Stolen

by Paul Finch

  The other, whose suit was yellow, stumped around the room with what a casual observer might consider a surly attitude, heading first to the corner, where a human form was slumped against the wall, swathed in brown paper and bound with long strips of duct tape. Such secure packaging didn’t offer much of a handhold, of course, so Yellow Suit had to crouch, wrap the figure in a kind of bear-hug and lug it across the room with back bent.

  Who would have thought that a woman as trim and fit as Lorna Cunningham could be so heavy? When they’d first started watching her, it hadn’t looked as if there was an inch of fat on her. But then Yellow Suit remembered from studying human physiology that body-fat was lighter than muscle and bone. With many a grunt and gasp, the inert form was dragged across the cellar room in just under three minutes. But from here, it would get really difficult.

  Two four-foot-tall plastic drums stood against the wall, both open to the air, but black and crusty with soot, and streaked down their sides with vile stains. The one on the left was filled almost to its brim with an odious brownish stew, but the other was only half-full, a transparent greenish liquid sloshing when Yellow Suit nudged it. The corpse was left lying while a plan was devised. Eventually, Yellow Suit squatted, reached underneath the parcelled figure, secured it around the hips and then, pushing upward from the thigh, levered the former athlete upright until she was half-standing but had flopped forward over one yellow-clad shoulder. With another grunt, Yellow Suit then raised the lifeless form in a classic fireman’s lift. White Suit glanced up from the iPad to watch as, slowly and warily, Lorna Cunningham was lowered feet first into the greenish fluid.

  Immediately, it began fizzling and bubbling, which was only natural given that it was pure fluorosulfuric acid, the surface of which ascended rapidly as flesh and bone was fed downward into it. But they’d made the necessary calculations when filling the drum in the first place, and the girl was fully submerged before the acid reached its rim. Yellow Suit stepped back as the fumes began to thicken.

  Satisfied, White Suit returned to the game.

  Yellow Suit collected a thick plastic rod leaning against the brickwork in the opposite corner, and then turned back to the foetal figure in the drum. Though already unrecognisable as human, there must be air trapped inside it, because it was proving buoyant, semi-melted parts of it having broken back through the frothing surface. Yellow Suit applied the rod, shoving everything back out of sight into the hellish, seething soup.

  A couple of minutes later, the rod was dipped into the first of three buckets of cold water, swished about and then replaced in the corner.

  Yellow Suit stood back, hands on hips, seemingly pleased.

  ‘Haven’t you got more work to do?’ White Suit wondered through the microphone link connecting their two masks.

  Yellow Suit glanced around, puzzled. ‘Nothing else I can do now.’

  ‘Mr Hopkins, idiot.’

  ‘What?’ Yellow Suit sounded outraged. ‘I’ve got to do that on my own too?’

  ‘That’s what he said.’

  ‘I’ve already had to do the respray on my own.’

  White Suit went back to the game. ‘It’s the price of stupidity.’

  ‘There was nothing stupid about what happened back there. My foot slipped, that’s all. That’s why she was able to get the better of me.’

  ‘I seem to remember we’ve already had this conversation.’

  Grumbling bitterly, Yellow Suit moved three paces to the right of the two drums, tested one of the flagstones with a cautious foot and, when it rocked, squatted down, fitted gloved fingertips into the crack and, with muscles straining, lifted. The flag was heavy but had been chosen deliberately because it was slightly too small for the square hole they’d originally slotted it into, so it didn’t need to be worked loose. When it was upright, Yellow Suit walked it away on its corners and rested it against the wall. Underneath, there was a circular grid made of chunky steel. It was badly corroded, but it still felt as though it weighed a tonne as Yellow Suit crouched again, reached between the bars and, with teeth gritted, lifted it free. This, at least, could be rolled out of the way.

  Below that, a cylindrical rock shaft fell four feet into rushing water. Sidling around the edge of it, Yellow Suit moved back to the second drum. ‘Come on … at least give me a hand with this. It’s dangerous.’

