Stolen

by Paul Finch

  ‘Shit!’ Lucy was both furious and astounded that she’d been duped so easily.

  She swung back to face the entrance, but the buzzer had already been surreptitiously pressed, and the door was open by a centimetre or so. She lurched forward, but it was now swinging open. Her eyes flickered up to the figures on the other side, and finally fixed on the man standing at the front of them.

  Lucy knew him well, even though she’d never met him.

  That tall, lean physique; that fuzz of wire-wool hair; those square-framed spectacles over eyes that were more like steel rivets.

  ‘Having a coffee, are we?’ Wild Bill Pentecost said in his slow, cold monotone. ‘Oh dear … and you’re supposed to be looking after my friend.’

  Chapter 33

  ‘I’m sorry, Mr Pentecost,’ Lucy said. ‘But you can’t come in.’

  But all six were already in, the door having closed behind them. They stood in a tight group, as though on hostile ground, eyes circling the reception area for cameras and the like. Their fake security guard, Hawcroft or whatever his real name was, didn’t reappear; doubtless he was already threading back through the hospital, intent on leaving the same way he’d come in. Nurse Reynoldson remained behind her desk, each hand still clutching a mug of coffee, rigid with fear.

  Having thoroughly surveyed the place, Pentecost switched his attention to Lucy. ‘I’m afraid you have the advantage of me, my dear?’

  She flipped her wallet open. ‘Detective Constable Clayburn. Crowley CID.’

  ‘Constable …? I see.’ He took a step towards her, his men following. ‘You sure you’re not exceeding your authority here?’

  ‘I doubt it, sir.’ Lucy had backed up involuntarily, but now came to a deliberate standstill. ‘The patient you’ve come to visit is under police protection and needs to be kept in complete isolation. On top of that, he’s sedated. So, there’s not much good you can do in here, assuming that was your intention.’

  ‘My, my …’ He eyed her closely. ‘What a barbed comment.’

  ‘No offence was intended, sir. But I have a job to do, and I’ll do it.’

  ‘Just like a good little soldier … except there’s a problem. If you know who I am, you should also know that I’m much more to Mr McCracken than a mere business partner …’

  He advanced again, his men coming on behind him. Lucy had no option but to shuffle backward along the corridor. The doorway to her father’s room was already only a couple of yards behind her.

  ‘I’m actually a rather close acquaintance,’ Pentecost said, treating her to a smile that was transparently fake. ‘And I’m sure you’ll find, if you bother to make contact with your inner female, that stepping aside here would be perfectly okay. That it couldn’t do any harm … that it would be nothing more than an act of everyday human kindness.’

  A real hospital security guard now showed up from the darkened corridor, no doubt in response to the alarm that Nurse Reynoldson had activated with her foot. He was a young Asian guy, balding on top but with a thick black beard. Doubtless, this was Imran, the guy the night nurse had referred to. He was tall and well-built, but two of Pentecost’s accomplices swung around to face him, bringing him to an enforced halt.

  ‘The answer’s still no, Mr Pentecost, sir,’ Lucy said, hoping the severe mask she wore would conceal the fact that underneath she was shaking like a leaf. ‘In fact, you and your friends shouldn’t even be in this area. So I’ll have to ask you to vacate the Intensive Care suite altogether.’ She pointed at the glass door. ‘If you’d like to go out the way you came in.’

  Pentecost regarded her with genuine, if chilling, interest. ‘Clayburn, did you say?’

  ‘That’s right, sir.’

  ‘That name sounds familiar.’

  ‘It’s possible we’ve had contact in the past, you being who you are and me being who I am.’

  He came forward again with a slow, steady gait. Before Lucy knew it, she’d backed into the very doorway of the room where McCracken lay unconscious. She had to make a stand here. Whatever else happened, she couldn’t retreat past this point.

  ‘Clearly it wasn’t close contact,’ Pentecost said. ‘Otherwise you’d know that grandstanding like this is very ill-advised.’

  ‘Just doing my duty, sir. Now, if you and your friends would like to leave—’

  ‘Fuck this bitch!’ one of Pentecost’s thugs snapped.

