Strangers

by Paul Finch

  Lucy checked one more time over her shoulder, but she was finally starting to relax on that front. Suzy had left them alone down here for so long now that it surely meant she wasn’t coming. Besides, what Tammy was now stammering was too important to put on hold.

  In fact, it was so important that Lucy activated both the camera and the microphone on her mobile so that she could make an audible and visual record of it.

  No cop ever wanted to be in a position where he or she was taking some kind of final statement or dying declaration. But what was necessary was necessary.

  ‘Tammy, I’m recording this … okay?’

  ‘Sure … wanna … help.’

  ‘Who do you think shot you tonight, love?’

  ‘Suzy … Suzy McIvar …’

  ‘I think it was Suzy McIvar too, but why would she do that?’

  ‘Protect …’ Tammy’s eyes fluttered closed.

  ‘Protect what, Tammy? What was Suzy trying to protect?’

  The eyes opened again, perhaps by half a centimetre. ‘The other place …’

  ‘And what’s the other place, Tammy?’

  ‘Taxi takes you … from SugaBabes.’

  ‘Is it another brothel?’

  ‘Child brothel …’ Tammy coughed and struggled to breathe. With a glottal gurgle, more thick blood spewed from her lips.

  ‘A child brothel?’

  ‘Uh …’

  Lucy glanced backwards one more time. Still there was no sign of pursuit.

  ‘Tell us more if you can,’ she urged her. ‘Tammy?’

  ‘They run …’

  ‘Who’s they, love?’

  ‘Jayne … Suzy McIvar. They run … taxi.’

  ‘A taxi?’

  ‘Not real … SugaBabes Taxi …’

  ‘Tammy … how do you know about this?’

  ‘Was … part of it.’

  ‘You mean you were a prostitute at this other place?’

  ‘Yeah … when I started …’ Tammy gave a deep groan. ‘Oh, Lucy … so sick …’

  ‘Try and concentrate, love … tell us everything you can.’

  ‘Not … not all customers. Just some. High payers … pervs, paedos. Check in … at SugaBabes, then … taxi. Blindfold … so they never know where …’

  ‘But you know where, don’t you?’ Lucy trained the phone-cam on the girl’s haggard face.

  Tammy gave a vague nod. ‘Ordinary house. But … feels bigger on inside.’ Bizarrely, even in the midst of her pain, she chuckled at that.

  ‘And what’s the address?’ Lucy asked.

  ‘41 …’

  ‘41 …?’

  ‘Trestlehorn Avenue … Whitefield.’

  ‘Okay, 41, Trestlehorn Avenue, Whitefield. And let’s just be clear, Tammy … that’s a brothel where underage prostitutes are working?’

  Another vague, barely perceptible nod. ‘Kiddies …’

  ‘And you were there, you say?’

  ‘Nine years old …’

  ‘You were working as a prostitute for the McIvar sisters at the age of nine?’

  ‘Others too. How they make … big money … right?’

  ‘How long were you there for, Tammy?’

  ‘Kicked me out when I … sixteen. Too old …’ She tried to chuckle again, only for additional blood and foam to spatter from her mouth. ‘Put me in SugaBabes … only ’bout a year. But … like a drink. Not impressed. Bitches … alright plying me wi’ booze when I was … nipper, eh? Keep me docile, suppose. But … doesn’t suit ’em later …’

  ‘Let’s be quite clear about this, Tammy. You were a child prostitute, working for the McIvar sisters in an underage brothel located at 41, Trestlehorn Avenue, Whitefield. And as far as you’re aware, that place is still in operation?’

  Tammy nodded again, but grimaced. More blood oozed out. Thicker this time, darker.

  Lucy cut the interview and glanced again at Tammy’s wounds. The temporary dressings were already sodden crimson. It was a horrendous sensation, knowing there was nothing else she could do – but now, very abruptly, she noticed something else, namely that the light in the sewer had changed. As well as the pale glow cast by her phone, a faint blue iridescence came flickering along the pipe. By the looks of it, as she craned her neck to peer backwards, it was filtering down from the upper world.

  Lucy could have shouted with delight. After many years of tough scrapes and close calls, she’d learned to appreciate the arrival of the blues and twos.