  White Suit didn’t move, other than to throw a nod at the small video camera mounted on the dusty stone shelf nearby, between a set of false teeth and an old military medal, a tiny point of green light indicated that it was active. ‘He said you have to do it on your own. And he’s filming us. Just to make sure you do as you’re told.’

  Yellow Suit turned back to the drum. ‘If I get burned, it’s your fault.’

  ‘Nope. It’s your fault.’

  Being more careful now than at any stage so far, checking first the seals between gauntlets and sleeves, Yellow Suit slid around to the back of the drum on the left, and gingerly reached out to the facing edges of its rim, taking a firm grip, and then slowly rotating it and shuffling it forward. It was hugely heavy, and its dark contents, slopping from side to side, constantly threatened to overbalance it. Thankfully, the distance to the sewer shaft was no more than a yard. And Yellow Suit didn’t even have to go that far, before halting, with both hands now tight on the closest section of rim. As cautiously as possible, body braced backward to ensure that it didn’t get away, the drum was gradually allowed to tilt forward.

  With heavy glops, gurgles and thick, steamy emissions, the sludgy brown contents began disgorging, dripping slowly but steadily down the hole. When the drum had lightened sufficiently, Yellow Suit brought it back upright and drew it backward a foot, then tilted it forward again, this time to the horizontal. A vomit-like stream spilled downward. It contained various shapeless solids, and whenever globules of it spattered the rock at the rim of the pipe or down the inside, it hissed violently, issuing oily, greasy smoke – but the vast bulk of it vanished into the subterranean stream, all that remained of the late Harry Hopkins fastidiously flushed away.

  ‘You know, this stuff doesn’t get rid of everything,’ Yellow Suit said, when the job was done, shoving the empty drum back into place. ‘If they ever decide they want to use this building—’

  ‘We block that sewer with cement before we scarper,’ White Suit cut in. ‘As planned.’

  Yellow Suit brought the first bucket of water over and sloshed it down the pipe. Then grabbed the second and doused the one or two smouldering spots on the flagstones surrounding the aperture. ‘You don’t think they’d find that a bit unusual?’

  ‘Probably no more unusual than the fact this place has stood empty for as long as it has,’ White Suit said. ‘Anyway, it’ll just be some bunch of navvies … so it’s possible you’re overestimating both their curiosity and their intellect. They’ll do what they usually do. Smash through the ground with diggers and JCBs. All they’ll ever see is clumps of soil and rubble, and when they find the underground stream … so what, it’s a stream?’

  Yellow Suit considered this. ‘I’m pissed off, you know. That plan for Cunningham … it should have worked. It could have worked.’

  ‘Well, he said he thought it was complex,’ White Suit replied. ‘And now he’ll be able to say he told us so.’

  ‘He still gave us the go-ahead.’

  ‘He said he thought it was complex. Not too complex. Anyway, we pulled it off.’ White Suit closed the iPad down. ‘The bit we fucked up … or rather, the bit you fucked up … that should’ve been the easy part.’

  Yellow Suit stood over the first drum and peered down. It already looked like boiling stew, though sections of a vaguely humanoid outline were occasionally, fleetingly visible. ‘I reckon they’ll really start looking for this one.’

  ‘That’s the name of the game.’ White Suit came forward. ‘But, being professionals, we shouldn’t have to worry about that, should we? That’s why you got bollocked. That’s why even the slightest fuck-up, e
ven a fuck-up that occurs in private, where no one else knows about it, is unacceptable.’

  Yellow Suit nodded, acknowledging the situation.

  It wasn’t like there was a point in arguing.

  There was never any arguing with him.

  Chapter 16

  Perhaps unsurprisingly, Lucy found herself busy in the nick until quite late that Monday night. One day in, and the workload was mountainous.

  In addition to Tessa Payne, she had three other officers working with her: DC Tim Lawless from Serious Crimes (who wasn’t impressed to be under the tactical command of a divisional detective); DC Judy Stryker, who was on loan from Crowley Robbery (and who also didn’t want to be there); and PC Malcolm Peabody, who was quite a bit happier with the gig, no doubt seeing it as his first real taste of CID, though his inspector had only agreed to see him put into plain clothes for one week, at which point they would review it.