  He looked younger than the others, and had a mop of unruly blond hair, but was hugely built under his tight-fitting suit. He lurched forward with fierce, leonine aggression. Lucy grabbed at the tray of surgical instruments on top of the trolley just inside the room and snatched up a scalpel.

  ‘One more step, pretty boy, and I’ll stripe that face till your mum wouldn’t know it!’

  ‘Burke!’ Pentecost snapped, his voice a whip-crack.

  The blond guy obeyed immediately, but his attack had faltered anyway, his eyes locked on the blade Lucy hefted at him.

  Fleetingly, she’d even surprised herself. Did she really care so much about her father? She tried to deny that possibility, to insist to herself that she was simply following orders here, keeping the witness isolated.

  And that involves pulling a knife?

  She held her ground, anyway. The chances were slim that they’d try to hurt McCracken in a public place like this, but suddenly, and for whatever reason, she was absolutely damned if these scumbags were going anywhere near him.

  ‘Well, well,’ Pentecost said. ‘Aren’t we the feisty one? And aren’t we maybe overstepping the mark a little bit? A group of concerned citizens come to check on the health of an ailing friend and you, a representative of the Greater Manchester Police, threaten them with violence.’

  ‘I imagine you understand other languages, Mr Pentecost,’ she replied. ‘But I can’t be completely sure.’

  ‘Now you’re just being impertinent.’

  ‘Mr McCracken is doing well. He’s had minor surgery, which apparently was completely successful, and he’s expected to make a full recovery.’ She lowered the scalpel, but not very far. ‘I don’t think there’s anything else you can do here, do you?’

  He remained blank, unemotional. But now there was something else there, an additional iciness as he appraised her. Lucy could tell that she’d finally angered him.

  ‘You know,’ he said, ‘one of the things that strong, independent women like you haven’t bargained for in this age of equal opportunities is that if you’re going to behave like men, you must expect to be treated like men … Detective Constable Clayburn of Crowley CID.’

  ‘That’s right, sir …’ She drew courage from a flickering blue light suddenly reflecting into the waiting area. ‘I told you who I am and where I can be found in the full knowledge you’d remember it very well. Which ought to indicate how much I think your threats are worth.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘You’re not untouchable, yourself, sir. Mr McCracken is the living proof. But I’ll tell you something … if it was down to me, I would step aside. Neither would I bother pursuing the guy who pulled the trigger on your friend. Because to me you’re all the same …’ And now she couldn’t help herself, all the pent-up frustration, rage and disappointment at the way both her professional and her emotional lives had gone in the last two years pouring out like bile. ‘You people are vermin dressed in three-piece suits. A bunch of rodents fattening yourselves off the backs of those who actually work for a living. I’d like nothing better than to see you tear each other to pieces. I’d pay to watch that. But unfortunately, I value my job more than I value your deaths. So as much as it pains me, Mr Pentecost, sir, I’m not going to move away from this post, and you are going nowhere –’ she gestured with the scalpel ‘– except back through that door. Right bloody now.’

  Before Pentecost or any of his mob could respond, several figures appeared behind the glass door. The one at the front was Stan Beardmore. Nurse Reynoldson, seeing that help was finally here, broke abruptly from her t
rance, slammed the mugs down onto her desk, coffee shooting everywhere, and hurried around it, crossing the corridor at speed, hitting the buzzer with her fist.

  Beardmore burst in, followed by Dave Baker, PCs Tooley and Brentwood, and a couple of other uniforms who’d only just arrived. Even the DI blanched a little at the sight of Bill Pentecost and his heavies, but the balance of power had shifted. The gangster tried to look as if none of this mattered, but visibly tensed as the coppers circled around them.

  ‘Everything all right, DC Clayburn?’ Beardmore said, standing alongside Lucy, the rest of the officers lined up behind him in a phalanx.

  ‘Certainly is, sir,’ she said. ‘Mr Pentecost and his friends were just leaving.’

  Pentecost returned Beardmore’s gaze with blood-freezing intensity.

  ‘You need to go, Mr Pentecost,’ Beardmore said simply. ‘This is the Intensive Care Unit. The staff here have got important work to do.’

