Strangers (45 page)

Beyond the French window, drawn up against the wall of the house, was a garden table made from wrought iron and with a glass top; the sort of thing you ate your barbecues off on summer bank holiday afternoons. But it was not the table as much as what was underneath it: a pair of black wellingtons. And it was not the wellingtons as much as what they were coated with. Lucy approached and squatted down. Again, she shone her light close-up.

Lumps of dry, reddish grit were clustered all over the boots’ lower parts.

She knew exactly what this was.

Clay.

She also knew where it came from, because she’d had to scour the same gummy material from that non-too-cheap pair of stiletto court shoes she’d bought for her undercover op.

Dedman Delph.

‘Well, girl,’ she muttered, vaguely dazed. ‘You wanted a smoking gun …’

But there was a problem here. As she remained crouched, she was increasingly convinced that she was missing something. Something obvious perhaps.

So obvious that abruptly, without any real prompting, it struck her.

These wellingtons were rather large; she estimated size eleven at least. And yet the high-heeled footprint they’d found close to Ronnie Ford’s corpse had been no more than a size seven. Lucy rose slowly to her feet, flesh tingling.

She thought about the CC parked on the road in front of the house, rather than on the drive – that was the sort of thing you did when you had another car. She glanced over her shoulder onto the lawn – there were
two
sun-loungers.

‘Jesus Christ,’ she breathed.

The ‘tag-team from Hell’ theory held good after all.

Suddenly it didn’t feel like a cool idea to be hanging around here.

She walked quickly back across the garden, all the way telling herself that this should be no surprise. That big lorry driver, Larry Pupper, had been dragged a hundred yards; much easier with two of you than with one. While so many of the other killings had been ambush attacks, the victims lured to secluded spots where, no doubt, the second murderer was lying in wait. She entered the carport through its rear entrance, fiddling with her phone. Nehwal was the obvious person to call, or, failing her, anyone at the MIR.

But halfway through the interior, she slid to a halt.

Through the carport’s open front, she saw that a vehicle, a silver Mondeo, had pulled onto the drive. It could only have arrived in the last minute or so, but already it was parked. Its headlights were switched off and there was nobody inside.

The blood thumped in Lucy’s ears as she stared bewilderedly out at it. She hadn’t heard anything: no voices, no thudding of car doors. And no lights had come on inside the house. As her eyes roved across the Mondeo, she noted what looked like several bulging shopping bags sitting on the drive on its nearside. So they’d come home all innocent-like; another average day. And then they’d spotted her Ducati …

Lucy stayed exactly where she was, raising the phone to key in the number – at which point, in a black blur, something swept down from the darkness on her right, something heavy, made both from wood and steel. It smacked the mobile phone from her grasp, and sent it skittering across the floor of the carport. Lucy’s fingers were only struck a glancing blow, but even so the pain of that was blinding.

Yelping in agony, she tottered backwards.

Her assailant stepped into view in front of her, blocking all access to the drive. At first the figure was silhouetted. No details were distinguishable, except that whoever this was, they were tall and athletically built, and wearing what looked like a hooded running top and jeans. A split-second later, they adjusted their position and Lucy saw two additional things: street-light glinting on blonde locks hanging out from under a woolly hat, and the weapon with which she’d been attacked, which was a garden fork.

She held her ground, breathing hard.

‘I should warn you that I’m a police officer,’ she said, ‘and that you will only make this situation a lot worse for yourself by resisting arrest.’

The blonde woman said nothing, merely lowered the fork the way a soldier would a bayonet, and advanced.

Lucy turned to run, thinking that if she could get back into the rear garden, she could circle the house via the passage on its other side. But this escape route was also blocked, a second figure, a male, now standing in the rear doorway. In the dim moonlight, she glimpsed an anorak, dark hair, a pencil-thin moustache. He didn’t appear to be armed and wasn’t much taller than the woman, but he was of broader, stockier build, and the chances were he’d be the stronger of the two.

She twirled back to face her former opponent.

