Fall From Grace (33 page)

‘They’re not posh, Mum,’ said Anita. ‘They’re just ordinary people getting by just like the rest of us. They have to rob Peter to pay Paul, they’re broke at the end of the month before they get paid, they’ve all got credit card debt. Mum, everybody has their struggles. That’s the biggest thing I’ve learned since I started work.’

‘What?’

‘That we’re not the only ones,’ said Anita, ‘but we can make it better if we try and if we want to and that’s why I’m so proud of you for agreeing to go to those reading and writing classes.’

Lorraine let herself be held tight by her daughter whilst she recalled the emotional pain inflicted on her by her deadbeat Dad and her deadbeat Mum and all the deadbeat men she’d used to get pregnant. Her eldest son had gone. Her youngest son had gone. Her eldest daughter was about to go and her younger daughter was caught God knows where and that was all her mother’s fault for borrowing money from Glenn Barber. Not much to show for thirty-five years on this earth.

‘Mum, we’ve all got to turn over a new leaf. We’ve got to start again and I know you’re scared about going to those reading classes but you don’t need to be. Everybody will help you.’

Lorraine started sobbing. ‘Do you think they’ll be able to find Michaela?’

‘I hope so, Mum,’ said Anita, doing her best to comfort her mother. ‘They’re doing their best and I really hope so.’

*

Paul was working late at the centre. He’d had to take so much time off lately that he felt guilty about neglecting his duties. Everybody told him that was nonsense but he couldn’t be convinced. He had a stack of reports to write and it was strange when a large building given over to a constant traffic of people all through the day came to rest at night. It somehow didn’t seem right that it was all so quiet. The doctor’s surgery had even finished the evening session and was now closed until tomorrow. He looked at his watch and saw that it was ten past eight. Another five minutes and then he was going to pack up and go home. He was hungry but he didn’t feel like cooking so he planned to pick up a curry on the way home. He fancied some butter chicken with saffron rice and a cheese naan bread. Yummy!

He looked up when he saw a flash of headlights cross the extreme of his vision. His office was behind the administration area where four desks and four computer screens lay idle. The reception desk for the building was in front of that and Paul’s office door was open, giving him a view right across to the main entrance door. For a moment he froze. Nobody would be driving into the car park this late. Perhaps he was an idiot to stay behind on his own when Jake was still out there. He didn’t think that Jake would do him any harm but he was unpredictable and he didn’t know what Jake might do if he was cornered.

He walked out in front of the reception desk and into the corridor. He moved toward the main entrance door that worked automatically. But the mechanism had been turned off just like it always was at the end of the day. A pole handle ran from top to bottom of the almost entirely glass door and he looked all around him before taking a deep breath and opened the door wide.

But it wasn’t Jake who stepped out of the darkness.

*

‘Damn the bastard!’ stormed Superintendent Hargreaves.

Two PC’s on patrol in the area of Salford behind the tall, grey shopping precinct recognised the shifty looking man heading towards one of the council tower blocks of flats as Jake Thornton but by the time they’d got themselves moving he’d noticed they were on to him and he’d ran. They leapt out of their car and gave chase but it was no good. He was a soldier and he was used to slipping away whenever he needed to. They lost him in the labyrinth of alleyways and housing blocks.

‘You just tell those two jokers that they will be in my office tomorrow morning and they will answer to me for their sheer fucking incompetence!’

‘Sir, at least we know he’s in the area,’ said Tim, trying to calm things down.

‘Yes, well that’s all very fine DI Norris but it’s hardly going to make the citizens of Greater Manchester feel any safer, is it?’

‘No, sir,’ said Tim who was getting irritated by the Superintendent’s tone, ‘but it’s a start in trying to catch him.’

Hargreaves leaned forward and placed his hands palm down on Tim’s desk. He liked Tim. He always had done. Tim was a good copper in Hargreaves’ eyes. But for fuck’s sake he could come out with some meaningless shit sometimes.

‘I’m glad you’ve worked that out, Tim,’ said Hargreaves. ‘Where is Steve Osborne by the way? Isn’t he supposed to be here for this briefing, Tim?’

Sara came into the squad room with a printout of an email that had been received from Thornton that gave the names of over a hundred men ranging from celebrities and politicians to judges and high ranking police officers. They’d all ‘bought’ the time of the girls who were forced to dress up as schoolgirls and were drugged and raped into submission.

‘It’s just like Lady Eleanor said, sir,’ said Sara, wondering if the Superintendent had noticed the name of a chief constable and the name of the husband of another one. She watched his face change when he did.