  ‘One week,’ Lucy chuckled, as she drove. ‘Hope it’s bloody sorted by then.’

  But it didn’t feel as if it would be. Already they were pulled out. Payne had spent most of that day flogging through endless reams of CCTV footage, not just from the Hollinbrook area but from the various housing estates along the canal. Peabody, meanwhile, had been an actual presence in Hollinbrook, going door-to-door, after which his brief was to prowl the town’s homeless shelters, making enquiries about other potential missing persons. Lawless was midway through chasing all known black or blue transit vans sold in the Greater Manchester area in the last ten years, while Stryker, having interviewed Alex Calderwood at length to see if Lorna Cunningham had made any noteworthy comments recently, perhaps regarding a suspicion that she was being watched or followed, or maybe having trouble with someone, would tomorrow move on to ask similar questions of Cunningham’s other friends and associates (and in their case, to also ask about Calderwood himself).

  Later on in the week, Lucy would do the same with the friends and relatives of Harry Hopkins, but that was after she’d personally perused Lorna Cunningham’s phone records, examined the crime scene on the canal bank and liaised with DI Beardmore and the N Division’s official press officer about how the public could best be brought in to assist.

  But her last port of call today, now that she’d finally managed to get outside, was to speak again with Sister Cassie, and obtain an actual statement regarding the van she’d seen and the alleged abduction of Fred Holborn. She’d already double-checked the partial VRM written on the condom wrapper, and it had come up again as non-existent. This meant that number-plate recognition software would be next to useless, as the perp would likely have more than one such fake plate and would change them regularly.

  As she slowed down to accommodate the late evening traffic on Adolphus Road, Lucy pondered the weirdness of a kidnapper who would start out by snatching vagrants off the streets, then would move on to an OAP outside his home, and finally would pick on a much younger person, an athlete no less. It was weirder still if you considered that this might be the same person, or persons, who’d begun their reign of terror by snatching dogs.

  When you voiced it in those terms, it was too nutty for words. But so often with unusual cases, when you finally uncovered a viable explanation it left you kicking yourself at how obvious it had been, at how it had been right under your nose and you’d never once spotted it.

  As she pulled off onto Greenway Lane, however, Lucy became distracted. She wondered if she was being tailed. It was a metallic blue Subaru Legacy, and she’d first noticed it about a mile back along Adolphus Road, never more than a couple of cars behind. When she turned into St Clement’s Avenue, a much lesser used route, it copied the manoeuvre. She cut a sharp left onto Woodland Way, which, now that she was on the edge of the warehouse district, led only to a minor lorry park and a scrapyard. The Subaru also turned left.

  Lucy wasn’t particularly concerned. He was making no effort to conceal himself, so his intentions were unlikely to be totally villainous. When she pulled into a layby, the sole other occupant of which was a hotdog vendor now packing in for the day, the Subaru slid smoothly in behind her, braked and switched its interior light on. She glanced into her rear-view mirror and recognised the hulking form of Mick Shallicker behind the Subaru’s wheel.

  She climbed out and strolled back, more than a little irritated.

  He remained in his seat but powered down his driver’s window. He was wearing his usual outfit of specially made black suit and black turtleneck sweater.

  ‘You followed me all the way from Robber’s Row?’ Lucy said.

  ‘Seemed the best way to get you on your own,’ he replied. ‘Frank can see you now if you’re free.’

  ‘I’m not free.’

  ‘It’s up to you. But you’re the one who asked for the meet.’

  Twisted with frustration, Lucy hovered alongside his car. ‘I’d rather you’d just texted.’

  ‘Yeah, but you don’t get to call the shots.’

  ‘No, but I have to put up with your ugly face.’ She backed towards her Jimny. ‘Next time, text me.’

  Lucy followed Shallicker’s Subaru along Tarwood Lane and into Salford, but first of all had to pass Robber’s Row, which was no fun. She doubted that anyone in the divisional HQ would notice her, much less notice that she was being guided to whatever destination she was bound for by a vehicle traceable to a man with a serious criminal record.