  ‘Okay, Tammy,’ she said urgently. ‘You just sit tight. Believe it or not, help’s finally got here. And not before time. Just hang on, you hear me, girl?’

  Tammy tried to say something, but it was inaudible. Her eyes had closed again. The steamy breath from her bloodied lips was thinner, weaker, but at least it was still visible.

  ‘I promise I’ll be as quick as I can,’ Lucy added.

  She scrabbled back until she was underneath the upper pipe. If it had been difficult coming down, ascending back to the surface was murderous. It wasn’t too steep, but there were no grips, no footholds. The only way she could manage it was by working her way upward with her knees pressed into the facing wall and her back braced against the one behind. Again and again, she caught her left arm on the concrete. The jolts were frightful, like electric shocks; they knocked her giddy, almost sent her tumbling back down. But she persevered, because this wasn’t just a case of escaping the subterranean realm – now someone’s life depended on it.

  When she reached the top, of course, she had to exercise additional care. There were likely to be firearms men on the plot, and she didn’t want her head blowing off by accident. So she peeked cautiously over the rim rather than climbed straight out.

  Amid a flood of swirling blue light, several mobile units were parked along the hard shoulder of the East Lancashire Road. All looked like uniform cars, though there was no sign yet of an ambulance. Then she spotted the upright oblongs erected between them. Ballistics shields, she realised. The figures moving frenetically around behind these looked to be wearing helmets with visors. That was the shots. By the looks of it, they’d got here before the medical personnel, which wasn’t ideal but it was better than nothing. What was noticeably absent was the Vauxhall Corsa. Lucy wouldn’t have thought it driveable after the number of slugs she’d put into it, but Suzy McIvar had clearly got it going – and when Lucy glanced towards the workmen’s cabins and saw that the prone shape of Vlad was also missing, she realised that the queen-bitch had even managed to take her wounded sidekick with her.

  That also was less than ideal. But just having survived this was something of a result.

  As Lucy’s left wrist was the injured one, she anchored herself at the top of the pipe by hooking her upper left arm over the rim, and used her right to fish her phone from her pocket, flick its light on again and wave it from side to side. At the same time, she shouted: ‘Over here, but don’t shoot! I’m a police officer.’

  There was a flurry of movement behind the shields. Lucy called out again.

  ‘Police officer! I have a civilian casualty with severe gunshot wounds. We need an ambulance quickly!’

  More frantic movement. No one advanced to meet her, but strong torch-beams swept the rubble-strewn siding.

  ‘For Christ’s sake!’ she shouted. ‘Shake your bloody arses!’

  ‘PC Clayburn?’ came the tinny-toned voice of a loud-hailer.

  ‘Over here!’ she cried, now hoarse. ‘Surely you can bloody see me!’

  ‘PC Clayburn! Are there any other armed persons here, to your knowledge?’

  ‘I don’t think so, or at least not any more,’ she called. ‘But it’s full body armour, okay? And keep those bloody guns handy, or whatever it is you do. But for God’s sake, do it fast. We need medical assistance!’

  When the next response came in the affirmative, Lucy scrabbled back down the pipe. It was an even bumpier ride than before. Again and again, she struck her arm on the side – until she was ready to throw up from
the pain. But at last she came to the bottom, where she hunkered onto her hands and knees, and splashed back through the silt towards Tammy.

  ‘It’s alright, love,’ she said. ‘If you can just hang on a bit longer, help’s coming.’

  But Tammy made no reply, and when Lucy turned her light on again, the girl’s eyes had glazed. Sluggish blood no longer ran from her mouth and no breath issued from her cold, dead lips.

  Chapter 31

  The remainder of that night was something of a blur to Lucy. They insisted on taking her to hospital, which she steadfastly maintained she didn’t need – only to remember, somewhat belatedly, that in actual fact she did need it, because she had a broken arm.

