by Paul Finch
‘A witness inside the restaurant kitchen says that he only caught a glimpse of what happened through the window, but he could have sworn that someone in your party returned fire,’ Nehwal said. ‘Not a lot. Just a single shot.’
McCracken shrugged. ‘I’m sure you’ll agree that neither me nor Charlie were in any fit state to do that.’
‘You said in your initial statement that you were knocked unconscious instantly, or at least you assume you were, because you weren’t aware of anything else for quite some time.’
‘If you disbelieve that, I suggest you try taking a pistol shot to the collar-bone yourself, Detective Superintendent Nehwal. See what impact it has on you.’
‘I’ll pass,’ Nehwal said, watching him carefully. ‘But the thing is … what I have real trouble believing is your assertion that you’ve got no idea who it was who whisked you away from the restaurant and dropped you off here.’
‘Your mysterious kitchen witness can’t assist with that?’
‘Sadly, he’d gone to get help. When he came back with others, you’d already gone. As had your assailant.’
He made a gesture. ‘One of life’s good Samaritans, I guess.’
‘The vehicle that dropped you off at the hospital was caught on several different surveillance cameras and identified. But it was one that had been stolen several months ago in Burnley. We’ve found no trace of it since. Likewise, we’ve found no trace of your rather swish Bentley. It certainly wasn’t in the car park, where you supposedly left it.’
McCracken responded with a helpless shrug. ‘Perhaps not quite so good a Samaritan then.’
He gave Lucy a brief stare, and she had to avert her eyes. She’d never felt worse as a policewoman, standing here alongside her boss, knowing full well what really happened after the Crowley Old Hall shooting, and not just keeping schtum about it, but allowing her superior to continue the line of questioning, inadvertently making a complete fool of her.
‘You’ve nothing else to add?’ Nehwal said.
‘I’m afraid not.’
‘Well … in that case there’s nothing else to ask. We’ll leave you in peace.’
McCracken nodded and gave them a genial smile.
‘But I will send word when we get the result of that ballistics test,’ Nehwal said from the doorway. ‘I’m sure you’re dying to know the outcome.’
It was late morning when Lucy and Nehwal returned to Robber’s Row. There was minimal space on the personnel car park, lots of bodies from the Serious Crimes Division having arrived. Nehwal, already gabbling on the phone, went upstairs to the Incident room to brief her team. Lucy would have gone with her, but Tessa Payne accosted her in the corridor outside the DO, waving two sheets of print-out.
‘Lucy, you sent a request to the forensics lab last night, concerning an attack on a homeless person?’
‘They’ve done it already?’
‘Sounds like they’re clearing the decks now there’s been a double murder on the patch.’
‘Okay, so what’ve we got?’
‘A result … of sorts.’ Payne handed the paper over. It comprised two rap-sheets. ‘I took the liberty of pulling these off the system for you. The one on top is the one you’re looking for. It was her DNA under the assault victim’s fingernail. Very minor form, though.’
Lucy saw an image of a gawky teenage girl with long but messy blonde hair. Her OTT makeup was blotched by tears; she’d clearly been upset at the time of her arrest.
‘Alyssa Torgau,’ Lucy said, reading the details. ‘Fifteen years old … shoplifting.’
‘Like I say, hardly the villain of villains.’
‘This was back in 2014, which would only make her nineteen now.’
‘I was wondering about that … think they could have made a mistake?’
‘No.’ Lucy recollected the lithe, blonde-haired figure that had eluded her through the industrial basements. ‘But it’s a puzzler. I’m just wondering when this silly young cow went and joined the commandos.’
‘What?’
‘Nothing.’ Lucy flipped the papers around. ‘Who’s the other one?’
‘That’s her dad, Martin Torgau. I only include him because he’s the only known associate she’s got.’
This suspect – though ‘suspect’ was probably too strong a word at this stage – had a little more form. His last and only arrest had been in 2002, in Liverpool, when he’d been imprisoned for a year and a half for illegal possession of a handgun and for carrying a banned knife, though he was released after eight months for good behaviour.
