Stolen

by Paul Finch

  McCracken shrugged. ‘There’s nothing wrong with this picture so far … and yet we’ve still ended up with a situ where I might get nicked.’

  ‘They’ve nothing on you, Frank—’

  ‘Fuck’s sake, Mick!’ McCracken would have gesticulated angrily had he been able to raise his arm. ‘That bus job was cowboy stuff. They’ve got the bodies, they’ve got the gun that was used against me … which puts us straight in the frame for conspiracy. They’ve even got the body of an innocent bystander. A bus driver, for God’s sake! What did he do wrong?’

  ‘Think he was just there … just inconvenient.’

  ‘Inconvenient? This is the kind of amateur shit these eighteen-year-old pushers round Longsight and Moss Side are always pulling. I’m amazed no dozy twat filmed the whole thing on his mobile and then lost it outside a fucking cop shop.’

  ‘You’ve got it right about the age, at least.’

  McCracken glanced round at him. ‘I’m not following.’

  ‘Wild Bill wanted a big lesson taught. So he sent the Ripsaw Man.’

  ‘The Ripsaw Man,’ McCracken said with slow disbelief. ‘The same guy who’s carried out a hundred clean hits in the last ten years? Who’s been so clean, in fact, that most people on our network don’t even know he exists, let alone the fucking coppers? That Ripsaw Man?’

  Shallicker shrugged apologetically. ‘It was Bill’s idea. He said O’Grady had overstepped the mark big time, and that it had to be special.’

  ‘It was special all right! What went wrong?’

  ‘What went wrong is it wasn’t the Ripsaw Man who filled the contract. From what I’ve heard, he’s looking to retire.’

  ‘So, who did it then?’

  ‘Seems he’s been training up his daughters.’ Shallicker shrugged again. ‘Wild Bill knew about it, liked the idea – said it was cute, two pretty slips of lasses carrying out nasty hits for him. But previously, he’d said only when they knew their stuff. Anyway, when he sent the contract through last night, there was a note on it: “The kids are all right.”’

  McCracken’s astonishment was growing steadily. ‘And is he aware they were nowhere near all right … that it was a total fuck-up?’

  ‘All I know is that they’ve been practising, and Bill had been told they were almost good to go – and he wanted to see if that was true.’

  McCracken pondered this, not believing for a second that Wild Bill would take such a chance without having an ulterior motive, and now thinking it far more likely that he himself was being served up, maybe as a punishment for letting one of his own victims get the better of him.

  ‘Look, Frank …’ Shallicker attempted some consolation. ‘If that gun’s any use to the cozzers – it’s been burned, remember, probably inside and out – it wasn’t like you fired it. It’ll bring a bit of heat down, but not very much …’

  ‘Any heat is too much,’ McCracken retorted. ‘And the fact an innocent guy got chopped as well means that it won’t be minor heat. Like it or not, the gun will link it to us … and to these stupid young bitches. And if they’re so pathetic as to have left it there in the first place, they could have left other stuff too … which the forensics teams will find. Christ, if this isn’t a fuck-up enough! I mean, how do we know they won’t talk? GMP have brought the Serious Crimes Division in. You know how good they are when it comes to asking questions. These two stupid kids’ll be meat and drink to ’em.’

  ‘Come on, Frank …’ Shallicker still tried to lighten it. ‘We don’t know they’ll talk.’

  ‘And we don’t know they won’t. And we can’t afford that.’ McCracken’s good fist clenched till his knuckles cracked. ‘Think about it, Mick. It’s not just this incident. It’s all of them … every job Ripsaw’s ever done for us. Think how many that is. And these two bitches aren’t just his daughters, they’re his students, his protégées. They’ll likely know everything.’

  Shallicker looked uncertain how to respond, but the penny was slowly dropping. ‘Shit,’ he said. ‘You don’t really think …?’

  ‘They’ve got to go.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You heard me,’ McCracken said. ‘They’ve got to go.’

  The minder dug out his mobile. ‘You want to get on the blower to Wild Bill?’

  ‘He’ll say no. He’ll have to. Because if he doesn’t he’ll lose face … it’d be admitting that he made a mistake.’

