Strangers

by Paul Finch

  ‘This Charlie is so narcissistic she even prick-teases the mob,’ Lucy said. ‘No one gets what they want from her unless they pay.’

  ‘Perhaps she’s just a hard businesswoman,’ Slater said.

  ‘She’s still on the meat-rack. Either way you cut it, boss, it’s odd.’

  ‘Okay.’ He typed on. ‘That’s good enough for me.’

  Chapter 20

  Frank McCracken’s private residence was located at 17 Yellowbrook Close, Didsbury.

  This was a swish suburb by almost any standards. Formerly a prosperous township in its own right, Didsbury had been absorbed by Manchester during the Industrial Revolution, but was now famous for the quality of the restaurants and boutiques on its high streets, and for its leafy residential avenues. It would never have surprised the police to find a major league criminal living here. Their home addresses were rarely located in districts where dealers and prostitutes plied their trade, where there was aggro in the pubs, or where underworld rent-collectors spent each crack-of-dawn kicking down shabby front doors.

  Seventeen Yellowbrook was a particular case in point. Frank McCracken might have risen through the criminal ranks after his misspent youth on a Salford council estate, but these days he occupied a luxury, five-bedroom villa, detached from the equally affluent properties on either side of it and standing at the end of a long, block-paved drive. Thanks to a preponderance of trees and shrubbery around its boundary, it was heavily secluded from its neighbours, but the cops were fortunate enough to find a spot in the adjacent Leatherwood Road; a house that was currently between owners and whose upper-rear bedroom window gave reasonable vantage over the premises in question.

  Basing the OP on Leatherwood Road wasn’t ideal, but it had some advantages.

  By necessity, the surveillance team had to leave the blinds on their window half-closed, mainly because it served as a useful shield, though this obviously restricted things a little. At the same time, the two houses were about seventy yards apart, and 17 Yellowbrook could only be viewed through the gap between two other properties, but if you had a telephoto lens handy – which the team did – a clear visual could still be had of its electronically operated front gates, the whole of its front drive and its front door. Another perk of being in the next street was that it meant the team could come and go without attracting suspicion. McCracken’s people wouldn’t even see them, while to prevent the occupants of Leatherwood Road getting curious, they dressed in paint-stained overalls and used vehicles mocked-up as decorators’ vans.

  But from Lucy’s point of view, this whole thing was far from easy.

  Her initial hope that Charlie would simply leave the club with McCracken one night and all she’d need to do was call the team and let them know the target twosome were en route, was thwarted by the rareness of these occasions. It seemed that Charlie didn’t go home with Frank McCracken as regularly as he might have liked. (What was it Delilah had said … about the brothel’s top girl playing hard to get?) As such, Lucy, the only one – as Nehwal had said – who could identify the suspect, had to play her full part in the obbo, which was scheduled to operate around the clock, rotating staff.

  And in reality this was pretty impractical.

  Lucy was still working at SugaBabes, and that was already a thirteen-hour day. More to the point, Didsbury, which was in south Manchester, was a good half hour’s drive from the centre of operations, even on her Ducati Monster. Initially, she attempted to manage this, heading straight home after finishing at the club, grabbing five hours sleep, then biking down to Didsbury for about one in the afternoon, from where she could participate in the surveillance until about five, which left her two hours to bike it back to Robber’s Row, get herself ready and then use public transport to head into work at SugaBabes. When she wasn’t at the OP, the team would photograph all comers and goers at 17 Yellowbrook, and Lucy would assess them on the iPad at the next opportunity.

  As it was, for the first three days no one Lucy recognised visited McCracken’s house, either when she saw them herself in the flesh or later on film – apart from McCracken himself, Shallicker, who seemed to live there, and a few other lackeys from their firm.

  Ultimately, this frenetic schedule left Lucy agog with exhaustion, which affected her performance at SugaBabes. Four nights into the surveillance, she’d only been on duty at the coat-check counter for about fifteen minutes when Jayne McIvar, glammed up as usual, stopped in her tracks while perambulating past.

