Stolen

by Paul Finch

  The Torgau girls darted backward, slamming the steel door. A second load of shot hammered into it, denting it, punching multiple holes. A bulky figure, clad all over in black, wearing black gloves and a black balaclava, strode past Lucy, a pump-action levelled in his fists. He’d clearly seen her, but for the moment was more focused on his official targets, the Torgau twins. The third shot he fired slammed the steel door open, buckling it in its frame, but the room behind it was empty, the lid still upright on the manhole.

  As though in a dream, Lucy looked the other way again, towards the foot of the stair, where a second figure, similarly clad to the first, had also come down. He’d seen her as well, but at present was ignoring her. However, he too carried a pump and, as he walked past Torgau’s body, he casually unloaded a round into the back of its head, which from that range blew it apart like a water melon, blood and brains splurging across the white-tiled floor. He halted just in front of her. She sensed the first one coming back, and all she could do now was lower her head and screw her eyes shut.

  ‘Fucking thing leads down to the sewers,’ the first one said. ‘Sodding maze down there. They’ll be well away.’

  ‘All right. We got the main target.’

  ‘Yeah, but here’s another for the fucking pot.’

  Lucy tensed, as the first one worked the slide on his weapon – clack/clunk – and she sensed him squinting down the barrel at her head.

  ‘Please … please …’ she whimpered. ‘I’m not, I’m not one of—’

  ‘Wait!’ a third voice bellowed. ‘Not that one.’

  Slowly, hardly daring to believe it, Lucy opened her eyes.

  Again, sweat blurred her vision, but she was still able to focus on this third person, who had also come down to the bottom of the cellar stair. He too was armed with a shotgun, and clad in black from head to toe, but he was distinct from the others because while they were average-sized, he was a giant, towering almost to the ceiling.

  There was no argument. The two gunmen ignored Lucy, sauntered back along the passage with weapons by their sides and tromped upstairs. The giant stood to one side, watching her as she knelt amid the smoke and blood. Lucy couldn’t make eye-contact with him. There was too much distance between them, and she was too tired and hurt to scrabble any closer. But she knew Mick Shallicker when she saw him.

  All her police life, she’d never thought she’d be so relieved at the sight of that towering, ruthless maniac.

  Her head sank down for a second, her neck too weary to hold it upright.

  When she finally managed to look again, he’d gone.

  Cedar Lane was filled end to end with police and CSI vehicles – aside from the area immediately in front of No. 27. That and the house itself, including the drive, garage and front garden, were doubly taped off.

  Curtains twitched continually as neighbours regarded every coming and going with utter astonishment. Lucy Clayburn, though, was less captivated. She watched it with dull, tired eyes, barely registering the Tyvek-covered examiners on the other side of the tape, some in conflab with Serious Crimes officers, others taking photographs, others on hands and knees as they examined the ground. Only when Detective Superintendent Nehwal emerged from the entry tent, having stripped off her own Tvyek and thrown it into the dirty-box, did Lucy straighten up.

  She’d been leaning against her car, which remained where she’d parked it earlier. A sheet of survival-foil hung from her shoulders, where a medic had previously placed it. He’d wanted to take her away in the ambulance because he felt that she was going into shock, but Lucy had replied that she was fine, and rather snappily, had told him to stop fussing. It wasn’t her normal style, but her inner turmoil was becoming too much, overwhelming all sensibilities, all inhibitions. Beyond this point there lay nothing but serious damage.

  ‘One hell of a strange house,’ Nehwal said, handing Lucy her car keys. ‘Looks as if Torgau completely refitted the cellar area, but … I mean …’ It was a rare occasion indeed when Priya Nehwal wrestled to find the adequate words. ‘We’ve got gym equipment in some of the rooms, torture devices in others. We’ve got medical texts detailing human anatomy, stockpiled CDs, which on first glimpse seem to comprise military training techniques … SAS, Navy Seals. On which subject, there’s a whole arsenal of illegal weapons. One room’s like a prison cell … I hate to see what we’ll find in there when we get the luminol out. There’s even a Tannoy system and video links connecting it all together.’

