Strangers

by Paul Finch

  Lucy had filed a separate report concerning Bianca after her very first shift, because the woman carried a blade and had used it threateningly – but in due course it had been marked “No further action”. There were two main problems with Bianca as a suspect. Firstly, the knife she’d pulled was nowhere near big enough to be the murder weapon. Secondly, and more conclusively, Jill the Ripper was thought to be white whereas Bianca was black.

  Not that Lucy was entirely comfortable in her presence, even if they did now stand side-by-side applying fresh lipstick.

  Bianca glanced at the marker-written slogan over the top of Lucy’s mirror. ‘“Blowjob Queen of Manchester” …? That the secret of your success? Getting all these young, clean-looking lads, I mean?’

  Lucy shrugged. ‘Wasn’t head-girl at school for nothing.’

  Bianca chuckled. ‘I’ll bet you bloody weren’t. But it’s no surprise you can afford to turn all those ugly buggers down, when you get so many hunks as well.’

  ‘Gotta keep my standards up,’ Lucy said jokily, but at the same time making a mental note that if so many of the other girls had now clocked that she seemed to attract more than her fair share of punters who were young and square-jawed, it wouldn’t be long before they decided this was odd.

  She rang Slater at the first opportunity to request a couple of older, scruffier specimens. Accordingly, her first customer the following evening was Des Barton, a DC from the Serious Crimes Division, who was somewhere in his late forties. Des was of West Indian descent, short, tubby and balding, the only hair left on his head growing in thin, grey tufts behind his ears. Lucy would come to learn that both he and his beaten-up old Volkswagen Beetle existed in a permanently untidy state, the car dented and scratched, while Des’s shirt and tie always looked to be in need of an iron and his shabby beige overcoat was a cliché all of its own.

  He was clearly aware of this, and apologised that first time he picked her up.

  ‘Sorry about my dishevelled state,’ he said in a broad but cheery Moss Side accent, which he had to shout at her in order to be heard over the grumbling engine. ‘Yvonne didn’t have time to sort me out this morning.’

  ‘Yvonne?’ Lucy asked as they chugged down the East Lancs.

  ‘The wife.’

  ‘Your wife needs to sort you out?’

  ‘Yeah, but she can’t. Got six nippers, you see. The eldest’s only thirteen. Bloody bedlam in our house. Especially this weekend. She’s doing a Halloween party for the little ’uns.’

  ‘It never enters your head to sort yourself out?’ Lucy wondered,

  ‘Well, that’s what Yvonne says,’ Des replied. ‘But we’re all busy, aren’t we?’

  ‘Perhaps it’s you who should be sorting Yvonne out?’

  ‘Ooh, you’re wicked!’ He gave a squawking laugh. ‘Nah, I didn’t mean it like that. Only kidding, chuck.’ He laughed again, rather infectiously. ‘Anyway … got any leads for us?’

  This made him the first of Lucy’s ‘clients’ to enquire about her progress, but of course Des was a detective, not a TSG man.

  ‘Not much, I’m afraid,’ she replied. But then she thought about it a little. ‘The most talkative is this girl, Tammy. I looked her up on the system. Didn’t expect to find her, only having a first name to work with … but there she was, bold as brass. Tammy Nethercot.’

  ‘Lots of form?’ Des asked.

  ‘Yeah. All petty stuff. Sad case really. But she’s the most likely to give me something.’

  ‘Nothing solid yet, though?’

  ‘Nothing yet.’

  Lucy hadn’t expected to see much more of Tammy, having moved her own pitch to the lorry park, but it wasn’t long before Tammy was popping up there too. Perhaps her ‘tough girl’ act of the first night was all for show and the experience of having excrement thrown in her face had made her feel a little vulnerable out there on the edge of the dual carriageway. In the lorry park, which was still close to the road but where there were plenty more people around and lots of parked and idling vehicles, it was likely the punters would keep a lower profile. She also seemed to enjoy Lucy’s company, seeking it out whenever she could.

  As they drove on in Des’s car, Lucy thought long and hard about her new ‘friend’.

