Stolen

by Paul Finch

  ‘God’s sake,’ Peabody mumbled, holding his jacket to the lower part of his face. ‘Can we get out of here?’

  Lucy glanced at him, and then at Sister Cassie again. A freshly gathered pile of cardboard sheeting was stacked alongside her, next to her satchel.

  ‘What do you propose to do here, Sister?’ she asked. ‘I mean when you’ve said your prayers.’

  ‘Why, bury them.’

  ‘They’re already half-buried.’

  ‘Of course. We need only cover them, but it’s the very least we can do.’

  ‘They need to be covered, all right.’ Lucy turned back to Peabody. ‘For preservation.’

  He lowered his jacket. ‘What?’

  ‘Have a gander, Malcolm. Specifically, that one on the top. Difficult to tell from here, but what’s left of its fur is actually pink.’

  ‘Pink?’

  ‘Yeah. And it’s wearing a collar. A jewel-studded collar … which ought to be worth at least a couple of grand.’

  Chapter 21

  ‘Look, Lucy,’ Beardmore said tiredly. ‘Someone’s killed a bunch of dogs. Apparently in a cruel and heartless way. I agree, it’s terrible. Very upsetting. But I don’t see how it’s connected to the case you’re supposed to be investigating.’

  ‘Stan, come on,’ Lucy said into her mobile.

  She stood alongside the pit of carcasses, still in the midst of the stench and the droning flies. Of human beings, only Peabody remained nearby, and he was halfway up the slope, still with the material of his jacket spread over his nose and mouth.

  ‘We’ve found the dyed-pink poodle with the jewelled collar. And that collar …’ She held the object up in its clear plastic evidence sack; it was so coated in blood and gunk that it was barely discernible as something precious. ‘I mean, it’s a bit of a mess, but it’s been priced at two grand minimum. Now, why would any hoodlum kill a dog and dump it … along with something so valuable?’

  ‘Perhaps he was too stupid to realise what he had,’ Beardmore suggested.

  ‘Stan, come on … there’s something weird about this. These aren’t bait dogs. I’m pretty sure they’ve all died by human hand.’

  ‘Didn’t I hear from you that when Mahoney’s bait dogs got badly injured in the fighting-pit, he put them out of their misery himself?’

  ‘Yeah, but this poodle …’ She stepped back to the pit and glanced down. ‘While it’s partly burned, most of its head and upper body is intact. And there’s no sign of any scarring there. And that’s usually where bait dogs get hurt the most. Someone killed this dog just for the sake of it. Garrotted it with a wire, or something similar.’

  ‘Like I say, how terrible.’

  ‘Stan, please …’

  ‘Lucy … it’s not even the same colour of van. Those so-called dog-nappers were driving a black van. The abductors of this hobo down in St Clement’s were driving a blue van. There’s no certainty that abduction even happened.’

  ‘So that means we don’t look into it? How’s that going to play in the press, Stan? That we had a possible lead on a bunch of missing homeless people, but we couldn’t be bothered following it through because we weren’t certain?’

  ‘We don’t actually know that any homeless have gone missing at all.’

  ‘We’ve got a fairly good idea. And like it or not, there is a link to the missing dogs. And now we’ve found the dogs butchered. So, what do we think’s happened to those missing people?’ Lucy was being as forceful with her boss as she’d ever dared. But after some wariness at the commencement of this enquiry, she now felt increasingly as if things were adding up, and the picture they were creating was horrific. ‘Look, all I’m asking for—’

  ‘All you’re asking for is a full forensics team,’ he snapped. ‘To examine a pile of dead dogs. Seriously, Lucy?’

  ‘We won’t need the whole show. Can’t they just spare us a couple of CSIs? And it’s not just for these dogs, Stan. It’s not even for the missing homeless, if that’s also a concern … those ragged non-persons who most folk don’t even notice, never mind care about!’

  ‘Easy, Lucy,’ he cautioned.

  ‘Ultimately, it’s for Harry Hopkins and Lorna Cunningham.’

  She paused, breathless.

  Beardmore sighed long and hard. ‘A couple of CSIs …?’