  ‘But if it’s this serious …’

  ‘Wild Bill’s losing it too, Mick.’ McCracken’s face was pale and tense. ‘I’ve been saying that for a while. He was always a nutter, let’s be honest. But now it’s getting serious. Look at those three lunatics he sent after our Lucy last year. They levelled half the town and didn’t hit a single target.’

  Shallicker thought this through, and as usual, it was a lengthy process.

  And this time he’s so bent on trying to bring me down, that he’s endangered the entire organisation, McCracken almost added. He doesn’t like someone who tells him stuff he doesn’t want to hear, especially when it’s right.

  But he withheld those charges in case it made him sound a touch too paranoid.

  Shallicker shrugged. ‘So they’ve got to go? Seriously? Without the board okaying it?’

  ‘Wild Bill owns the board … so how else?’

  The big guy looked even more discomfited. Small-time wipe-outs were no real issue and were nearly always left to the discretion of Crew underbosses. But names, associates, coppers, judges and the like were a different story.

  ‘What about Ripsaw?’ he asked.

  McCracken stared at him. ‘Well … work it out. Anyone who’s so blinded by the amazingness of his two kids that he can’t see how fucking stupid they are is never going to give permission to have ’em topped, is he?’

  ‘So?’

  ‘So, he goes too.’

  Shallicker looked incredulous. ‘Ripsaw and Wild Bill go right back …’

  ‘That’s why we don’t cough to it. Perhaps we can make it look like O’Grady’s crew.’

  ‘No one’d believe that. They’re small time.’

  But from McCracken’s expression, he wasn’t worried what anyone else might think.

  ‘Listen. Frank.’ Shallicker dropped to one knee so that he could lean close. ‘Ripsaw may look like a fat retiree who mows his lawn all day, but he’s well organised. This won’t be easy.’

  ‘That’s why I want you to handle it. Pick a team who won’t fold under Bill’s questioning afterwards. Tell ’em they’ll all be on quadruple time.’

  Shallicker stood back up. He looked troubled, but less so than before. Ultimately, it was Frank McCracken he owed everything to. ‘You absolutely sure about this?’

  ‘We’re in the frame for a double homicide, Mick. You maybe more than me. At least, I can argue I was in the operating theatre. Where were you … the guy who dumped me at the hospital, the guy who’d already engaged in a gunfight with one of the blokes who later got murdered?’

  ‘Okay.’ When Shallicker pondered it in those terms, it made perfect sense. ‘When?’

  ‘The sooner the bloody better. Just get it done. And like I say, take a team who know what they’re doing.’

  Chapter 38

  With the main door to the garage firmly closed, Lucy’s captor whipped the firearm out of her coat pocket. It was the real deal, a Browning BDA, and Lucy was now marched at gunpoint through a connecting passage into the main body of the house. It was only dimly lit, most of its Venetian blinds closed. However, the rooms were spacious and well appointed, and, from what she could see, they’d been furnished tastefully, laid with wooden block flooring, with rich drapes on the windows and handsome paintings on the walls. She was poked through into the largest and plushest of these, which seemingly was the lounge. A right-angled leather sofa faced an enormous flat-screen TV, while a thick rug lay in front of a huge granite hearth with an ornate real-flame gas fire. Another girl was waiting in here, standing behind a carved wooden chair, which
looked as if it had been brought in from the dining room. Years had passed since the custody shot had been taken, but Lucy immediately recognised her as Alyssa Torgau.

  ‘Searched her yet?’ she said.

  ‘Nope,’ the girl with the gun replied, lobbing Lucy’s car keys onto the couch. ‘You’re about to do that now.’ She stepped to the side, aiming her Browning at Lucy’s head with both hands.

  Alyssa Torgau came around the chair. She was wearing trainers, running shorts and a sports bra, her exposed flesh glinting with a sheen of sweat as though she’d been in mid-workout. Lucy noted that her face was swollen and bruised, and that there were dried cuts on it. Quite clearly, this was the same girl who’d attacked Sister Cassie.

  ‘Think you two have met before, haven’t you?’ Lucy’s captor said.

  Alyssa eyed Lucy curiously, particularly her leather jacket. ‘Well … if it isn’t the biker chick who helped that Maggie slut.’

  ‘She was sitting outside in a car.’ The other girl came back into Lucy’s line of vision, though she still kept the weapon trained on her head. ‘Not very observant, I have to say. Didn’t see me coming up from behind. Your handiwork was sitting on her back seat. Question is … is that incident the only reason she’s here?’