  Tammy was twenty-two and still had her looks, just about. Her hair was thick and copper-red and hung past her shoulders. She also had those bright green eyes, which, when they weren’t glazed with alcohol, possessed a remarkable lustre. She might only have been five feet tall, but she had a slim waist, curved hips and a sizeable burst, which always looked good in the mini-dresses, shiny tights and high-heeled shoes she favoured. Even in late October, with the leaves spinning down from a slate-grey sky, the wind ever colder and filled with spattering rain, she affected the same get-up, her only modification as the weather deteriorated a warmer fur jacket with a zip and a big collar which came down to just under her ribcage. The overall ensemble looked great from a distance, especially when Tammy remembered to wiggle her way across the lorry park rather than drunkenly trudge.

  But with Tammy the drinking was a problem that would clearly never go away. She wasn’t soused every time Lucy met her, but she always smelled of it, which was never a good sign. The kid often got loaded before she even turned out. Lucy smelled it on her breath whenever they hooked up. And if she didn’t do it before she appeared, she would definitely do it afterwards. There was never an occasion when Lucy didn’t glance into Tammy’s shoulder bag and spot a bottle of vodka, from which the girl would take regular swigs. But even without the booze, Tammy was reckless. She wasn’t the sharpest tool in the box anyway, but combine this with her lifestyle choice, and it was a disaster waiting to happen.

  Three nights before, for example, Tammy had confided in Lucy that she was finishing early as she’d had a good day. To illustrate, she’d revealed a rubber-banded brick of tens and twenties even though she’d only serviced three clients. When Lucy had asked how she’d managed this miraculous feat, Tammy had replied that the last one had wanted to go bareback with her and so had offered double the asking-price. Tammy had then boasted that she’d held out for treble before consenting. When Lucy had called her ‘a little fool’ and told her she must never take such a risk again, Tammy had responded by telling her to ‘naff off’, before laughing drunkenly, kissing her on the cheek and saying that the john ‘was an old coot who looked dead respectable – shirt, tie, suit, driving a Jag … he’s not going to have anything bad, is he?’

  ‘It depends how many girls he goes bareback with, doesn’t it?’ Lucy had replied. ‘If that’s his thing and he’s got the money, it could be quite a number.’

  Tammy’d told her to ‘naff off’ again and stumbled away.

  The following night, Tammy had tried to withhold some money from Digby, her pimp. She’d decided she needed another bottle before she went home, so she’d concealed three twenties in the most personal place she could think of. Digby, who was about six-four and always dressed like a cowboy, even down to the heeled boots, drainpipe jeans, big-buckled belt and fancy-patterned shirt, hadn’t been fooled – and had found the missing readies by lifting her dress and cramming his hand down the front of her knickers. Right out there on the café car park. He’d then frogmarched her to a quiet corner where his own vehicle was parked, a black Land Rover with tinted windows, put her in the back, removed that big-buckled belt of his and dealt it to her bare backside at least twenty times.

  Tammy had merely shrugged afterwards, sitting down at a café table opposite Lucy, but only delicately. ‘That’s Digby’s thing,’ she’d said, sniffling back what remained of her tears. ‘Fuck it, I don’t mind. There are plenty punters want the same thing …’

  ‘You still with us?’ Des Barton asked, interrupting Lucy’s thoughts.

  ‘What … oh yeah, sorry. Miles away.’

  ‘You were saying about this Tammy Nethercot …?’

  ‘Yeah.’ Lucy related the latest event in the young prostitute’s life, the one
involving Digby. ‘Like I say … sad case.’

  ‘Aren’t they always?’

  ‘Don’t know what her home-life’s like. She never mentions a boyfriend.’

  ‘That prat, Digby, will have been her boyfriend once,’ Des said. ‘Least, that’s what he’ll have told her. That’s usually how they get them into it. I think I know who you mean when you mention him. Big goon … real name’s Carl Bretherton. Dresses like Gary Cooper.’

  ‘Gary who?’

  ‘Don’t wind me up, I’m not that much older than you.’

  Lucy smiled.

  ‘He may dress like Gary Cooper,’ Des said again, ‘but when he opens his gob all that nasal Salford shite comes out. Used to be a bouncer. Think he spent time clamping cars too.’