  Finally, it sounded as if he was considering it, though he clearly wasn’t happy. She understood why. He’d signed off on a reasonably large operation of hers quite recently, and though they’d got results, it had mainly concerned dog-fighting. Someone would ask questions about that at some point. Spend a few quid in the twenty-first-century police, and you had to give a good explanation why.

  ‘Maybe if Serious can pick up the tab …?’ he said.

  ‘But they’re not even officially attached to the case yet,’ Lucy replied. ‘And you know how difficult Priya can be.’

  ‘Yes, I do,’ he said. ‘Which is why this’ll be one phone-call I’m not looking forward to.’

  ‘Perhaps just tell her what this is. That whoever killed these animals might now be killing people. But also, if it’s like some kind of graduation process, where they start with animals but then move on up to a higher challenge … well, maybe they won’t have been too careful at the early stage. So we could have an absolute treasure trove of evidence here. But not unless we get this crime scene cordoned off and secured, and we get Scientific Support at the first opportunity.’

  ‘I’ll see what I can do,’ he said, after another long sigh. ‘As I say, I’ll make a phone-call. In the meantime, you do what you can.’ He cut the call.

  Lucy hurried across the bottom of the depression, heading back up the slope, passing Peabody in the process. ‘Come on,’ she said.

  He looked massively relieved. ‘Where we going?’

  ‘Back to the car park.’ She descended the other side of the rise to the footpath. ‘I’ve got some incident tape in my boot. You can bring it back here and close the scene off.’

  ‘The scene?’

  ‘Gimme a break, Malcolm. I’m sure you overheard most of that conversation.’

  ‘You mean we’ve got to go and get stuff from your car, and then I’ve got to come all the way back here on my own?’

  ‘Not only that –’ they passed through the defile between the mountains of boxes ‘– you’ve then got to stand guard.’

  ‘So where are you going?’

  ‘First, I’m going to try and get a vet, to officially examine the remains in situ. Then … I’ve got a spare forensics tent in my garage at home. It’s seen better days, but it’ll do till we get the real thing.’ She glanced at the sky, where heavy yellowish clouds were gathering. ‘Last thing we need now is more rain.’

  ‘How you going to get a forensics tent all the way out here?’ he asked, as they passed the tree with the hanging doll. ‘Must be three quarters of a mile from that car park.’

  Lucy pondered this as they stumped along. ‘I’ll get my Ducati. It’s in the shed at Mum’s. Should be able to carry the tent on the back of that.’

  ‘You can get your bike out here?’ He sounded sceptical.

  ‘More easily than I can get a car, wouldn’t you say?’

  Peabody shook his head, evidently not liking the sound of it, but liking even less the idea that he was going to be stuck in this desolation for a bit of time yet.

  ‘How long before the CSIs get here?’ he asked.

  ‘How long’s a piece of string?’

  ‘Will it be tonight?’ It was a fatalistic kind of question, as if he already knew the answer.

  ‘I hope so,’ she said. ‘But I wouldn’t count on it.’

  ‘So, if it’s tomorrow … who’s going to stand guard all night?’ He sounded as if he knew the answer to that one as well.

  ‘Don’t sound so upset, Malcolm. This’ll be the easiest overtime you’ve ever had.’

  Chapter 22

  ‘So,’ Charlie said over her glass of rosé. ‘Am I just supposed to be okay th
at you’re sending birthday greetings and bouquets of flowers to women I don’t know?’

  Frank McCracken, who’d been distracted and preoccupied all through dinner, sipped his cognac. ‘Thought me and you had a kind of open relationship?’

  ‘Well, we do … but we have to draw the line somewhere. And you suddenly getting interested in old girlfriends again is a bit of a concern for me.’

  To look at Charlie, one would never have expected any man in her company to have his head turned by another woman. Tonight, out for the evening, she was the ultimate blonde bombshell, platinum locks falling in snakelike curls down her back and shoulders, looks to die for, an hourglass physique wrapped to perfection in a strappy, flower-patterned, figure-hugging Versace dress, yellow Jimmy Choos with five-inch heels, which added even more lustre to her bronze, athletically toned legs.