The prongs of the fork were perhaps two feet away when Lucy jumped upwards, reaching with her right hand for one of those decayed wooden rafters and yanking down on it, using all her weight. With a shuddering
CRACK
, the rafter collapsed and a mass of planks and fence slats followed, cascading down between them in a cacophonous, splintering deluge, partially covering the woman. Crying out, she raised her arms to protect herself, dropping to her knees in the process, almost losing her grip on the garden fork. But before Lucy could take advantage and scramble forward, the man had jumped onto her from behind.

He was as strong as she’d suspected, his arms like iron bands as they wrapped around her.

‘Meddling bitch!’ he hissed into her ear. ‘You just made the biggest fucking mistake of your …’

Lucy lashed up and back with her plaster-encased left arm. It
clunked
on his temple with what had to be the force of a hammer-blow.

He grunted in shock, his bear hug grip slackening.

The jolt of pain lanced not just the full length of Lucy’s arm, but through her shoulder and deep into her torso. But this was life or death. She struck again with her cast, hitting him a second time in exactly the same place.

This time the grip was broken, and he staggered sideways.

Lucy lunged forward, kicking through the wreckage. The woman was halfway back to her feet, coughing, wafting at dust. Lucy dodged around her, only for her own feet to catch in the clutter, which sent her sprawling – though this turned out to be a good thing as she landed alongside her phone. Snatching it and jumping back up, she sensed the woman coming at her from the left. More by instinct than design, she ducked – just managing to evade a massive, two-handed blow from the garden fork.

This set the woman off-balance, and allowed Lucy to scamper out onto the drive. As she did, she speed-dialled the Comms Suite at Robber’s Row. The call was answered by PC Adam Martindale, normally one of the operators when her own shift was on duty.

‘Adam, it’s Lucy Clayburn!’ she jabbered as she stumbled away. ‘Urgent need of assistance. PC under attack outside 16 Moorhill Close in Lostock, on the Kilo Division. Two suspects, one male, one female, both connected to the Jill the Ripper enq …’

Before she could say more, a hefty weight struck her in the middle of the back, clobbering her spine and kidneys. She staggered forward, gagging, dropping the phone and falling to her knees beside the Mondeo’s front nearside corner. The garden fork landed next to her with a clatter. Winded and sickened, but at least conscious, she clambered over the shopping bags and crawled on, following the car’s nearside. From behind came a gabble of semi-hysteria.

‘Get up, you useless shit!’ the woman shrieked. ‘Do the fucking bitch!’

‘You stupid cow!’ the man replied. ‘She’s made a call. I fucking heard her!’

‘Shit … we can still do her!’

‘Just fucking move it!’

Two pairs of feet came hammering down the drive. Lucy curled into a ball next to the wheel-arch, in an effort to protect her head – but the twosome bypassed her, circling around the Mondeo’s offside. A split-second later, she heard car doors slam open and closed, and then an engine rumble to life. She climbed shakily to her feet as the red Volkswagen CC spun through a manic three-point turn and sped away along the cul-de-sac.

Exhausted and wracked with pain, Lucy searched around for her mobile, finally locating it by the foot of the nearby fence. It was dented and scuffed, its screen cracked, but still functioning even if the earlier call had been cut. As she stood up with it, an elderly man in shirtsleeves appeared at the front door of the house beyond the fence. Evidently having heard the commotion, he looked both curious and alarmed.

‘Police officer, sir,’ Lucy called to him. ‘Go inside please. Lock your door.’

She hit re-dial as she limped down the drive.

‘Adam, it’s Lucy,’ she said, climbing astride her bike.

‘Lucy!’ He sounded relieved. ‘Local units are en route, but what’s going on?’

‘I was sitting on a couple of suspects in the Jill the Ripper case, and I repeat a
couple
, as in two of them, not one. The female is Darla Maycroft, IC1, blonde … of the address I gave you before. She’s already known to us. The male, who’s also IC1, is unknown to me, but probably her live-in boyfriend. As well as divisional support, I need you to message Operation Clearway. Tell them exactly what I’ve just told you. Advise them we need a search-warrant and CSIs.’

‘Lucy, aren’t you supposed to be off sick?’