Lucy was intrigued that he’d been jailed at all, but there were plenty of additional notations on his sheet to explain this. It seemed that he’d been arrested after paying a taxi fare, his overcoat falling open and the driver catching a glimpse of what looked like the butt of a pistol hanging in a shoulder-holster. On being taken into custody, the pistol was found to be a loaded Beretta M9, which was heavy stuff. A full body search had then found what was described as a ‘Rambo knife’ strapped to his lower left leg – which made Lucy think about the cross-guarded fighting knife she’d seen in the possession of her assailant at St Clement’s. But more important than any of this, Torgau had refused to explain his possession of these implements during interview. He’d admitted his guilt and apologised but had pointedly said nothing else.
The Merseyside detective on the case had been so concerned by this, because he’d felt that possession of such weapons meant the guy was more than he appeared to be, that he’d made a big issue of Torgau’s lack of cooperation, which the CPS later reflected in court, and the trial judge agreed with.
An additional footnote added that Martin Torgau, who’d been a widower at the time, had two young daughters, Alyssa and Ivana, twins, who, as there were no other living relatives, were placed in a Catholic care home for the brief time he was imprisoned.
Lucy wondered if she was going crazy. ‘Alyssa Torgau attacked a nun … having been held in a Catholic care home when she was a kid. Is that some kind of link?’
‘Not following,’ Tessa Payne said.
‘Sorry, Tess. Thinking aloud. And then that bloody commando knife …’ Lucy tried to concentrate on the paperwork. ‘Home address was 27, Cedar Lane, Cotely Barn. Do they both still live there?’
‘Yeah. I checked with the Voters’ Roll.’
‘Excellent work, Tessa. I mean it … this is great.’
Payne beamed in response. ‘I’m guessing we’ve got a new lead?’
‘Well … we’ve got a lead on whoever attacked Sister Cassiopeia. And that’s something.’ Lucy lowered the documents. ‘How are you doing with the CCTV?’
‘A bit to go yet. Boring as hell.’
‘No hits, though?’
‘There’s no shortage of transit vans. The trouble is they’re all registered to legitimate companies.’
‘You’re making a list of them anyway?’
‘Sure. But there are none running under dummy plates. None that I’ve spotted. And I’ve got lots more footage to look through yet.’
‘Because now that Malcolm Peabody’s off sick, someone’s going to have to do the mission halls and shelters as well.’
For all the enthusiasm she wanted to project in the presence of her idol, Payne looked wearied simply by the prospect of this.
‘Sorry, babes,’ Lucy said. ‘But we’re all pulled out.’
Payne nodded. ‘Least it’ll get me out the office.’
‘Plus, I’ll be able to help you. For the meantime, though, get on with the flicks.’ Lucy folded the print-outs. ‘I’ll check out the Torgau situation.’
Payne wandered back into the DO, while Lucy went out to the car park, jumped onto her bike and hit the streets. She already had more than enough to arrest this Alyssa Torgau, but that would not have been the clever way to do it. Circumstantial evidence, very circumstantial, connected the girl – and maybe her father, because someone had been driving that van she escaped in – to the other abductions, a
nd that in its turn connected them – possibly, maybe – to the dog carcasses on the landfill, which – possibly, maybe – connected them to the double strangulation on the Aggies, which – also possibly, maybe – connected them to the shooting of Frank McCracken.
That was an awful lot of possibles and maybes to use as a basis for going crashing in. So the first thing to do was check out the lie of the land at Cedar Lane. She would head over there now, but not on her Ducati, because that would likely attract interest in a quiet neighbourhood. Instead, she went first to her mother’s terraced house in Saltbridge, where she’d left her Jimny the previous day.
When she arrived, the Jimny still sat at the front. She rode around to the back, installed her bike in the yard shed, briefly examined the visor on her dented helmet, which still hung loose at one side, and deciding to take it with her to try to get it repaired later, walked through the house. It was empty, her mum being out at work, so she locked up behind her, threw her helmet into the Jimny’s rear seat, climbed in and headed back across town towards the much more prosperous suburb of Cotely Barn.
