Strangers. Paul Finch

He was in a separate compartment of the vehicle.’

      With Radio One playing, Lucy reminded herself.

      ‘He couldn’t necessarily have known what was going on in the back,’ Slater added. ‘Even if Haygarth hadn’t produced a gun, he might still have overpowered you.’

      ‘I was still a police officer, sir.’

      ‘Your loyalty to DI Doyle is touching, if a tad misplaced. She spent the next year saying you’d almost got her killed, when the reality was exactly the opposite – it was her who almost got you killed.’

      Lucy preferred not to ponder that, even though her mum had – excessively. You didn’t dice with death every day as a copper, but it happened more often than in most civilian occupations. It didn’t pay to dwell on the near misses, to wonder what might have happened rather than what did happen. That was a sure-fire way to cost you your nerve for future such situations. But sometimes it was an effort to suppress those distracting thoughts.

      ‘You never should have been left in that vehicle on your own,’ Slater concluded.

      ‘I still looked the other way when I shouldn’t have.’

      ‘Oh hell …’ For the first time, Slater’s blank expression slackened; he almost smiled. ‘I wouldn’t have fancied watching a scrote like that take a piss either. The fact is there should have been two of you, minimum. And that was Mandy Doyle’s fault. She had tactical command, so she ought to have taken care of it.’

      ‘I’m glad you see it that way, sir. Not everyone does.’

      ‘Shit, Lucy …’ He walked again; she followed. ‘You know what this job’s like. Fill a form in wrong and it can follow you for the rest of your career if it suits someone’s purpose. But DI Doyle’s gone now on a medical, so theoretically that’s a clean slate for you.’

      ‘I want to get back into CID.’

      ‘I know. Priya told me.’

      ‘Can you and DSU Nehwal make it happen?’

      ‘Is that your burning ambition?’ he asked. It sounded like a genuine question.

      ‘It’s what I joined up for in the first place.’

      This time he did smile. ‘So what were you watching as a kid? Cagney and Lacey? Prime Suspect? No offence intended … with me it was Miami Vice.’

      ‘Yeah, well … I guess we all got a bit of a shock when the reality hit us.’

      ‘Telling me. Anyway, the truth is, Lucy, we need detectives. Urgently … and I mean everywhere. Special units too, not just Division. Too many people are joining up these days who are only interested in fast-track promotion, and CID’s the wrong place for that.’ He halted at the entrance to the canteen. ‘So if you’re serious, and you do a job for us … we might be able to assist. It’s early days though. I mean we’ve got to catch a killer first.’

      ‘And you really think the Intel Unit’s going to have a role in that, sir?’ she asked. ‘Isn’t it more likely forensics’ll nab her? Or some good old-fashioned detective work?’

      He shrugged as he walked inside. It was already noisy and crowded, mainly with plain clothes and civvie admin staff from the MIR, though uniforms and traffic wardens occupied some of the tables. They threaded their way through to the service counter with difficulty.

      ‘We’re dealing with someone who’s deadly serious about what she’s doing,’ Slater said over his shoulder. ‘You can tell that by the scorecard she’s racking up. It’s always going to be shoe-leather that brings someone like that to heel. Whether that’s Plod going door-to-door, detectives bouncing around the MIR having great ideas, or you lasses walking those grubby roads in your kinky boots … it doesn’t really matter.’

      ‘We just nab her any way we can.’

      ‘Correct.’

      But Lucy was under no illusion. Slater was clearly disposed to be her friend – possibly because, at thirty, she was older and more experienced than most of the other Intel Unit girls and maybe, therefore, was someone he felt he could look to. The Mandy Doyle incident aside, her record was pretty good – so that could only help. Alternately, he might just fancy her. But even that was tolerable if, when all this was over, it meant he and Priya Nehwal could exert some influence in her favour. And by the sounds of it, there was one sure way to make that happen – feel the collar of Jill the Ripper.

      No pressure then.

       Chapter 6

      ‘You sure no one’s going to see us?’ Barney wondered tautly.

      Kev rolled his eyes in that exasperated way he’d so perfected during the many years of their relationship. ‘You tell me, Barn. Who’s actually going to see us? Look …’ He pointed through the van window at a patch of diminutive lights twinkling some distance away. ‘That’s Bickershaw.’ Now he pointed in the other direction, indicating a similar scattering of lights, so distant in this case that they were only noticeable because all other landscape features were hidden by the autumn darkness. ‘And that’s Leigh. So where are we, Barn?’

      Barney didn’t know for sure, even though he’d driven them both here in his uncle’s shuddery old van. The truth was he didn’t even think this area of wasteland had a name. As far as he could recall from his daylight travels, it was a patch of emptiness lying just east of the B5237.

      He shrugged, helpless to answer.

      ‘A shit-tip where nobody lives,’ Kev said irritably. ‘Where you’d be lucky to find rats, because rats are generally not that fucking stupid. Nobody wants this place. So not only is no one likely to see us … why should it matter if anyone does?’

      Even to Barney – who was a bigger, heavier lad than Kev, but tended by instinct to defer to his lifelong mate on all matters where complex thought was required – the answer to this one was more than obvious.

      ‘Because it’s public land and fly-tipping’s illegal.’

      Kev snorted. ‘But it was alright to dig coal mines out here, wasn’t it? And dump mountains of slag?’

      ‘I’m just saying,’ Barney cautioned. ‘Let’s be careful.

      ‘We’ll be careful. But for fuck’s sake, don’t let these bastards guilt-trip you.’

      ‘These bastards’ was Kev’s signature phrase, and his catch-all term for anyone he perceived to have higher control than himself, be they employers, bailiffs, police officers, the local authority, central Government itself, or anyone at all who qualified in his mind as part of the establishment.

      ‘Hypocrites, the lot of ’em,’ he ranted on. ‘If they wanted a rubbish tip out here they’d soon okay it …’

      ‘I said alright!’ Barney didn’t normally interrupt his mate in mid-flow, but of the two of them, he, ultimately, had most reason to be nervous.

      They’d spent the whole of that dreary Sunday clearing out Kev and Lorna’s new flat, which the couple were about to move into at mates’ rates because its owner was Lorna’s brother-in-law. He’d offered to lower the asking price even more if they disposed of the pile of rubbish that the previous tenants, a bunch of art students at the local Technical College, had left behind. There were boxes of broken brushes, paint pots, turps bottles, easels, torn canvases, along with the ruined carpet from the main lounge, the festering contents of several bins, two mattresses, and even the bedding as well.

      It had been a lot more work than the two lads had expected, taking them several hours to bring it all downstairs and load it into the back of Barney’s uncle’s van, which ensured that all the municipal recycling centres were closed