  Alyssa rummaged through Lucy’s jacket pockets, pulling out her phone, which she placed on the mantel, then her handcuffs, and then the wallet containing her warrant card. ‘Detective Constable Lucy Clayburn,’ she read aloud. ‘Crowley CID.’

  ‘No radio?’ the other one said.

  ‘Not on her.’

  ‘Go and check the car.’

  Alyssa took Lucy’s keys, and sauntered out into the hall. While she did, the other one grabbed Lucy’s phone.

  ‘What’s the security code?’ she asked, keeping the gun level.

  With no option, Lucy gave it to her. The girl used one thumb to access the list of recent calls.

  ‘You got any mates out there who think they’re about to storm this place,’ she finally said, throwing the phone at the stone fireplace, where it shattered, ‘guess who dies first.’

  Lucy didn’t answer, because she wasn’t sure what the right answer might be. If they thought she was only here to investigate an assault, that was good – it was less serious. But they’d now abducted her, of course, so they might still need to take drastic action. On the other hand, if they thought she was part of a larger operation, they might consider it sensible to keep her alive as a hostage. But with dangerous criminals you simply never knew.

  In light of which, the best plan was surely to keep them guessing by saying as little as she could get away with.

  Alyssa returned, closing the front door behind her and tossing the keys back onto the couch.

  ‘No radio in the car,’ she said. ‘No sign of anyone else out there, either. Think this one was just being nosy, Ivana.’

  Ivana, Lucy thought. Alyssa and Ivana.

  The Torgau twins.

  They wore their hair in different styles and dressed differently, and one had marks on her face, but they still resembled each other. That said, the one with the gun, Ivana, had more of an air of authority. She gestured with the Browning at the dining room chair. Lucy did as she was told, sitting down in it. Alyssa slid around to the rear, twisting Lucy’s hands behind her back, pulling them through the spindles in the chair’s backrest, and locking them together with her own handcuffs. While this was happening, Lucy heard heavy feet descending the staircase, thudding impacts that resounded throughout the house.

  ‘Watch her,’ Ivana said. ‘I’ll go and speak to him.’

  Alyssa nodded and moved to a corner of the room, near the front window, where she picked something up that Lucy hadn’t noticed previously. It was another gun, a battle-rifle with a large magazine attached. Despite everything, this shocked her. Originally, she’d wondered if they were dealing with some kind of ultra-dysfunctional family here, a bunch of sexual sadists and thrill-killers. Okay, the murder of Miles O’Grady, and the gangland connection that suggested, put it into a slightly different league, but she hadn’t expected heavy firepower like this. Ivana, meanwhile, moved out into the hall, half-closing the lounge door behind her. A muffled conversation followed. Alyssa approached slowly, clutching the rifle in both hands but, as per the manual, keeping it dressed down.

  ‘You ride a mean bike, I have to say,’ she said.

  ‘And yet you outran it,’ Lucy replied. ‘You must be fit as a fiddle.’

  ‘We train a lot.’

  Ivana came back into the lounge, still talking. ‘She’s made no calls to anyone but her mum since this morning. Plus, she’s got no radio. She’s only local fuzz too. She’s not Murder Squad …’

  A man entered the room behind her.

  ‘The route’s clear, by the way,’ Ivana added. ‘Alyssa checked it first thing, as usual.’

  The man said nothing. From the sound of his footfalls, Lucy had been expecting someone larger and heavier, but as it turned out, the biggest thing about him was the travel bag he was carrying. He dropped it, and it struck the floor a reverberating blow. She eyed it quickly. Police grab-bags tended to be a lot lighter, but then detectives only usually needed overnight stuff, because they’d be home again soon. For hoodlums on the run, the future was less certain. Not that Martin Torgau – because this was the same guy she’d seen in the custody shot from 2002 – looked much like a hoodlum. He was about five-foot-nine, with a slightly portly build, which wasn’t enhanced by his chosen attire of jersey and tracksuit trousers. She put him somewhere in his late fifties.

  ‘Seems we may have panicked over nothing,’ Alyssa said.

  ‘No one’s panicking,’ he replied, not looking at her. ‘Go upstairs. Watch the road.’