  ‘Fuck’s sake, Hayley!’ she hissed. ‘You look like a bag of shit this evening!’

  ‘Oh …’ Lucy came abruptly awake. ‘Sorry, Miss McIvar. Erm … they’re digging the street up. I’ve not had much kip recently.’

  ‘Don’t give me excuses, give me solutions. If you can’t get your beauty sleep at home, find a bed somewhere else. And when did you last launder that uniform?’

  ‘Erm … sorry, Miss McIvar?’

  ‘It’s your uniform, love, so you keep it clean. Now for Christ’s sake, smarten your act up!’

  After that shift, Lucy rang Slater to try and modify her itinerary, which she felt was leaving her exposed. His response was to have a camp bed put into the bedroom at Leatherwood Road, where Lucy, on arrival each afternoon, could sleep until such time as a face arrived at McCracken’s door, at which point the other members of the team would summon her to try and put a name to it. This only happened intermittently, perhaps once every two or three hours, but she still had to come wearily to the window and look. A couple of times, when it was plainly obvious the person at Frank McCracken’s front door could not be Charlie, the glamorous hooker – like when it was an elderly lady collecting for charity, for example, or on another occasion, when it was a rotund middle-aged woman who’d arrived in a delivery van – she almost lost it.

  On the fifth day, she finally did.

  Fortuitously, she only had Des Barton for company that afternoon, Des already knowing her well and therefore proving more tolerant when she exploded with anger.

  ‘Jesus Christ, Des!’ she snapped, drawing back from the viewfinder. ‘I mean Jesus H. Christ!’ She pointed through the window at the distant figure coming back down McCracken’s drive. ‘That’s not even a sodding woman!’

  ‘What?’ Des said. She stepped away from the tripod, and he put himself forward to look again. ‘Ahhh … you’re right.’

  Now that he was face-on to the OP, it was plain that the latest visitor to no. 17 was actually a young man who happened to have longish, fair hair. Though perhaps the gas company logo on his beige jacket ought to have been something of a giveaway, not to mention the clipboard he was carrying.

  Lucy slumped wearily onto the camp bed. It was hardly the most comfortable berth anyway. She had a single quilt on it, which was rucked and dingy-looking in the grey autumn daylight, and a pillow that was basically a ball of sponge and did little to support her head. The rest of the room was littered with a sordid detritus: newspapers, magazines, toffee wrappers, fast food cartons, empty Coke tins. In addition, because they couldn’t open the window, it stank: chips, ketchup, human sweat.

  She scrubbed a hand through her unruly mop of hair, and rubbed at her face. ‘I’m sorry, love,’ she mumbled. ‘I’m just out on my feet.’

  ‘All we need is one sighting,’ he said in attempted consolation. ‘Just one clear shot of this bird’s face, and you’re done. You can sleep for a week.’

  ‘Yeah, until I have to go back to …’

  ‘Best not tell me that, chuck.’

  ‘No, no … you’re right, sorry.’

  Lucy’s presence at SugaBabes was still at the highest level of classification. The rest of the surveillance team were well aware they’d been posted at Frank McCracken’s house, which was a biggie in itself. But all they knew about this girl Charlie was that she was an associate of McCracken’s and a viable suspect in the Jill the Ripper crimes, and that Lucy could identify her – and frankly, that was all they wanted to know. You felt extra pressure when
an investigation led to the highest levels of criminality. At that stage, the less you knew the less you could accidentally tell.

  Des offered her a bottle of water. ‘Drink?’

  ‘No, thanks. That’ll only make me want to pee … which’ll also keep me awake.’

  ‘Something to eat then?’

  She glanced across the room at him. ‘Does that mean you want something to eat?’

  ‘Well … I haven’t had any scran since brekky, and it’s nearly three.’ He grinned; his clear desire that she respond with a helpful suggestion was almost boyish.

  ‘Why don’t you scoot round to the shops and get us both a McDonald’s, eh?’ she said. ‘I’ll hold the fort here.’

  ‘Really?’ He jumped to his feet.

  ‘Yeah, go on.’