  A brief silent tension followed, during which Lucy fancied it was possible to hear the wheels and gears of Bill Pentecost’s slow-grinding rage.

  ‘Well done, DC Clayburn,’ he finally said. It was barely a mumble, but they heard it. ‘You’ve certainly earned your pay tonight. You go off now and make sure you enjoy it.’

  He turned towards the door, his cronies parting for him and then falling into line behind him. Before he left, the blond one hawked up a wad of phlegm and spat it on the floor.

  Only when the door closed behind them, the electronic catch thudding into place, did the police relax. Breaths were exhaled, helmets removed from sweat-soaked heads. Lucy felt like a marionette with its strings cut; she was ready to collapse.

  ‘You okay?’ Beardmore asked her.

  She nodded but couldn’t speak.

  ‘You can put that down now, if you want.’ He nodded at the scalpel, which she hadn’t realised she was still clutching in her right hand.

  ‘Sorry, Stan,’ she stammered. ‘I need to sit.’

  ‘I’m not surprised. You did well.’ He put an arm around her shoulders and squeezed. ‘You did very well indeed. Have a minute in there.’ He nodded into McCracken’s room, to one of the two armchairs alongside the bed. ‘I’ll try and find out what happened.’

  ‘There was a phoney security guard,’ she said. ‘He let them in, but he’s probably already gone.’

  ‘We need to make sure he’s not still here somewhere. You get yourself sorted. But only for a minute … we need to be way sharper than we have been. At least Firearms are en route. Should be here in the next five.’

  ‘What about the shooting in town?’

  ‘Your guess is as good as mine. They couldn’t find anything. In the meantime, we’ve got to lock this place down properly …’

  While Beardmore strode off along the corridor, shouting orders, Lucy meandered into the room, threw the scalpel on the tray, and all but fell into one of the armchairs. Briefly, she was so physically enfeebled that she didn’t know if she could lift a hand in front of her face.

  ‘Well,’ a croaky voice said. ‘Standing up to the boss of bosses. Life doesn’t send many tougher challenges than that.’

  Lucy glanced at the bed, where McCracken’s eyes were open, though they were dull and watery. He’d barely moved from his previous position and was still cadaverously pale.

  ‘You were awake?’ she asked him.

  ‘Only partially,’ he said. ‘Don’t think I’d have been much use to you. Besides, I was enjoying watching you look out for your old man.’

  ‘That wasn’t what it was.’

  ‘You sure?’ He cracked a pained smile. ‘Thought you’d be happy watching us rodents eat each other … till it came to your dad, and then it was a different story, wasn’t it?’

  ‘I’m a police officer,’ she hissed. ‘I have a duty to protect.’

  ‘Keep telling yourself that …’

  ‘Don’t you bloody tell me what I think and believe!’

  ‘Doubt you’d be this upset if there wasn’t a grain of truth in it. But if it’s any consolation, love …’ He tried to adjust position, cringing with pain. ‘If it’s a consolation, Wild Bill was probably only here to do what he said … check out the health of a colleague. At a time when the press wouldn’t be around. So, if it was about doing your duty … it was a brave but wasted effort.’

  ‘Yeah, well, I wouldn’t get too carried away with how clever you are,’ she said. ‘It can’t go on, this – me keeping my mouth shut, watching my colleagues run around banging their heads on brick walls while I pretend I don’t know stuff. The first opportunity I get, I’m going to tell my boss exactly what my and your relationship is. And I’ll take any consequences that come my way.’

  He seemed too agonised to be overly concerned. ‘There won’t be much down for you on the promotion front.’

  ‘You think I care? I’m happy being a detective constable … or at least I would be, if I wasn’t always feeling that I’m playing for the other side.’

  ‘No one asked you to do anything for us, Lucy.’

  ‘Christ’s sake, Dad … caring about you is too much. We should be enemies. I shouldn’t give a shit about you.’

  ‘And how will telling your gaffers improve that situation?’

  ‘At least then everyone will know their limits. They’ll know what I can and can’t be asked to do, and why.’