She was there within fifteen minutes, her driver’s window down as she cruised, seeing lush front gardens, a few now reddening in the early days of autumn, and pleasant detached houses built in cottage and country styles. The neighbourhood was quiet, as she’d expected, most folk now at work, and the kids at school – which was not necessarily a good thing, as it made her more noticeable. The trick in that case was to keep her visit short and sweet.
On Cedar Lane itself, she spotted No. 27 straight away. It was only different from the others in that it was prettier than most, a large detached in handsome beige brick, with neatly pruned ivy cladding its front. However, the thing that caught Lucy’s eye most was an extension on the left side of the house. It looked as if it had been constructed relatively recently, and now connected what had formerly been a free-standing garage to the main building. Ostensibly, of course, this had been to accommodate a fifth bedroom over the top of the garage, but it also meant that if someone was to park inside the garage, any illicit cargo could be transferred indoors without any danger of prying eyes.
Despite that, when Lucy glided to a halt opposite, she wondered if she’d ventured too far into the realms of supposition. The route she’d followed here was tenuous enough without going back to Priya Nehwal and telling her that she’d found the killers because they’d recently added a new room to their house. Nothing about the building stood out otherwise. On first appearances, the whole place was terribly respectable. The car on the drive was a silver Volvo V90 estate, while further up, inside the open garage, Lucy could see what looked like a black Audi A3. Both carried relatively recent registration marks, which meant they’d be expensive – and wealth rarely went hand in hand with violent crime.
Unless it’s violent crime of the organised variety, her inner detective told her.
Lucy considered that.
And DNA rarely if ever lied.
She studied the Volvo estate, thinking that you probably couldn’t find a better kind of car if you wanted to smuggle bodies or prisoners, or both, into and out of a house in a built-up area. She glanced past it to the Audi, and for the first time noticed that its front nearside light-cluster had been broken and was now covered with cellophane.
Everyone’s car got bumped from time to time. Nicks and scratches were commonplace. But was it really too much of a stretch to – possibly, maybe – link this damage to the unresolved shooting incident in central Crowley the previous night?
Then someone stepped in front of her, blotting out her view of the property.
Lucy was so surprised that at first she couldn’t react.
Whoever it was, they’d stolen up from behind, and she’d been so absorbed in the house and the two cars that she hadn’t realised. She glanced up and saw a girl of about nineteen. She had spiky blonde hair with red highlights, shaved at the sides. She was wearing a large denim jacket over a summery dress, but both hands were deep in her jacket pockets.
‘House-hunting, are we?’ the girl said.
‘Sorry.’ Lucy tried a disarming smile. She was in plain clothes, so there was no reason for anyone to assume the worst. ‘Yes, actually. I was just checking the area.’
The girl didn’t return the smile. Anything but. Her blue eyes literally blazed. ‘Had a bump on your bike recently?’
Immediately, with a gut-thumping shock, Lucy realised her error: the helmet in the back seat.
‘Out!’ the girl hissed, her hands still in their pockets, but the right one pushed forward against the material, the metallic object she clearly held in there aimed directly at Lucy’s face.
Instinctively, Lucy’s hand strayed towards the pocket where she normally kept her radio – only to remember that, thanks to rushing to respond to the Malcolm Peabody situation that morning, she hadn’t yet thought to check one out.
‘Quickly and quietly!’ the girl instructed her. ‘Don’t think I won’t shoot! There’s no one round here during the day … I can do what I fucking want!’
Lucy felt like contesting that, asking why, if there were no potential witnesses here, the girl was concealing her gun, but there was something about that crazed expression that brooked no argument. So she complied, turning her engine off, climbing from the car.
‘Keys!’ the girl said, her left hand coming into view. ‘You fucking bitch.’
Hand shaking, Lucy handed the car keys over.
‘Across the road … up the drive and into the garage.’
This time Lucy resisted, until the girl stepped behind and prodded her in the spine with a cloth-covered muzzle, which indicated that she really did have a gun down there. ‘You want I should do it this way?’ she asked. ‘Sever your nervous system with a single shot?’
Sever my nervous system … Christ.