  ‘Suppose there’s a kind of thread there,’ Lucy observed. ‘First he bullies drunks, then he bullies motorists, now he bullies hookers.’

  ‘Way it is, isn’t it?’

  She shook her head. ‘I really wanted to do something, Des. I mean, I know we have to be careful … but the way he was marching her across that car park to belt her on the arse … I so wanted to do something.’

  ‘Be thankful you didn’t … or all our arses’d be on the line now.’

  ‘Thing is … Tammy’s been around a bit. I know she’s only a kid, but I get the feeling she’s been on the game quite a while. She’s gradually slipping me more and more titbits. Who works for who, which pimps are the worst, which punters to avoid.’

  ‘But she’s never once mentioned Jill the Ripper?’

  ‘Only to say “that lass is doing a job for us”.’

  Des threw her a look as he drove. ‘She didn’t …?’

  ‘No, she didn’t mean anything. All the ones I’ve spoken to … they’re indifferent to it really. It’s like it’s just more of the same violence they see and hear about all the time. They get brutalised themselves often enough.’

  ‘It’s bigger news than that surely? It’s all over the papers and telly.’

  ‘Well, Tammy doesn’t read the papers. I don’t know whether she watches TV. She drinks that much she probably can’t focus on the screen.’

  ‘Perhaps it’s time you cultivated a new contact?’

  Lucy considered this viewpoint. There was more than a modicum of sense in it. In all probability she’d already got what she realistically could from Tammy. Why should the girl open up any more than she already had? They were friends of convenience, nothing more. It might be that in due course they’d come to mean more to each other, but how long would that take? Weeks? Months? Even the most pessimistic analysts attached to Operation Clearway expected they’d have a suspect in custody before then.

  Lucy glanced from the car window. The normal process whenever she got picked up by whoever it happened to be was to head as far away from the Boothstown lorry park as they could so that she wouldn’t get spotted by any of the other girls or punters, and to keep driving, staying on the move for at least an hour so that by the time she’d returned it appeared that she’d given her client a full service. They’d already pulled off the dual carriageway and had switched roads several times while they’d been chatting. It was pure coincidence that a lay-by now appeared on their left, with a static fish-and-chip caravan at the eastern end and large sections of the rest of it, particularly around a stile in the middle of its rear hedgerow, barricaded off by stands of fluttering incident-tape.

  ‘Hey,’ Lucy said. ‘Isn’t this …?’

  ‘Yep,’ Des replied as they cruised past. ‘Where that Ronnie Ford got murdered.’

  She was surprised to see no police personnel on the site, not even a uniform to stand guard. ‘CSIs finished with it now?’

  ‘Probably,’ he said. ‘They were here two weeks.’

  ‘Stop, will you?’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Humour me, Des … stop the car.’

  Shrugging, he steered his Beetle into the lay-by, pulling it to a halt at the western end. Lucy buttoned her plastic mac over her saucy gear, before climbing out. It was now just after five-thirty in the evening, and dusk had fallen properly. But she could still see the desolate autumnal fields to the north, only dotted here and there with farm outbuildings. Whatever lay south was screened by the hedgerow, but she already knew that extensive woodland lay somewhere over there. She pivoted around, scanning each direction to its horizon.

  ‘Not much out here, is there?’ she said.

  ‘Well … there’s a chippie van.’ Des sounded pleased. He slammed the driver’s door, and dug into his coat pocket to see what change he had. ‘Seems a shame not to sample his wares while we’re here.’

  ‘You not had any tea?’

  ‘None whatsoever.’

  ‘There you go.’ She closed the passenger door. ‘What could be more convenient?’

  Des locked up and they walked along the lay-by.

  ‘You eating too?’ he asked.

  ‘No, but I’ll have a chat with him.’ She brushed her hair with her fingers to try and straighten it. She was aware of her overly heavy make-up, but there was nothing they could do about that. ‘I don’t look too tarty, do I?’

  ‘You look gorgeous.’

  ‘That doesn’t answer my question.’

  ‘He’s a chippie man. He won’t care as long as your money’s good.’

  They skirted past the taped-off section in front of the stile. Beyond it, thanks to the twilight, only a vague glimpse was possible of the farm field across which Ronnie Ford had traipsed to his death.