  She’d been cool with McCracken all evening, mainly because back in his spacious pad in Didsbury his housekeeper had let it slip that she’d recently arranged the delivery of flowers, balloons and a birthday card to a former flame of his in Saltbridge, Crowley. More fascinating to Charlie, though, was McCracken’s own reaction. He’d seemed unconcerned that she knew, refusing to get into one of those edgy tit-for-tat games she liked to play when trying to wheedle out some truth about his latest infidelity. In fact, throughout the evening, despite the delicious and very expensive meal they’d just eaten, his conversation had been muted, as if his thoughts were somewhere else.

  ‘I mean, surely it’s only a coincidence that you’ve brought me here?’ Charlie said, fixing him with that cornflower-blue gaze.

  ‘Uh?’ He glanced up. ‘Charlie, you’ve known for yonks that Redwood’s is my favourite eaterie. No one does steaks like they do here. And I thought you liked it too.’

  ‘But we’re in Crowley,’ she replied. ‘And so is Saltbridge. Is she perhaps at one of these other tables as we speak, this mysterious lady from your past? Did you bring me here so that she could check out the opposition?’

  ‘Christ’s sake, Charlie … grow up.’

  ‘I’m not angry, Frank.’ She leaned back in her chair, adjusting her eye-catching décolletage. ‘I’m just interested to know.’

  ‘Cora’s not here,’ he said. ‘And she couldn’t hold a candle to you in the glamour stakes, so stop worrying. Look … she was a great lass, but she’s fallen on hard times. Don’t see any harm in helping her out a little.’

  ‘If that was all it was, I’d agree. But flowers, balloons, a birthday card?’

  ‘Charlie, it doesn’t mean anything, okay? Me and Cora … we were an item thirty years ago. These days, it’s just platonic.’

  ‘Oh, so you have been speaking to her then?’

  ‘My love, just content yourself with the knowledge that it’s a small world, yeah? None of us have any clue what or who is waiting round the next corner.’

  ‘Very profound.’ She fanned herself with the dessert menu. ‘But my petty jealousies aside, you, Frank McCracken, ought to know better than anyone how unwise it is to get involved with a woman who’s not in the life.’

  ‘Oh, she’s in the life. Or rather, she used to be. But she got out of it.’

  ‘She got out of it?’ This was the first thing Charlie had heard about this other woman that genuinely intrigued her. ‘And how did she do that?’

  McCracken shrugged. ‘One day she just upped and walked.’

  It seemed politic not to mention the fact that this was because Cora had just found out that she was pregnant. Charlie didn’t know that Frank had a daughter, and as far as he was concerned, it was best if she never did.

  Even so, the blonde beauty at the other side of the table was now regarding him with a doubtful expression. ‘She just upped and walked?’

  ‘I know,’ he said. ‘I didn’t think it would last, either. But it has.’

  ‘Except that now she’s fallen on hard times?’

  ‘Well … I wouldn’t say hard times as such. But maybe her life isn’t all it could be.’

  ‘And you want to do the right thing by her … by dragging her back into this one?’

  McCracken regarded her thoughtfully. Charlie was by no means dumb.

  ‘That’s actually a good point,’ he said. He signalled to a waiter for the bill. ‘That’s a very good point indeed.’

  It was late evening now and around them the restaurant was gradually emptying.

  Redwood’s was part of Crowley Old Hall, a Tudor manor house and Grade I listed building on the border between Crowley and Salford. It had gone to ruin until ten years ago, when its transformation into a cordon bleu restaurant had brought the whole site back to life.

  Even here in the dining room, it epitomised olde-worlde charm, with its low, gnarly beams, its dark oil portraits and its suits of Cromwellian armour standing sentry-like along the walls. But it was going on for 9.30 now, and, this being a Tuesday, most of the tables were being draped with fresh linen and arranged with cutlery and accoutrements for the lunchtime crowd tomorrow. It was time to go.

  ‘Well, Frankie,’ Charlie said, as they strolled arm in arm into the car park. ‘You’ve really shown a girl a good time tonight.’

  ‘You enjoyed the meal, didn’t you?’

  ‘The meal was great. The revelations … not so much.’

  McCracken couldn’t disagree with that. Sometimes, passing fancies could prove expensive for all concerned. They crossed the tarmac to where Mick Shallicker leaned against the Bentley playing on his iPad, McCracken so lost in these thoughts that he didn’t notice the shadowy form lurking in the shrubbery on the car park’s right edge.