  While she waited to see a Casualty doctor and then waited for a late-night X-ray and then for the diagnosis, which was a hairline fracture to the ulna, and lastly, as she waited for treatment in the Fracture Clinic, she gave innumerable statements to various officers of different rank and from different departments. But it was increasingly difficult to work out who these people were or why she was talking to them – not just because of shock and fatigue, but because she was also by this time on a heavy dosage of painkillers and antibiotics. All the while she remained in a bedraggled, bloodstained state, until at some point in the night one of her colleagues brought her a change of clothes: a black GMP tracksuit with white piping, which was neat enough to look at but too large for her, and a clean pair of trainers. She wasn’t really aware who was responsible for this or at what time it happened, but was vaguely cognisant that her own clothing had to be taken away for forensic analysis, as she too had fired shots during the roadside battle.

  It was confirmed to her repeatedly that Tammy Nethercot had been pronounced dead at the scene, having suffered fatal gunshot wounds. Each time, Lucy received the news dully and without further comment. Deep in the stew of her thoughts, she was already one hundred per cent certain about this, because she’d been there and had seen it for herself. But during the few occasions that long torturous night when she was able to snatch some sleep, usually while propped up in one of those uncomfortable, plastic waiting-room chairs, she relived the incident in vivid if disjointed fashion: stroboscopic flashes of gunfire; wooden workmen’s cabins flying to pieces; broken, gritty ground hitting her in the face; the smell of blood and cordite; and then a terrible tunnel, a long concrete tube filled with refuse and ditch-water and rats, and then Tammy’s face, bluish/white and yet peacefully reposed as if she was asleep, and improbably beautiful, not a speck of dirt to mar her girlish looks aside from a tiny droplet of red at the left corner of her mouth.

  But of course that hadn’t been right at all; it had been much, much worse than that. And so Lucy would always wake in a state of grogginess and confusion, and would ask the first person she saw: ‘What happened? Did Tammy survive?’

  This was a repeating, seemingly endless pattern, thanks to which she barely noticed the hours creep by or the changes of staff in the hospital, or the return of gloomy November daylight to the car park outside. She actually managed to sleep properly, or so she thought, while they were working on her in the clinic. If not, it was a mystery why she had no recollection afterwards of who was responsible for encasing her lower left arm from the elbow downward in plaster and gauze, and suspending it across her chest in a sling. However, when she finally emerged into the waiting room, which, as it was now almost noon, was buzzing with the next batch of patients, she felt a little bit fresher even if still deeply tired.

  In that regard, the first person she saw was probably the last person she particularly wanted to converse with, but the look on Priya Nehwal’s face as she came down the central aisle between the rows of occupied seats was less truculent than usual.

  ‘So … what exactly am I supposed to do with you?’ was the DSU’s opening gambit. But she still didn’t look vexed. If anything, her tone bordered on the affable.

  ‘Sorry, ma’am?’ Lucy replied.

  ‘Let’s chat.’ Nehwal indicated a far corner where most of the seats were still empty.

  Wearily, Lucy limped over there and slumped down. Nehwal sat on the seat next to her.

  ‘In the last couple of days, PC Clayburn,’ she said, staring directly ahead, ‘you’ve broken just about every rule that British police officers are supposed to abide by. Including disobeying a direct order from me, which is the one I’m really narked about. But –’ Nehwal shrugged, as if it were all now beyond her control ‘– you’ve also displayed remarkable courage and tenacity, and have cleaned out a whole nest of villains in the process; a bunch of lowlifes whom most of the rest of us thought were immune to any serious charges. So I repeat … what am I supposed to do with you? How exactly do I reprimand the woman of the moment?’

  ‘I …’ Lucy struggled to find an answer. ‘I don’t know what’s been going on, ma’am. I mean while I’ve been in here.’

  ‘Well …’ Nehwal lowered her voice. ‘To start with, Suzy McIvar has been arrested on suspicion of murdering Tammy Nethercot and of attempting to murder you.’

  ‘Already?’

  ‘You said it yourself. These people are good. We had to move fast.’

  ‘Pity no one moved fast enough to save Tammy.’ Lucy felt like crying, though no tears seeped from her tired eyes.

  ‘Suzy McIvar’s not having it, obviously,’ Nehwal added. ‘But the evidence we’ve got seems pretty conclusive. Your statement wouldn’t serve on its own, but we also found the ski mask she dropped at the scene, which has blood and saliva on it. It’s currently being tested, but the DNA will almost certainly turn out to be hers. You said she shot at you with some kind of machine-pistol?’