  She hurried from the room with rifle in hand, scampering upstairs.

  Torgau took Lucy’s warrant card from Ivana, studied it and placed it on the mantel. He regarded his captive with eyes that were deep, brown and strangely soulful. ‘I congratulate you, DC Clayburn. You’re the very first police officer ever to encroach on this sanctuary. I’m not sure that bringing you inside so quickly was the wisest course –’ he threw a quick glance at Ivana, who reddened slightly ‘– but I understand it was a taut moment, which required some sort of immediate response. It wasn’t totally unreasonable that Ivana, on learning who you were, took the action she did.’

  Lucy said nothing.

  ‘Just getting close to us, though, is impressive,’ he added. ‘Either you’re remarkably adept at your job. Or you’ve been incredibly lucky. Or unlucky, depending on your viewpoint.’

  He possessed a Manchester accent, but it was refined, as if he’d spent much of his life working to modify it. He also spoke in leisurely, casual fashion, as if he had plenty of time on his hands. He might not be panicking, but she’d have expected greater urgency than this.

  ‘Naturally, my curiosity is piqued,’ he said. ‘Which means that I want to know all about you.’

  Ivana left the room and returned with another dining chair, which she handed to him. He placed it in front of Lucy and sat down. Again, there was no air of haste.

  ‘You already know everything there is,’ Lucy replied. ‘I’m DC Clayburn from Crowley CID.’

  He ignored that. ‘Such as how you came to be here … at my house.’

  ‘I obviously can’t tell you that.’

  ‘How unfortunate.’

  ‘Mr Torgau, you do realise that abducting a police officer means hefty prison time?’

  ‘Oh, I’m in no doubt.’ He seemed saddened by that prospect. ‘Which is why you should be in no doubt that when I ask you questions, I’m serious about wanting answers.’

  ‘Then you’re going to be seriously disappointed.’

  He sighed and looked at his daughter, who approached the hearth, bent down and, throwing a switch, brought the real-flame gas fire to life. Lucy felt a gush of heat. The girl took a blackened fire poker from a hook and inserted it into the flames.

  ‘Yo
u look worried, DC Clayburn,’ Torgau said.

  Lucy glared at him. ‘You’re getting yourself into so much trouble here.’

  He seemed intrigued. ‘Is it possible, I wonder, that you really don’t know who you’re talking to? That you really have no idea what you’ve stumbled across?’ He paused. ‘I’ll tell you what, I’m going to play a little game with you. I tell you a bit about myself, and then you tell me a bit about yourself. Yes?’

  Lucy glanced at the poker again, its blackened tip still resting in the flames. Sweat was gathering on her brow.

  ‘It is going to get hot in here, I’m sorry to say,’ Torgau said. ‘But it doesn’t need to get terribly hot … so long as you play the game.’

  ‘For God’s sake!’ she hissed. ‘You’ve unlawfully imprisoned a police officer. How do you think this is going to end?’

  ‘That’s entirely up to you.’ He sat back with arms folded, as though contemplating the best way to start his game. ‘I’m what you might call a professional problem-solver. I mean, I operate a number of ordinary, legitimate businesses. But none of them make any money. My real gig is … well, let me tell you how it began. I was a child at the time, growing up on the same Moston estate as the legendary Bill Pentecost.’

  Lucy was unsurprised to hear it confirmed that this thing was connected to the Crew.

  ‘I didn’t associate with Wild Bill back in those days,’ Torgau said. ‘I knew who he was, he knew who I was … but we had our own rackets. Me and my lot, we burgled, stole car radios, rolled drunks. But for all that, we were just punks, hustlers really. Bill had more of a plan. He was loan-sharking, ringing motors, running a whole stable of working girls before he was twenty. Then, one day, we learned about this gun shop down Alderley Edge way. It was off our normal patch, but we went over there, got inside, helped ourselves to … oh, forty or fifty shotguns. Hundreds of boxes of cartridges. Afterwards, we spent three months selling them out of the back of a van, all over the Northwest. Word had got around. Anyone planning a job, we were the armourers. This brought us to Wild Bill’s attention. He was setting up a real network by then, which meant that we were around at just the right time. We armed his desperadoes, and at a good price. The upshot, me and Bill … we became solid.’