  ‘Good, I’m famished.’ He pulled a donkey jacket over his white, emulsion-spattered overalls. ‘Oh … my treat by the way.’

  ‘Damn right it’s your treat.’

  ‘What do you want?’

  ‘Just get me a cheeseburger.’

  ‘Any fries with that?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Coke, milkshake?’

  ‘For Christ’s sake, Des, you sound like you work there. Just go. And don’t take forever.’

  He grinned again and left. Lucy estimated that she’d be alone on the OP for the next twenty minutes or so, during which it would be a wrestling match just to stay awake. In truth, the thought of food repulsed her, though eating might also help gee her up.

  She remained dutifully by the window, hoping and praying that Charlie wouldn’t show up until Des had got back. As well as her own motorbike and the scruffy decorators’ van, she also had the keys to an unmarked Datsun that was parked at the side of the house. But the last thing she wanted to do was tail a suspect on her own. It was difficult enough doing that with only one vehicle, but in her current bog-eyed state she’d seriously struggle.

  However, when, five minutes later, someone did actually appear at the front of Frank McCracken’s drive and press the gatepost buzzer, it woke Lucy up more fully and abruptly than if she’d stepped barefoot onto a live cable.

  At first there was nothing outstanding about the figure. Lucy only saw whoever it was from behind. Though clearly female, she was dressed dowdily in jeans, flat shoes and a shapeless blue anorak. Most likely it was a cleaner, or some other functionary. But she was fair-haired, and that had to be worth a second glance. Lucy got onto the telephoto camera, adjusting the lens and positioning one finger over the button. The woman was now more clearly visible, though her back remained turned as she introduced herself via intercom. A second passed before the electronic gates swung open to admit her. By this time it was clear that she wasn’t Charlie, not even in disguise – she wasn’t tall enough. Lucy relaxed again.

  But then the woman looked furtively round, and Lucy saw her face.

  Her first feeling was numbing bewilderment, followed in short order by that bizarre process your brain goes through when, stricken by complete and utter disbelief, it tries to compensate by assuring you that this must be an error, a simple mistake, that there’ll be a perfectly rational explanation which, in your momentary shock, you’ve overlooked.

  And yet, when all that was done – and it lasted no more than a second – and the woman walked up McCracken’s drive and entered the house via the front door, the dumbfounding realisation kicked in that, whatever else, there was no mistake here.

  And it continued to kick in, harder and harder, until Lucy felt physically sick, until she was suddenly so certain she was about to swoon that she had to grab hold of the windowsill. Her mouth was dry as sandpaper. She couldn’t feel a speck of saliva on her tongue.

  Because despite there being no explanation for this, she could already see the implications of it – and they were very far-reaching indeed.

  Des got back sooner than Lucy had expected, in just under fifteen minutes. She remained by the window, saying nothing when he handed over her burger.

  ‘You okay keeping point while I sort this lot out?’ he said, brushing a load of paperwork from a trestle-table and laying out his own quarter-pounder with cheese, his Big Mac, his large cola and his double helping of extra-large fries.

  She didn’t respond.

  ‘Lucy?’

  ‘What?… yeah, that’s fine.’

  She was still reeling from what she’d just seen. But because it made no sense to her, because there was no logic in it from whichever perspective she looked at it, she still didn’t know how to react. She couldn’t even show bemusement.

  Internally, a voice kept trying to say things to her like: You’ve obviously just missed something. The answer will be right under your nose.

  But no matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t.

  ‘You alright?’ Des asked, his mouth full.

  ‘Erm … yeah.’

  ‘Not hungry after all, then?’

  ‘What … oh.’ She glanced down, still not having torn the greasy wrapper from her cheeseburger. ‘No. Do you want it?’

  ‘Well … never like to see things go to waste.’

  She crossed the room, put it down on the table next to him and went back to the window.

  ‘You sure you’re okay?’

  ‘Like I say, Des, I’m just tired.’

  ‘Give us two mins to scoff this lot, then you can get your head down again.’

  ‘No, it’s alright,’ she said firmly. ‘You take your time.’