  ‘Just out of interest,’ Des said, ‘if you’re thinking of asking if he saw anything, I wouldn’t bother. He’s been interviewed half a dozen times already.’

  ‘I wonder if anyone asked him the right questions though.’

  ‘Eh?’

  ‘The other day I was looking at some of the bumph I got sent when we started this thing,’ Lucy said. ‘These murders are all very organised, aren’t they? For the most part, well-planned?’

  ‘We think so, yeah.’

  ‘And Jill the Ripper brought Ronnie Ford here, rather than it being the other way round?’

  ‘That’s the theory.’

  ‘So how did she know about it?’

  ‘This lay-by?

  ‘And that wood? How did she know there’d be a quiet, hidden spot a hundred yards past the stile?’

  ‘Maybe she lives round here.’

  Lucy expanded her arms. ‘No one lives round here, Des.’

  ‘So … what’re you saying?’

  ‘She must’ve scoped the place out beforehand. Look … he picks her up at Atherton, which is quite a few miles away. They drive all the way here together, and suddenly she gets him to park up. This happened after seven in the evening. Which is long after this chippie van closes, yeah?’

  The fish-and-chip caravan – which was logoed Mark’s Eats: fish, chips, burgers, pies – was still fifty yards ahead, but they were approaching it fast.

  ‘Again, that’s the theory,’ Des replied. ‘The vendor had certainly gone home before it happened.’

  ‘Which is further evidence that Jill knew about this place in advance.’

  ‘Not necessarily. It could be that she got lucky in the timing. The murders of Crumper and Hall were very opportunistic.’

  ‘I don’t think this one was,’ Lucy said. ‘At the very least, she must’ve known what time the chippie van would close.’

  ‘Or she just saw that it was closed when they happened to drive past.’

  ‘Okay … well she must’ve known that the footpath on the other side of the stile would lead into a wood, not to a housing estate or a farmyard or something, where there were likely to be witnesses around.’

  ‘Okay, but I’m still not sure what point you’re actually trying to make …’

  ‘That she’d already been here on a recce!’ Lucy said, exasperated. ‘The next question is who’s to say the chippie van was closed when she did that?’

  Des seemed bemused. ‘Lucy, me and you
are not part of the investigation team. You’re aware of that?’

  ‘We’re still coppers.’

  ‘Hang on a minute …’

  They’d now almost reached the caravan. A large male figure in a white apron, his sleeves rolled back on meaty forearms, stood behind its serving-hatch.

  ‘Just leave it to me,’ Lucy said. ‘I’m only asking him a couple of questions.’

  The guy behind the hatch leaned on his elbows to watch as they trekked the last twenty yards. He was somewhere in early middle age, his mop of black hair greying at the edges and combed over in a 1970s-style side-parting. Up close, there was something of the bulldog about him, his unshaved face etched with a truculent frown. He wore blue, semi-translucent gloves, while his white apron was strangely pristine.

  ‘Evening,’ Lucy said.

  ‘Evening.’ The guy’s tone was almost weary.

  ‘You Mark?’ she enquired.

  The question seemed to weary him even more. ‘It’s a company name, love.’ He straightened up. ‘But while we’re asking, who are you?… as if I didn’t know already.’

  Des flipped open a leather wallet to show his warrant card.

  The chippie man nodded. ‘Don’t tell me … I’ve got to close up again?’

  ‘Sorry … what?’ Lucy said.

  ‘I’ve lost weeks of business thanks to you lot,’ he grumbled. ‘They wouldn’t let me anywhere near the place till they’d finished checking every square inch of ground. And now, even though they’ve gone … half the bloody lay-by’s still taped off. So not only isn’t there much room for customers, how many of them are seriously likely to show up here if they still think the coppers are hanging around?’

  ‘You are sitting next to a murder scene,’ Des pointed out, distracted by a chalkboard menu hanging at the side of the hatch.

  ‘And how is that my fault?’ the chippie man wondered.

  ‘I’m not saying it’s your fault,’ Des replied. ‘I’m just trying to explain.’

  ‘I’ve had it explained. About fifteen thousand times, so don’t waste your breath …’