  But it was the guilt factor.

  Ever since two years ago, when Lucy had first discovered that her estranged father was a senior lieutenant in the Crew, and especially since she’d made a deal with him that for both their sakes they would keep it secret, she’d been tormented by the idea that she now had one foot in the other camp. Throughout her ten years of committed policework prior to that, she’d prided herself on being an honest cop, on obeying the rules and doing the job to the best of her ability. But from the moment Frank McCracken had returned to her and her mother’s lives, she’d found herself withholding information from colleagues, getting into clandestine meetings and even turning a blind eye to certain criminal activities.

  McCracken had told her that she should treat her fight against crime not as a job but as a war, in which all measures were acceptable. This was the way other, more senior and successful police officers had always behaved, he’d said … so why hesitate?

  But that was her father all over: an amoral scoundrel.

  Lucy had a different take on life.

  Or at least she’d once had.

  She tried to shut such ruminations out of her mind as she focused on the business at hand, following Shallicker along the A6 through Salford until it became Chapel Street and led into central Manchester. Five minutes later, just off Corporation Street, they came to the foot of a multi-storey car park, where, rather to Lucy’s surprise, Shallicker swung in. She followed him, collected a ticket and sat a few yards behind him as they ascended ramp after ramp, passing one largely empty level after another, until they were on the last floor before the top. Here, the upward ramp had been bollarded off with orange traffic cones. Shallicker’s Subaru slowed to a halt, and almost from nowhere, a car park attendant appeared. Without looking at the waiting vehicles, he moved several of the cones aside. The Subaru passed through. The attendant waited expectantly. Lucy eased her Jimny forward, also passing through. As she ascended the last ramp, she glanced into her rear-view mirror and saw that the line of cones had already been replaced. She shook her head, amazed by the sheer gall of the high-level underworld. Even as a serving police officer investigating serious crime, she couldn’t call on privileges like this.

  The top deck of the car park, which was open to the night sky, was completely empty apart from a gleaming black vehicle at its farthest corner. Lucy recognised it as her father’s Bentley Continental. The man himself was standing alongside it, gazing over the top of the concrete barrier at the flat neon pattern of the city.

  A few yards from the ramp, Shallicker pulled to a halt and braked. Lucy dre
w up alongside him. He pointed the way she needed to go. She drove the remaining sixty yards to the car park’s far end, veering into one of the empty bays on the Bentley’s nearside.

  McCracken turned as she climbed out and approached.

  As always, he wore a tailored suit, a pristine shirt and tie and what looked like a Rolex watch. It was now past nine o’clock on a September evening, and the temperature was falling fast, but he looked unaffected by the chill.

  ‘Well,’ he said, ‘I didn’t think it would be long before you wanted to hook up again.’

  ‘Oh, really …?’

  ‘Sure.’ He cracked a half-smile. ‘You talk like you hate me, Lucy, but last time we were in league, I seem to remember you were the main beneficiary.’

  ‘We weren’t in league,’ she retorted. ‘We just had a mutual enemy. And I’d say the benefits were about equally shared. But that case is closed and is now irrelevant.’

  ‘Okay … so to what do I owe this pleasure?’

  ‘What do you think?’ She folded her arms. ‘Last week you sent Mum a mountain of flowers and a lovey-dovey birthday card.’

  McCracken furrowed his brow. ‘You’ve called this meeting about that?’

  ‘I consider it a serious breach of our truce.’

  ‘Our truce … as far as I’m aware, does not extend to you telling me who I may and may not send birthday greetings to.’

  ‘Except when it’s Mum, I reckon.’

  ‘I don’t reckon.’ There was a sudden snap to his voice. ‘If she was eighty-five, maybe. But she’s fifty-five, and she doesn’t need your permission to get on with her life.’

  ‘It’s this “getting on with life” thing that worries me.’ Lucy couldn’t contain a mild concern that he wasn’t responding to this in his usual airy, casual way. ‘I mean, what’s your game? She may think she’s a toughie, she may act like one. But she’s actually quite vulnerable. She lives on her own, and she earns just about enough to get by.’