CHAPTER SIXTY-FOUR

CHAPTER SIXTY-FIVE

CHAPTER SIXTY-SIX

CHAPTER SIXTY-SEVEN

Acknowledgements

Follow Penguin

Also by Howard Linskey

T
HE
D
AVID
B
LAKE
SERIES

The Drop

The Damage

The Dead

For Erin & Alison

Prologue

Girl Number Four

County Durham – 1993

He watched the girl until he was certain she was perfect. Only then did he risk approaching her. It was never difficult to get them to come with him. The hard part was staying calm, even as his heart was thumping so hard in his chest he was convinced she must be able to hear it.

He drove her somewhere quiet then stopped the car, waiting until he was sure they were entirely alone. Sometimes he’d bundle a girl into the boot so he could drive her miles away but this lane was isolated enough, so he’d climbed into the back seat to get to her. He ignored her terrified pleas and reached for her, easily brushing her weak little hands aside, forcing her head back until the flesh of her tiny neck was exposed. He clamped his hands around her throat and began to squeeze, tightening his grip as her desperate struggle began. He closed his eyes. It was better if he could not see the little girl’s face, for she did not understand. How could she even begin to comprehend what he was doing for her? He squeezed harder and harder and wouldn’t let go until the moment when her struggles finally ceased and her tiny body went limp.

He
looked down at the lifeless young girl in his arms and whispered the special words he always used when he had saved one.

‘Suffer the little children to come unto me.’

CHAPTER ONE

It all began with a phone call, as these things tend to.

‘Hello.’ Tom answered and there was a pause, as if the person on the other end had suddenly realised the magnitude of what they were doing and decided against it. ‘Hello?’ he prompted.

‘I’ve got a story,’ the woman blurted and he strained to listen to her against the sound of dozens of journalists talking over the tap-tap-tap of busy fingers hitting keyboards while the insistent ringing of competing phones could be heard all across the room.

‘Okay,’ answered Tom, ‘what kind of story?’

There was another pause until finally she said, ‘a bloody big one,’ and there was something about the nervous, agitated way in which she spoke that made Tom Carney take the woman seriously.

Tabloid stories generally start with a tip-off. This one began because a woman chose the biggest red top in the country to tell her side of it. Aggrieved men and women called its London office every day. Some were wronged, others desperate, some just plain demented. It was Tom Carney’s job to perform
triage
on them, as his legendary editor Alex ‘the Doc’ Docherty put it; ‘from the French verb
trier
, meaning to sift and select,’ he was told. ‘Your job is to separate the shit from the sugar.’

The people who called always assumed their story was
worth a life-changing amount of money. It was rare however for their particular grievance to actually make it into print. The tabloid Tom Carney worked for had a daily circulation of four million copies. Everyone wanted to be in the paper; politicians from all sides, models, actors, rock bands, the wannabes, gonnabes, has-beens and never-wasses, along with many thousands of what their foul-mouthed editor called ‘the great unwashed’, by which he meant the general public. Only the really juicy stuff ended up in the paper. Sometimes though, one of these callers would turn out to be peddling neither shit nor sugar but genuine gold.

The anonymous woman who phoned that morning was randomly connected to one of a large number of journalists manning the news desks. Afterwards, Tom Carney would often wonder about the direction his life might have taken had he not been in the office that morning or if the call had gone to one of the many other reporters in the newsroom. The simple act of answering the phone that day changed everything for Tom, though he could never have known it at the time.

‘What’s it about then?’ he prompted when she was not immediately forthcoming, ‘this story of yours?’

‘A very famous man, someone high up.’

‘Right,’ he replied non-committedly, ‘can I take your name, Miss?’

‘No names, not yet, just listen.’

He could have played hard ball, told her to give him her name or he’d hang up but if she really did have a story to tell, he’d only read about it later in a rival newspaper. Besides, there was something about the way she spoke,
the urgency in her voice that compelled him to keep her on the line.

‘So, what’s this famous man been up to then?’

‘Something he ain’t ought to have been,’ and she snorted a laugh then immediately became serious again. ‘He’s married, see, and he’s been seeing us and he ain’t supposed to have been doing that, not in his position.’

‘Who’s us?’ he asked, though he was beginning to get the idea.

‘Me and some others,’ she said, sounding cagey.

‘I see. You and some others,’ his tone was thoughtful. ‘Would I be right in saying that you have been seeing this man in your professional capacity?’ He was trying to be delicate.

‘You mean, am I on the game?’ she snapped.

‘Yes,’ he said simply.

‘Well, say what you mean then,’ she told him. ‘Yes,
we
are, ’course we are.’

‘And who is this family man who has been spending time with you?’

‘I can’t say until I know how much it’s worth.’

‘How can I tell you that unless I know who he is?’

There was a long pause on the line while she weighed up this dilemma. ‘He’s important, like I said, and I’ll tell you everything, for the right price.’