  ‘So the teacher could watch as they practised,’ Lucy said, half to herself. ‘And offer guidance.’

  Nehwal regarded her carefully. ‘You say this lunatic had been training his two children to murder?’

  ‘To be Bill Pentecost’s personal murderers,’ Lucy replied tiredly. ‘And torturers. And believe me, ma’am, they’ve got the energy for it if not the skills. Which is why, until we snag them both, we’ve still got a major problem on our hands.’

  ‘Two nineteen-year-olds?’ The DSU sounded unconvinced.

  ‘You’ve every right to be doubtful, ma’am,’ Lucy said. ‘But it looked to me as if Martin Torgau taught them almost everything he knew. Or was in the process of that.’

  Nehwal appraised the cosy-looking house. ‘Still waters running deep, eh? Whoever attacked the place … that was clearly a professional hit. You say you thought there were three of them?’

  Lucy tightened inside. Because this was it. Whatever this moment brought, there was no way around it – and maybe no way forward afterwards.

  ‘I saw three, yes. And I think I recognised one of them.’

  Nehwal looked slowly around. ‘You recognised one of them? Who was it?’

  Lucy knuckled her eyes. In normal circumstances she’d be furious to find tears there. Hardened coppers didn’t cry, not in public. But this situation was beyond abnormal.

  ‘I know you’ve just been through an ordeal,’ Nehwal said, ‘but try and think clearly. If you can identify one of these killers …’

  ‘Ma’am, there’s something I have to tell you.’ Lucy swallowed bitter saliva. ‘It’s very serious.’

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘Two years ago, during the Jill the Ripper investigation, I discovered something. It’s very personal, but I have to tell you.’

  Nehwal nodded slowly. After thirty-plus years as a cop at the sharp end, she knew when she was on the verge of something momentous. She tapped the bonnet of Lucy’s Jimny. ‘Get in the car. Tell me everything.’

  Chapter 40

  This was it. They’d reached critical mass. Lucy was simply fed up with the duplicity, with the lying, with the ongoing pretence, with her stomach knotting each time she played dumb about her father’s firm’s involvement in serious violent crime.

  It was only a matter of time before the truth came out, anyway; of that she was certain – especially the way her mother was behaving.

  But she couldn’t allow more situations like that at the hospital to arise, where she’d known full well what had happened the night before and yet had said nothing while the man responsible feigned innocence with the SIO. Let alone an incident like this – an armed home-invasion and mass shooting – and she again keeping her mouth shut, even though she had a very good idea who’d ordered it.

  It wasn’t just that things were getting complicated, or more tangled, or more likely to catch her out. It wasn’t simply that Lucy was now tortured by fear and doubt whenever her father’s name was mentioned, and that this was spoiling her quality of life. It was the sheer, unadulterated immorality of it. She wasn’t actually in limbo, as she’d so often told herself, in some kind of midway place between the law-enforcers and the law-breakers. It was much, much worse than that. She was supposed to be a police officer, so her failure to act, her refusal to shop the underworld on the various occasions when she could have done, was the most bare-faced kind of treachery. For all her protestations to Mick Shallicker, it absolutely made her one of the villains.

  And that couldn’t go on.

>   Lucy had joined the police as one of the good guys. That had been her sole motivation, and now it was time to ensure that she left them the same way.

  ‘I never knew my father,’ she said, slumped behind the steering wheel.

  Priya Nehwal, in the front passenger seat, looked nonplussed. ‘Nothing to be embarrassed about these days …’

  ‘Until I met him a couple of years ago …’ Lucy swallowed; fresh tears stung her eyes. ‘And found that it was Frank McCracken.’

  Over the years, Priya Nehwal had earned a reputation for being the toughest woman in the job but despite that, the first lady of hardcore policing still looked utterly shell-shocked by what Lucy Clayburn had just told her.

  ‘Lucy …’ She could barely get the words out. ‘Lucy, you’re a police detective.’ Even then it was a whisper.

  Lucy nodded. Again dumbly.