‘Good God,’ said Hargreaves. ‘I used to work with that guy over in Yorkshire. And I know this guy’s wife very well. I wonder if she knows what her husband has been getting up to whilst she’s been catching criminals. Where was this sent from?’

‘An internet café near Salford university, sir,’ said Sara.

‘The ramifications of this… well, the individuals concerned should’ve thought about that before. But he still doesn’t give us a fucking location, damn him!’

Their attention was then taken by the door opening and Kieran Quinn, the PC who was Sara’s lover, came in. She felt that usual twitch in her groin whenever she saw him. The first time he’d come round to her flat they’d kept their clothes on for barely an hour before they were naked and she was leading him by his erection to her bed. They’d both had the next day off and they stayed in her bed for almost thirty hours. Kieran had stamina alright and he had imagination. They wrestled with each other when he was inside her, each of them fighting to be the one on top when he came. He groaned loudly with pleasure when she inserted her set of love beads up his bum and then pulled them out in tune with his orgasm. He liked her to cuff his hands to the bed head too and ride him like a horse. It was these visions that they were both trying to ignore as he stood there, trying not to lock eyes with her.

‘Well come on, Constable,’ said Hargreaves. ‘Some may think you’re a pretty picture to look at but I don’t. What is it you want?’

‘Sir, a man answering Jake Thornton’s description was seen running from an isolated farmhouse a few miles north of Nantwich in Cheshire…’

‘… When?’ Tim asked.

‘Early this morning, sir, just before six,’ said Kieran. ‘Cheshire police investigated and found three males downstairs in some kind of office space. Two white, one black, aged between thirty-five and fifty, they’d all been shot dead. The officers then went upstairs. Twenty rooms, all small, all with a lock on the door that could only be turned from the outside, all with a double bed and a shower unit and all with a terrified young girl cowering inside.’

‘What’s happened to them now?’ said Sara.

‘Ambulances were called and they’ve been taken away to the local hospital,’ said Kieran. ‘They’re either screaming out with fear or terribly withdrawn.’

‘Well, the initial report from our Cheshire colleagues suggests that the three men were all shot using bullets from the same gun, sir,’ said Kieran, ‘which probably means he was.’

‘Well if he’s been seen hanging about in the Salford precinct area and he sent that email from a place near to Salford university then my guess is that he is trying to get to Paul Foster,’ said Hargreaves. ‘Never mind their history, Thornton is unpredictable and Foster could be in great danger.’

‘Let’s get down there,’ said Tim, ‘and where the hell is DS Osborne?’

TWENTY

‘It’s Detective Sergeant Osborne, isn’t it?’ said Paul. ‘What are you doing here at this time? Have you heard something about Jake?’

‘I’m not here on official business,’ said Steve who was intent on showing the rest of the squad, especially Sara Hoyland, that he was capable of getting a result, even if he had to go out on a limb to get it. He was going to break the will of this shirt-lifter into telling the truth. He was going to deliver the whereabouts of Jake Thornton.

‘Then why are you here?’ asked Paul who hadn’t liked this Osborne character first time round and didn’t want to waste any time on pleasantries.

‘Look, it’s late and I was just about to head home,’ said Paul who was furious at this idiot’s accusation. He could really do without this. ‘So if you’re not going to say anything sensible then I suggest, seeing as you’re not here on official business, that you do one.’

‘No, I don’t,’ said Steve, ‘because you’re a liar. You make up that very touching little act during that TV appeal but that’s just what it was, an act. You were lying through your pretty pink teeth.’

Paul stepped up close to his adversary. ‘What is it with you, eh? Nobody lets you play the big man so you come round here trying it with me? Aren’t you enough of a man to work for a female boss?’ He saw the reaction in Osborne’s eyes. ‘Oh so that’s it. Your prick is too small to work for someone who doesn’t have one. Well take your attitude and stick it where the sun don’t shine.’

‘Anymore of this bullshit and I’ll put in an official complaint, Osborne!’ Paul raged. ‘Now in case you didn’t hear me before, do one!’

Osborne’s body fell forward and Paul couldn’t help but put his arms out and catch it. He was covered in Osborne’s blood when he looked up and saw Jake standing there with the gun still in his hand.

‘Oh my God, Jake,’ said Paul who started to cry, ‘what the hell have you done?’

‘He was going to hurt you.’

‘No he wasn’t,’ said Paul, the tears streaming down his cheeks. He was on his knees, cradling Osborne’s torn head in his lap. He’d seen too much death recently and he was staring to lose it. ‘You shouldn’t have done it, Jake.’