Strangers (5 page)

But if nothing else, the day and the hour were in the officers’ favour. All the way down Darthill Road, they met not a single vehicle coming the opposite way, and as they swerved onto Pimbo, only a night-bus cruised past, and its driver had the sense to pull into the kerb to allow them swifter passage.

Meanwhile, messages crackled on the force radio. They broke constantly and the static was loud, but it was just about possible to glean from them that the AP, who had only just turned eighteen, had suffered facial injuries and wounds to her neck and chest, but that otherwise she was safe and well. Apparently, she’d described her assailant as somewhere in his late twenties, blond-haired and wearing a green tracksuit with white piping. Peabody scribbled this down as Lucy steered them at reckless speed along the swing-back lane.

They arrived in Bullwood five minutes later, Lucy slowing to a crawl and knocking the headlights off as the BMW prowled from one darkened side street to the next. She’d zeroed in on several rows of terraced houses, each one of which terminated at the edge of the Aggies. Superficially, you couldn’t gain access to the wasteland from any of these residential streets – in some cases there were garages there, in others wire-mesh fencing had been erected. But the local urchins enjoyed their desolate playground too much to tolerate that. Thanks to the various holes they’d made over the years, passage through was easily possible if you knew where it was.

The only question now was did their suspect know all that?

Assuming he had come this way at all.

The first three streets were bare of life, nothing but cars lining the fronts of the identical red brick terraces. Most house lights were now off, given that it was almost midnight. But in the fourth street, Windermere Avenue, they glimpsed movement, a dark figure sauntering out of sight into the mouth of a cobbled alley. Lucy turned her radio down to the minimum and indicated that Peabody should do the same, before cruising on past the top of the road and pulling sharply up before the next street, Thirlmere Place.

‘Leave your helmet off,’ she whispered, opening her door.

Peabody nodded and slipped out onto the road, just as a walking man appeared from Thirlmere, turned sharp right and receded away along the pavement. It was difficult to distinguish details in the dull streetlamps, but he wore a light-coloured T-shirt, which fitted snugly around a muscular, wedge-shaped torso. More important than any of this, he also wore tracksuit bottoms, and had a tracksuit top tied around his waist by its sleeves.

If this was the guy, one might have expected him, on hearing the chug of the engine, to try to hide, but instead he was going for “normality”, Lucy realised; rather than skulking in some backstreet and probably drawing more attention to himself, looking to brazen it out by hiding in plain sight – like he was just an everyday Joe on his way home.

They walked after him, padding lightly but gaining ground quickly, hands tight on their duty belts; Lucy clutched her CS canister, Peabody the hilt of his extendable Autolock Baton. When five yards behind, they saw sweat gleaming on their target’s thick bull-neck, dampening his fair, straw-like hair. They could also see his tracksuit properly – it was green with white piping.

‘Excuse me, sir,’ Lucy said. ‘Can I talk to you?’

He walked on, not turning, not even flinching at the sound of her voice.

They closed the gap, at any second expecting him to bolt.

‘Excuse me, sir … we’re police officers and we need to speak to you.’

What Lucy didn’t expect was for him to whirl around and throw a massive punch at her, but she was now so used to these situations that her reactions sat on a hair-trigger. She ducked the blow and wrapped her arms around his waist.

‘MALCOLM!’
she shouted.

Peabody might have been a newbie, but he threw himself forward and crooked his own arms around the assailant’s bullet-shaped head, crushing his Neanderthal features in a brutal bear-hug, and at the same time dropping down with his full weight, dragging the guy to the pavement. The three of them landed heavily, the suspect on top of Peabody, Lucy front-down on top of the suspect. The two men got the worst of it, the suspect primarily as Lucy dug her left elbow into his solar plexus and drew her CS spray with her right hand, ejecting its contents into his gagging, choking face. He squawked and convulsed. With a satisfying
click
, Peabody snapped one bracelet onto his brawny left wrist.

‘You’re locked up, you bastard!’ Lucy gasped down at him as he writhed, using her right forearm to compress his throat. ‘You’re bloody locked up!’ She put her radio mic to her lips. ‘1485 to Three … re. the attack at the phone-box on Darthill Road. One detained at the junction of Pimbo Lane and Thirlmere Place. Require immediate supervision and prisoner transport, over.’