  Lucy nodded. ‘I think so, yeah.’

  ‘Well, the spent magazine that we recovered indicates that it was a Shipka, a Bulgarian-made 9mm submachinegun. Particularly deadly at close quarters. We haven’t found the weapon itself, but after arresting McIvar a couple of hours ago, we searched her apartment and found the same kind of clothing you described. Again, it’s a bit early to say for sure, but forensics already reckon there’s firearms residue on it. The Corsa was reported stolen a few days ago of course.’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘That’s been found too. Dumped and burning.’

  ‘Great,’ Lucy groaned.

  ‘But not completely incinerated. There’s still plenty evidence of the shots you fired at it, and there are even a couple of bloodspots on the bonnet.’

  Lucy looked round. ‘That’ll be Suzy’s too. She got hurt …’

  ‘And that’s the other thing,’ Nehwal said. ‘You mentioned in your statement that the gun-woman was wounded in the side of the neck.’

  ‘Yes …?’

  ‘Well, Suzy McIvar has a fresh graze on her neck. It’s only slight, but I think it’ll be more than enough to send her down for life.’

  ‘Even without the gun, ma’am?’

  ‘We’ll find the gun, don’t worry. Or what’s left of it. We’ll also find those two Russians, though we’re having trouble putting hands on them at present.’

  ‘They’re probably illegals,’ Lucy said.

  Nehwal shrugged. ‘Unless they run home to Mother Russia, it won’t matter. The whole of the McIvars’ firm is unravelling, and everyone involved is now looking to make a deal … that’s chiefly because they’ve actually got a much bigger problem hanging over their heads.’

  ‘Trestlehorn Avenue?’

  Nehwal nodded. ‘That address was raided a few hours ago by the NCG’s Organised Crime Division. There were no customers there. The warning had already gone out.’

  ‘But is it what Tammy said it was?’

  ‘You really don’t want me to go into the detail of what they found there,’ Nehwal said, her expression briefly distant. ‘Put it this way, a significant number of children were removed to places of safety. Some British, some foreign. All the usual sorts – runaways, street kids … They’d been trafficked, groomed, plied with drugs and drink, you name it. Several arrests have fol
lowed, and unsurprisingly, quite a few McIvar underlings are suddenly being very cooperative indeed. Particularly this girl, Marissa Cudworth. You know her?’

  ‘Yeah.’ Lucy snorted as she remembered the ex-dancer’s hard-ass routine. ‘She’ll be talking for her life – she was an active participant in the Taxi Service.’

  ‘She plays her cards right, she could end up being a star witness.’

  ‘Against Jayne McIvar as well as Suzy, I hope?’

  Again, Nehwal nodded. ‘The Twisted Sisters are the main object of interest. At present, both are locked up. But, good news though all this is, none of it really helps us, does it?’

  ‘No, ma’am. I suppose not.’

  ‘The Lay-by Murderer is still on the loose.’

  ‘I’m sorry about that.’

  ‘You know, Lucy …’ This was the first time Nehwal had ever called Lucy by her first name, and it wasn’t at all unpleasant; it almost felt like a verbal thumbs-up. ‘I have a reputation in this job for being a toughie. But after your sterling efforts of the last few days, somewhat wayward though they were, even I would struggle to live with myself if I decided that Jill the Ripper’s ongoing liberty was your fault. Don’t you think?’

  ‘I really thought we were onto her.’

  ‘We are.’ Nehwal stood up. ‘Whoever she is, she’s not that clever. Oh, she’s choosing her targets carefully, she’s scoping out her ambush points before she lures them there, but she’s still riding her luck. Even if we don’t catch her, at some point one of these blokes is going to turn round and plant her on her backside.’

  Lucy stood up too. ‘I just hope my interest in Carlotta Powell didn’t divert vital resources from real lines of enquiry.’

  ‘Even if they had done, it wouldn’t look very good if I made a song and dance about it … you with an arm shattered in the line of duty and most likely heading for a commendation, not to mention a promotion, I suspect.’ She eyed Lucy sidelong. ‘If you want one.’

  ‘I’d rather have a transfer,’ Lucy replied.

  ‘You still hankering after detective work?’ Nehwal sounded surprised. ‘After all this?’