Lucy started forward across the road, praying that another car would come along, or some friendly neighbour step outside for a chat. Though what would they see if they did? A neighbour’s daughter whom they’d known all their lives? A potential house-buyer being shown around? Lucy could shout for help, of course, but her captor seemed to be reading her mind.
‘Quickly!’ she hissed as they walked up the drive. ‘And don’t open that pretty trap of yours, or it’ll be the last thing you ever do.’
This message was delivered with such harsh intensity, that Lucy had no doubt it was true.
‘I mean it, pig,’ the girl added, as they entered the garage alongside the Audi. ‘You’ve given us no choice. I’ll blow you the fuck away.’
If Lucy had harboured any doubt that she was onto the right team, it ended there.
You’ve given us no choice, the girl had said. Us. She and whoever else she was involved with really were playing for high stakes, and were so alert, so paranoid, that they’d immediately fingered a casual observer as law enforcement.
Lucy heard a click. With a slow, grating sound, the garage door levered downward behind them, closing off the daylight.
‘You know it was never part of our plan to kill a copper,’ the girl said. ‘And we could’ve killed one last night. We nearly did. We thought that might be the best way to cover our backs. But then we said, “Nah … they’re good lads. They work hard, they have families. We don’t want to hurt decent chaps like that.”’
With a resounding thud, the garage door closed.
The girl chuckled loudly. ‘Actually, no.’ Her voice became hard, scornful. ‘We didn’t even think anything like that. We just didn’t want you coming after us with everything you’ve got. But seeing as you’ve done that anyway, maybe we should’ve put a match to him, hey?’ She chuckled again. ‘I’ll tell you one thing, doll … we’ll certainly be putting a match to you.’
Chapter 37
Mick Shallicker found Frank McCracken on a bench on a lawn outside an open fire-exit at the rear of St Winifred’s. It wasn’t a particularly relaxing place; there were a few straggly flowerbeds, and then a car park, from whic
h vehicles came and went constantly. And McCracken didn’t look particularly relaxed, perched stiffly with ruffled hair and a grizzled jaw, wearing only slippers, pyjama bottoms and an NHS-issue dressing gown draped over his bare shoulders to accommodate the sling and bandages.
‘I wondered when you were going to show up,’ he said sourly.
Shallicker stood there awkwardly. ‘Seems the Old Bill don’t consider you worth guarding any more.’
‘I suspect because I’m not actually giving them anything.’
‘You okay to be outside?’
‘They’ve moved me to a recovery ward. If I’m good for that, I’m good for the fresh air … at least, there’s no chance of concealed microphones out here.’
Shallicker nodded thoughtfully. ‘How’s Charlie?’
‘Apparently, she’s going to be all right.’
The big guy looked relieved. ‘That’s good.’
‘But she’s had major surgery, so it’s going to be a long one. Six months, maybe.’
‘Shit.’
McCracken looked up at him. His voice grated as he spoke. ‘I’m more concerned about what the blue fuck’s been going on elsewhere!’
Shallicker raised his hands. ‘First of all, I had no choice … I had to bring you here. I thought you were going to kick it.’
‘I’m not concerned about that. I mean O’Grady.’
‘Well … it was him, Frank. We both saw him.’
‘We’re never likely to see him again, are we! Just tell me it wasn’t you, Mick.’
‘Course it wasn’t.’
‘Because I’d expect schoolboys to do a better fucking job than that.’
‘Yeah, well …’ Shallicker gestured that he would sit if that was okay. McCracken moved up and he plonked himself down. ‘You’re more right about that than you realise.’
‘In what way?’
‘First of all …’ Fleetingly, Shallicker seemed tongue-tied. It was a new experience for McCracken to see his gigantic minder so uneasy, and he wasn’t enjoying it. ‘First of all … I shat myself after I’d brought you here. I knew I should’ve gone looking for one of our own sawbones, but like I say, I thought you’d had it, Charlie especially. Anyway, I didn’t want to hang around waiting for Wild Bill to come to me. So, I went to him … well, I rang him. Told him what had happened. He ripped me a fucking new one, as I thought he would. But he was less pissed off when I told him the shooter was O’Grady, and that it was retaliation for you putting the muscle on him over an earner. He told me to leave it to him.’