‘Pig-slut!’ the prisoner choked. ‘You’ll fucking die for this …’

‘What did you say?’ Lucy asked, levering herself backwards now that Peabody, who was clearly stronger and handier than he looked, had got both the prisoner’s hands cuffed behind his back. She grabbed the guy’s throat in a gloved claw. ‘Eh?’

‘Nothing,’ he gagged. ‘For Christ’s sake … I said nothing!’

‘Nah …’ She shook her head. ‘Sounded to me like your response to caution was “okay, I did it … you’ve got me banged to rights”. Did you hear that confession too, PC Peabody?’

‘Absolutely, PC Clayburn,’ Peabody replied. He wasn’t just handier than he looked, Malcolm Peabody, he was in the right job too. ‘Abso-bloody-lutely!’

Chapter 3

Lucy groaned with relief as she stripped her gear off in the female locker room: the straight-leg combat trousers, the duty belt with its various appointments, the stab vest, the radio harness, the high-viz jacket. After twenty hours on duty it all seemed a dead weight. She stepped gratefully into the shower and braced herself against the cubicle wall as the hot spray lashed over her.

Making an important arrest just before the end of shift always guaranteed you hours of overtime, which was sometimes a good thing if you needed the extra cash, but was rarely desirable when it kept you busy all night. Lucy checked the time as she towelled down, and then climbed into her underwear and picked up her motorbike leathers. It was almost eight. Beyond the confines of the locker room, the rest of the station was humming with life, but given that the morning team were now out and about, she had this quiet little space to herself. At least, she thought she did.

‘PC Clayburn?’ a voice said.

Lucy glanced around, surprised to see that while she’d been in the shower cubicle, an Indian woman, somewhere in her early fifties, had entered the locker room and was now perched on a bench near the door, fiddling with an iPad.

‘Who’s asking?’ Lucy said.

‘Oh good … hostility from the word-off.’ The Indian lady stood up, stiffly and rather painfully, and dug into her coat pocket. ‘Just what I’m in the mood for.’

Lucy eyed her warily. Whoever she was, she was plump featured, with a short, squat stature, her thick, greying hair tied in a single, rope-like ponytail. She wore a heavy waxed jacket over jeans and a scruffy grey sweatshirt. The look didn’t especially suit her. Most likely it wouldn’t suit anyone of that barrel-shaped built. But for this reason alone Lucy now suspected she was in the presence of someone who’d reached a stage in their career where appearance counted for little compared to reputation.

The newcomer flipped open a leather wallet to reveal her warrant card.

‘“Priya” to my friends, “Detective Superintendent Nehwal” to you. I appreciate you’ve been on all night, PC Clayburn, but I’d like a quick word if poss … without the attitude.’

‘Certainly, ma’am. If …’ Lucy was briefly tongue-tied. She didn’t know DSU Priya Nehwal personally, but she certainly knew
about
her. Everyone knew about her. ‘If … if I can just finish getting dressed …?’

Nehwal glanced at her watch, as if this itself was an imposition. ‘I’ll wait outside.’

Priya Nehwal was a thirty-year veteran and ace thief-taker, a status for which she’d been decorated many times. She was now one of the most senior investigators in Greater Manchester’s Serious Crimes Division, having solved many more high-level offences – like murder, rape, robbery and arson – than anyone else currently serving. She was something of a poster-child for the women entering the job, especially Asian women.

Lucy hurried to finish getting dressed, and left the building through its side personnel-door, rucksack on her back, crimson motorcycle helmet tucked under one arm. The aptly named Robber’s Row wasn’t just a police station but the N Division’s administrative HQ, and as such a massive multi-floored redbrick monstrosity of a building, which occupied an enormous plot of land running alongside Tarwood Lane, the main thoroughfare into Crowley from Salford. It shared a forecourt with the local fire station, though when Lucy walked out there, nobody was waiting for her. She checked in the personnel car park at the rear of the nick, and even around the garages and in the vehicle pound, but again it was no dice. She finally found Nehwal some ten minutes later, in the small park on the other side of Tarwood Lane, where she’d unwrapped a plastic bag and was breaking up a squishy cheese-barm, fragments of which she scattered for the ducks clustered at the pond’s edge.

She didn’t bother looking round when Lucy approached.