  It was now very important to Lucy – imperative in fact – that she be the only person looking when the most recent caller to Frank McCracken’s house re-appeared. Firstly, because she had to be absolutely sure about what she’d seen and that her overwrought imagination was not playing tricks on her. Secondly, so she could ensure that no one took a photograph. She herself had made certain the woman wasn’t photographed going in, and she needed to be equally certain that she wouldn’t be photographed on the way out.

  Even so, Des had polished off his lunch a good twenty minutes before the woman finally re-emerged, walked down the drive and vanished from sight along the road. Fortunately, it hadn’t been difficult to get him to extend his break by an extra half-hour. All Lucy had needed to do was offer him a daily paper and tell him to make sure he got a proper rest, as it wasn’t fair given that she’d spent a lot of that day asleep.

  He’d gleefully complied and so missed the female visitor completely.

  Just before five o’clock, Lucy pulled her waxed combat jacket over her paint-stained jumper and jeans, grabbed her motorbike helmet, and with only a few words of farewell, departed the building. Outside, her Ducati waited alongside the decorators’ van. An unlikely police vehicle, she’d been permitted to bring the bike to the OP – it wasn’t as if she had much choice anyway thanks to her rapid-fire schedule; she now saddled up and tore off the estate, heading north as fast as the M60 evening traffic would allow. But, half an hour later, instead of veering off at the Crowley East junction and heading for Robber’s Row, she proceeded another six miles to Crowley West. From here, it was a matter of minutes to Saltbridge. Lucy was well aware that going home now might make her late for her seven o’clock start at SugaBabes, but at present this was a secondary issue.

  She had to go home, very urgently indeed.

  Chapter 21

  When Lucy wheeled her bike into the back yard of her mother’s house, it looked like there were no lights inside. Rather than stowing the machine in the shed, she leaned it on its kickstand and gazed up at the rear of the terraced building. She hadn’t been mistaken; it stood in total darkness.

  She glanced at her watch. It was just six o’clock.

  Her mother would normally be home by now. Even if she hadn’t been to work for some reason, she’d usually be in at this time, putting the tea on. Admittedly, if she wasn’t, it wouldn’t be completely unprecedented. She could easily have been diverted: making a delivery or something, visiting a friend, even calling at a pub with some colleagues, thoug
h that would be unusual on a Wednesday evening.

  Testing the back door, Lucy found it locked. She took out her key, inserted it and pushed her way inside. There was no smell of cooking in the kitchen, suggesting that no one had been in there for most of the day.

  Lucy stood still and listened, but heard nothing.

  She walked through into the lounge, her eyes gradually attuning to the gloom. Everything was as it should be: the coffee table cleared of that morning’s breakfast things, all cushions arranged neatly on the sofa and armchair, newspapers and periodicals stuffed into the rack.

  Yet when she reached for the light-switch, she did so warily – she’d learned from experience that if an enemy was close by, the moment you shed light on them was the moment they attacked. But when she flipped the switch, there was no one else present.

  She glanced from the front window to see if her mother’s yellow Honda was parked outside. It wasn’t, but that proved nothing as their garage was located in a freestanding row of garages at the end of the street, and it could already have been put away for the night.

  Despite zero evidence there was anything abnormal here, her heart rate slowly increased as she stepped through into the hall. She so wanted normality – so yearned for it. But she knew what she’d seen that afternoon. Things could never be normal here again.

  Stopping by the foot of the staircase, she stared into the silent darkness at the top.

  Fleetingly, Lucy felt dazed. These last few days had been difficult verging on the impossible. So hectic had the turnover of jobs and duties been that half the time it was a blur. On some occasions she’d found herself sleepwalking through it, quite literally. She half-wondered if today’s astonishing development might owe less to reality and more to fatigue-induced fantasy. Likewise, the absence of her mother from this house; in usual circumstances Lucy wouldn’t think twice about it – there’d be some mundane reason. While the growing sense of menace in here – her own home for God’s sake! – had to be down to exhausted paranoia. There was no reason to assume her mother was anywhere other than heading back here from work right at this moment.