‘Adam, listen … both suspects are now mobile, driving a red Volkswagen CC, index Bravo-Foxtrot-six something or other. Any Bolton patrols to stop on sight and detain. Listen, mate … I’ve no radio and have a fractured left wrist. In other words, I’m not going to be able to give you a running commentary. In pursuit, nevertheless. Over and out.’

Chapter 34

If it had been testing enough at an easy pace using one hand to steer her powerful 900cc sports bike across Crowley and Bolton, Lucy knew that pursuing a pair of suspects at high speed would be much more of a challenge, especially as that one good hand was still smarting from where she’d been hit across the fingers.

But that wasn’t the only problem. First of all, she had to catch up with her targets. She powered across the Grantwood Gardens estate to its nearest entrance, which was on Beaumont Road. This in itself was a gamble. There were likely to be several other exits from the estate which the fugitives might have used, but Beaumont Road was a major artery in the district and the most likely to facilitate an escape. Even so, Lucy hesitated before pulling out into it. Did she go left or right?

Greater Manchester was now in the midst of rush hour, vehicles bottled up in both directions. Had they opted to go right from here, in effect turning across two lanes, it would have taken them longer to make good their flight. So most likely they’d gone left. Even then, the slow-moving traffic would hinder them, though it would hinder Lucy as well.

By necessity, she decided, the niceties of road behaviour could not be a consideration this evening.

She turned her machine left, but instead of forcing her way in among the sluggish, exhaust-pumping cars, she mounted the kerb and proceeded along the pavement. She didn’t screw the throttle for fear of pedestrians stepping out in front of her, but by the time she’d reached twenty-five she was already overtaking the traffic on the road. A couple more hundred yards – that was surely all it would take before she spotted them, but now, even at this low speed, her left arm was giving her problems. The increased throb of the Ducati’s v-twin engine sent painful vibrations along the fractured bone, and while the clutch wasn’t heavy, the fingers on that hand were stiff and restricted by her cast.

She gritted her teeth and pressed on, passing more and more slow-moving cars, many of their drivers and passengers glaring at her as she shot by, assuming her some lout attempting an illegal short-cut. And then, only a minute or so later, she spotted the Volkswagen CC.

It was about fifty yards ahead, and as she’d hoped, mired in the same jam.

She quickly decelerated and, when the first gap came along, veered out into the traffic to fall in place about five cars behind it.

Her thinking on this was twofold: firstly, because of the felons’ sedate pace, they clearly thought they’d eluded any pursuit and so were not risking mindless stunts like dangerous overtaking or heading the wrong way down one-way streets – but if they suddenly became aware of her now, she might panic them into doing precisely that; secondly, she was in no position to take these crazies down by herself, and so the best policy was to sit on their tail, hopefully without being noticed, and guide the support units in.

She filched her phone from her pocket, activating its speaker. ‘Adam, I’m on the A58, heading south. You’ve got to get someone along here, mate … everything’s cool at present, but these bastards are going to throw me off at some point.’

Apparently oblivious to her, the CC now swung casually north onto Wigan Road. This was a less congested route, and so the car slowly accelerated away. Lucy had to weave around a couple of the vehicles in front in order to make the turn herself, catching several angry toots, but determined to stay in touch. When the CC then veered onto Hulton Lane, Lucy banked in pursuit. This was an even more open road, so the target accelerated again. There were still a couple of cars between them, but now Lucy suspected that the duo had spotted her after all. She throttled up, trying discreetly to close the gap, and at the same time wondering what the endgame here was going to be.

She had no clue where the fugitives thought they were running to. They might have pre-prepared a bolthole for themselves, in the event of an emergency abandoning everything, including their house and their old lives, in order to stay at liberty. But that couldn’t be easy in this day and age. And if they’d noticed that she was tailing them, they were hardly likely to make it happen now. Not without trying to get rid of her first.

She dug her phone out again, but it was increasingly difficult. It meant she had to hold course with her left hand, and that limb wasn’t just agony now, it was dead wood in terms of the control she could affect through it.

‘Adam!’ she shouted. ‘I’m still sitting on these bastards. Where are you all?’

‘Lucy the whole network’s gridlocked. Everyone’s struggling …’