‘Ma’am?’ Lucy finally said, feeling strangely self-conscious.

At a slim five foot eight, physically fit, with long black hair and handsome, feline looks as yet unlined by her years of police service, Lucy was aware that she cut quite a dash, especially when kitted out in the leathers she wore to ride her gleaming red Ducati Monster M900. But the presence of a living legend like Priya Nehwal, however much a ragamuffin she was in appearance, made Lucy feel gawky and awkward. It didn’t help, of course, that Nehwal had blazed a trail for female detectives though many decades of impressive work, and that Lucy had completely ruined her own CID chances in the very first week.

‘Heard you had a good lock-up last night?’ Nehwal said.

Lucy shrugged. ‘Common sense bobbying, ma’am.’

‘And now you’re the woman of the moment.’

‘I wouldn’t go that far, ma’am.’

Nehwal brushed crumbs from her hands and scrunched the plastic wrapper into her coat pocket. ‘Neither would I … but when you’re back on Division you’ve got to talk the talk.’

She pulled on a pair of fingerless woollen gloves. It was October 15
^th
, and though it had been a mild month so far, this particular morning was fresh to the point of chilliness.

‘Is this something important, ma’am?’ Lucy asked. ‘Only I’ve just finished a double-length shift …’

‘Ready for bed, are you?’

‘Well … the armchair. No point going to bed when I’m not actually on nights, but a couple of hours can’t hurt.’

‘Yes, well … sorry to rain on your parade, PC Clayburn, but sleep may not come so easily after this. Even so, it’ll be your call.’ Nehwal produced a morning paper, unrolled it and offered it to her. ‘What do you think?’

Lucy gazed at the front page, which in a massive banner-headline, read:

JILL THE RIPPER!

Underneath it, colour photographs depicted two side-by-side images. One was of a rural lay-by with a silver-black Lexus LS 430 parked in the middle, CSIs in Tyvek unspooling incident tape around it. The second one, clearly shot from a helicopter, displayed woodland from a high angle, with a red circle indicating an only partly visible forensics tent erected beneath the cover of the trees, and more diminutive Tyvek-clad figures.

An equally eye-catching sub-header read:

Police bosses admit Lay-by Murders could be work of
female
serial killer

Beneath that, a tower of grainy, black-and-white headshots portrayed mass murderesses from former decades: Myra Hindley on top, with Beverley Allitt and Joanna Dennehy underneath. The opening paragraph to the sensationalist lead read:

In a stunning turnabout,
senior detectives investigating the brutal sex-murders of four men are considering what might at one time have been unthinkable – that the perpetrator could be a woman!

The recent Lay-by Murders have been occurring across the north-west of England at a rate of one a month, with the latest victim, Ronald Ford (48), a garage owner from Warrington, found dead last week off a secluded road near Abram in Greater Manchester. All had been brutally beaten and repeatedly stabbed …

Lucy glanced up. ‘So you’re not looking for a gay suspect anymore?’

Nehwal shrugged as she fiddled with her iPad. ‘I never thought we were, if I’m honest. None of the victims were known or even suspected to be homosexuals. I know some men lead double lives, but four of them one after another without a hint of it in their background? Seemed progressively less likely the more we were able to put names to their emasculated corpses.’

‘So you’re now looking for a woman? Seriously?’

‘Shocking thought, eh? That there are girls out there as badly behaved as the boys.’

‘But this is correct, ma’am? You’re hunting a female sex murderer?’

‘We’re hunting a lunatic, PC Clayburn. The fact it’s a woman is no more a problem for me that if it was a man. Evil knows no gender.’

‘I get that, but it’d be a rarity … surely?’

‘First time for everything.’ Nehwal turned the iPad around. A grainy video was playing. ‘Couple of days ago, we recovered this CCTV footage from the slip road connecting a filling station outside Atherton to the A579.’

At first, the moving picture wasn’t easily distinguishable. The camera was clearly located some distance from the slip-lane, but the image had been enhanced sufficiently to display a vehicle cruising down it, and slowing and stopping just before it reached the main drag. Here, a female figure – female because it had longish, fair hair under a beret-like hat, an hourglass shape and, by the looks of it, was wearing a tight skirt or dress, and high heels – approached from the verge, spoke to the driver through an open passenger window, and then climbed in. After that, the car sped away.