  ‘And Frank McCracken’s an underboss for the Crew.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘We suspect him of authorising –’ Nehwal shook her head, dumbfounded ‘– God knows how many murders, woundings, beatings … he may well have carried out a number of those crimes himself.’

  ‘Ma’am, I know.’ Lucy struggled to halt the tears.

  ‘And you’ve been sitting on this for two whole years?’

  ‘I can’t sit on it any more. Not after today.’

  Nehwal gazed through the windscreen, speechless. Lucy did the same. For a minute at least, the figures moving about outside were a blur to both of them.

  ‘You’re saying this was a Crew hit?’ Nehwal finally said.

  ‘I’m pretty sure, yes.’

  ‘Because you recognised one of the assassins.’

  Lucy didn’t answer straight away, her loyalties once again tearing her down the middle. Mick Shallicker was another scummy hooligan who’d killed people to order, but today hadn’t been the first time he’d saved her life.

  ‘I … that bit, ma’am, I’m not so sure about.’

  Nehwal’s eyes narrowed. ‘Just how deep in with them are you?’

  Lucy jerked upright. ‘I’m not in with them. I’m not. God, no! I’ve barely spoken to McCracken during those two years.’

  ‘Which means that you actually have spoken to him?’

  ‘We’ve occasionally encountered each other.’

  ‘Lucy … this is serious stuff, but it’s only going to get worse if you lie to me.’

  ‘I’m not lying!’ Lucy’s voice became strained, heated. ‘Ma’am, I arrested him once, remember? Doesn’t that prove something?’

  Nehwal shook her head as if this was irrelevant. ‘You made a very brave stand when Wild Bill tried to bully his way into the IC suite … where your father was being treated. You were so determined to keep him out that you pulled a scalpel on him.’

  ‘I was doing my job,’ Lucy pleaded.

  ‘With extras.’ Nehwal’s eyebrows lifted. ‘I mean … a scalpel. I was impressed when I heard you’d done that, but I also thought it seemed a little extreme. Now I know why.’

  ‘I don’t have a relationship with Frank McCracken. I barely know the guy.’

  ‘This has to be looked into. You understand that? I mean this whole thing … it has to be done formally.’

  Lucy turned away. She felt mildly dizzy. She hadn’t gone into shock during or after the shootout in Torgau’s house, but she wondered if she was about to now.

  ‘Look at me,’ Nehwal said. ‘Lucy … look at me.’

  Lucy did so, sniffling.

  The DSU peered at her with soul-searching intensity. ‘Do you solemnly promise me … do you give me your word of honour as a police officer that you’ve been completely passive in this relationship, that you’ve not made any kind of deal with Frank McCracken, no matter how beneficial to law enforcement, that you’ve not fed him any kind of information that could be useful to him or his underworld associates?’

  ‘Ma’am, I promise all that!’ Lucy blurted.

  The truth was that her dealings with her father had often been so convoluted and had so frequently involved life-threatening situations that she couldn’t remember exactly what kind of deals she’d made with him, but she knew that none of them had been official; he’d never been her informant, nor she his. She’d always tried to keep him at arm’s length, had continually tried to dissuade him from even thinking about her as his daughter. So that much was true.

  Nehwal seemed to relax a little, though she was hardly satisfied.

  ‘So what now?’ Lucy asked.

  ‘You have to go home.’

  Even though Lucy had known this would end badly for her, for some reason – some ridiculous reason – she hadn’t been expecting this.

  ‘Home? You mean now?’

  ‘Of course, now. And you stay at home until you’re sent for.’

  ‘I’m being suspended?’

  Nehwal struggled. ‘Call it sick leave. No one will question it after today. I’ll speak to Stan, tell him I sent you home because you were in a bad way. But we’ll have to bring in Chief Superintendent Mullany, and it may end up becoming a formal suspension. You understand that?’

  ‘Ma’am, please …’

  ‘Lucy, listen to me! You’re no use here till this has been cleared up. No one will even look at you the same way unless we sort this thing out.’

  Lucy’s heart was sinking. This was so much everything she’d feared. ‘They won’t look at me the same way even after that.’