  He rolled his eyes towards her, though even that seemed to hurt him. ‘So … you’re happy to be compromised, to say, “Hey lads, I can’t be trusted.”’

  ‘Damn it, Dad!’ she half-shouted. ‘I can’t be trusted! Not by the people who really matter to me. You might be able to live with something like that. But I can’t. Not any more.’

  ‘In my case it won’t be about whether I can live with it as much as whether I’ll be allowed to live. Like you said before, you tell your lot and word will have got to our lot in half a day.’

  ‘I know,’ she said. ‘And I’m sorry.’

  ‘You understand what that means, Lucy? I’m stuck here for at least another week. I’ll be a sitting duck.’

  She stood up, torn with frustration. ‘They’re not going to kill you because of this.’

  He forced a chuckle. ‘You’ve just met Wild Bill. Do you want to reconsider that statement?’

  Suddenly, she was too weary to argue further. ‘I don’t have to say anything straight away.’

  ‘So I get a head-start? Good, that’s something. Question is, will it be sufficient to get your mum to a place of safety?’

  ‘Oh, now … don’t give me that.’

  ‘Don’t give you what? If they can’t get me, who do you think they’ll go after instead?’

  ‘That’s bollocks.’

  ‘You reckon? There’s no point going after Charlie. From what I’ve overheard, she’ll be in here a lot longer than me. Might as well be the next woman in my life.’

  ‘You’re a lying bastard!’

  ‘The truth is, Lucy –’ he gave her a frank but hollow stare ‘– I don’t know whether they will or won’t. But you’ve got to consider the possibility.’

  ‘If it comes down to it, I’ll protect Mum.’

  ‘Yeah. You and that army of lads who suddenly won’t trust you any more.’

  ‘I’m not debating it with you.’ She stormed from the room.

  ‘There won’t be any debate,’ he called after her, wincing again. ‘There won’t be time for that.’

  Chapter 34

  He hadn’t been a bobby for very long, but this was undoubtedly the worst job that Malcolm Peabody had ever been allocated. It wasn’t so much the stench of the landfill, cloying though it was – to an extent, he’d acclimatised to that by now. Or the all-pervading darkness – he had the torch that Lucy had brought him. Or even the loneliness; he’d been posted out here now, alongside the dog-pit, for ten hours, and hadn’t seen or heard from a living soul – but that was often a copper’s lot.

  It was the boredom.

  Sitting around waiting for s
omething to happen was not exactly unusual in police work. But most officers, if they were on an obbo or stakeout, would try to get on with some paperwork, or study for their next exam. But neither of those options was available at present. He’d tried playing games on his phone but had soon become worried by how quickly it was running the battery down. As his radio battery was already out of juice, if he lost the phone as well he’d be completely cut off out here.

  Of course, all this had been exacerbated enormously, because he’d been due to finish at three o’clock, but at five-to had received a phone-call from the night shift duty officer, Inspector Robertson, who’d told him that they couldn’t spare anyone for another couple of hours as there’d been major incidents across the division.

  ‘Thanks for this, Lucy,’ he muttered as he wandered up and down on trampled garbage, his feet occasionally crunching through into soft, stagnant mulch. ‘Now I’m here till five.’

  He glanced irritably at his watch. It showed less than a couple of minutes’ advance since the last time he’d checked it.

  ‘Christ,’ he muttered.

  A couple of times, he’d tried to get himself comfortable on one of the old chairs set up yesterday afternoon by Sister Cassie’s weird congregation. But most were broken or lopsided, and those that weren’t sank into the grime when he applied his weight to them. He couldn’t even sit on the ground. God alone knew what he might discover if he did that: broken glass, a nail, a syringe, at the very least slimy filth.

  So he had to keep walking, plodding around the outside of the incident tape. But it wasn’t a big area they’d cordoned off, forty yards by forty, and he could pull an entire circuit only to find that he’d be back where he’d started in less than half a minute. He tried to figure out how many circuits he’d have to make before his relief showed up, but that was impossible given that he didn’t know exactly when his relief was due. It was supposed to be sometime around five o’clock, but it could just as easily be half-past five or half-past six. Everything depended on what these big events taking place on the division actually were.