  ‘Hey, Frank!’ it called, stepping out behind them.

  Everything then happened in a rush. McCracken heard the voice but was distracted by the sight of Shallicker snapping upright and dashing towards them, reaching under his jacket. He spun around, seeing a figure he recognised: moustached, with mussed grey hair over a sweat-damp face, its Burberry trenchcoat flapping open on a crumpled shirt and loosely knotted tie.

  Then he realised that the figure was pointing a pistol at him, and firing.

  The first shot hit McCracken high in the upper left of his body, the thudding impact spinning him like a top. The second hit Charlie in the middle of the back, knocking the wind out of her. They struck the tarmac together, dead weights. As Shallicker drew up alongside them, he’d already drawn his Colt Cobra, and now took aim at the fleeing shape, which had only managed two shots before turning and haring back into the shrubbery.

  Shallicker squeezed one round off but knew that he’d missed; the figure was already out of sight. He dashed in pursuit, his huge feet pounding the floor. It was a thin belt of undergrowth, and on the other side lay a subsidiary car park, where the shooter’s vehicle, a Volkswagen Golf, waited close by. Neither the colour of the Golf nor its registration mark was clear in the dim light, and when Shallicker got there the shooter was already behind the wheel and spinning the car in a tyre-screeching semicircle. Before he could let off another round, it veered through the car park exit and vanished, its engine roar fading as it sped into the night. Shallicker sprinted back along the passage he’d torn through the shrubbery. No one had come out from the restaurant yet. The old building’s thick stone walls might have absorbed the sound of the shots, while the kitchen, where the windows were likely to be open, would be clattering with crockery.

  Not that it made a lot of difference to Frank McCracken and Carlotta Powell, both of whom lay face-down in widening pools of blood.

  Chapter 23

  Malcolm Peabody waited glumly about thirty yards from the dog-pit, halfway up one of the encircling slopes, though even there he wasn’t out of range of the choke-inducing stench. He still wore the same civvies he’d been wearing earlier, though when Lucy had popped back on her motorbike, bringing the forensics tent, she’d also, at his request, brought him a black police-issue waterproof jacket. In the end the rain hadn’t come, but Peabody was still wearing it, because, as the night drew on, the
breeze stiffened.

  They’d managed to erect the tent over the pit, but clumsily. It would normally be a square, boxy structure, but here it was lopsided, leaning precariously, partly because of the unstable ground surrounding the hole. To compensate, they’d deployed an extra barrier of incident-scene tape around the outside. Not that anyone was likely to come snooping out here.

  Lucy had departed again on her bike a while back, in an effort to get face-time with the brass in order to beg for a full forensics team. But Peabody wasn’t quite alone. A light still bobbed inside the forensics tent, where an RSPCA vet was looking over the charred remains. She’d been in there a good hour, and even though she was clad neck-to-toe in biohazard overalls and wearing breathing apparatus with a small oxygen cylinder slung at her hip, the PC was beginning to wonder how she could stand it.

  Of course, it was no more fun outside. Down here in the depression, it was difficult to see the rest of the landfill, but on the few occasions during the evening when he’d trekked up to the rim to check things out, he’d seen progressively less and less of it as dusk became twilight and twilight became night. Now, there was nothing out there but darkness, though occasional lurid glows issued from the one or two fires still burning, with skeins of greasy smoke drifting ghostlike across the shapeless terrain.

  ‘Fucking Mordor,’ he muttered.

  Thanks to the silence that otherwise embraced this lifeless land, Peabody heard the approach of Lucy’s returning motorbike some time before she arrived. It was a red Ducati M900, an excellent road-bike but not ideal for scrambling, hence she was taking her time as she followed the rugged track. The grinding rev of the engine sounded for several minutes before her headlight speared into view and she braked on the ridge, applying the kick-stand and climbing off. Peabody scrambled uphill as she removed her helmet. She’d pulled a leather jacket over her sweatshirt and replaced her trainers with lace-up boots. Now she pulled her gloves off and jammed them into her helmet, before producing a Maglite and switching it on.