  ‘It will show that you’ve got nothing to hide. That you’ve been completely open … albeit belatedly.’ Another thought occurred to the DSU, which clearly pained her. ‘You’ve been involved in a number of high-level investigations since you uncovered this information, haven’t you?’

  ‘Yes, ma’am.’

  ‘Then your role in those cases will need to be reviewed by Professional Standards.’

  Lucy felt a new sense of despair. ‘How long’s that going to take?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ Nehwal shook her head. ‘I doubt there are any precedents for this.’

  ‘I don’t want people thinking I’m on the other side. Because I’m not … I’m really not.’

  ‘I believe you. But it’s not me you’re going to have to convince.’

  ‘So I’m going home?’

  Nehwal opened the passenger door. ‘You’re going home. But be available. At the very least we’re going to need a statement off you for what’s happened here. On top of that, they’ll want to give you a medical, a hearing test and such …’

  ‘Yeah … shit!’ Lucy snapped. ‘More excuses to can me!’

  ‘That’s the way it is in the job today. Would you rather they didn’t care?’

  ‘Who’s going to take over the missing persons enquiry?’

  Nehwal gave her a look. ‘I’ve not exactly had time to think about that.’

  ‘No one else is on top of it the way I am.’

  ‘Lucy! I don’t want you involved in operational policework for the time being.’ Nehwal pushed the door open properly. ‘I’m getting out now. And the first thing you’re going to do after that is drive yourself home. Home, do you understand? Straight home.’

  When Cora Clayburn arrived at St Winifred’s Hospital, having been informed that Frank McCracken had been moved to the Brockhole Ward, she felt very relieved. It didn’t just mean that he was responding well to treatment, but that the difficulty of getting in to see him no longer existed – because it was now six o’clock and officially visiting time.

  But even as she approached the entrance to the hospital block where the recovery wards were located, she was stunned by the sight of McCracken emerging in front of her, in company with several of his heavies, including Mick Shallicker. McCracken was dressed in the trousers and shoes he’d been wearing when they’d first taken him in, his suit jacket draped over his shoulders to protect his bare but bandaged torso from the evening chill, but was walking briskly and discussing something with his men. When he saw her, he fleetingly stopped in his tracks, bu
t then cut left, crossing the car park towards his Bentley.

  ‘Frank … Frank!’ she called, hurrying after him.

  He stopped, shoulders sagging, before asking the rest of his team to give him some space.

  Obediently, they moved off, halting by the car about twenty yards away, watching with interest. Only Shallicker hung close.

  ‘What’re you doing?’ she asked, in a voice of genuine concern.

  McCracken shrugged. ‘What does it look like? I’ve discharged myself.’

  ‘Frank … you only got shot yesterday!’

  ‘Cora, you should not be here. Hasn’t Lucy told you?’

  ‘I don’t take orders from Lucy.’

  ‘Well, you should on this occasion.’

  ‘Look … it’s Lucy I want to talk to you about.’

  ‘There’s a surprise.’ He walked on.

  ‘She’s told her bosses.’

  He stopped again and turned. Shallicker came forward too.

  ‘She’s just rung me,’ Cora said, pale-faced. ‘Told me to come and see you. I couldn’t believe it. But she wanted me to give you that message. Apparently, it’s for your own safety.’

  ‘When you say she’s told her bosses,’ he said, ‘told them what exactly?’

  ‘That you’re her father.’

  McCracken exchanged a glance with Shallicker. He shrugged again. ‘It doesn’t matter.’

  Cora was baffled. ‘Won’t it change your situation?’

  ‘My situation, as you call it, has already changed. But like I say, that doesn’t matter now. What matters is that you get right away from here.’

  ‘I don’t understand …?’

  ‘Away from me. Do you understand that, at least?’

  ‘I see.’ Cora couldn’t conceal how upset this made her.

  ‘It’s for your own good.’

  She nodded but said nothing.

  ‘Tell Lucy I appreciated the heads-up.’

  He walked on, veering towards the rest of his men.

  ‘That’s it, then?’ Shallicker said.

  ‘That’s it,’ McCracken replied. ‘We haven’t got a bloody choice now.’