Strangers (26 page)

Slater rubbed at his neck. His cheeks were sallow, his brow creased. ‘I hear what you’re saying, Lucy, but this sounds tenuous.’

‘It
is
tenuous,’ Nehwal agreed, before Lucy could reply. ‘But I
do
see the link.’ She gave it more thought. ‘I take it there’s no one else working there called Lotta?’

‘Not as I’ve been able to discover, ma’am,’ Lucy replied. ‘Not yet. The trouble is I can’t probe too much. The intel’s got to come to me rather than me go looking for it.’

‘You’ve at least learned some of the other girls’ names?’ Slater asked.

‘Oh yeah. We’ve got a Silvie, a Silky, a Danielle. We’ve got a Marguerite, we’ve got a Jezebel, we’ve got a Courtney, we’ve got a Celeste …’

‘But no Lotta?’

‘Not so far.’

‘When you say she fits the profile, presumably you’re going on more than just the two names sharing an etymological root?’ Nehwal said.

‘Totally, ma’am. Charlie’s a looker. On top of that, she’s tall, she’s shapely and she’s blonde … she ticks all those boxes. And she’s powerful, I mean physically. I can tell that just by looking at her.’

‘But there’s no smoking gun?’ Slater said.

‘Not so far, sir … no.’

He sipped at his beer. ‘There’s no way you can engineer some kind of meeting between Tammy and this Charlie, so you can confirm afterwards that it’s the same person?’

‘I don’t see how that’d be possible, sir. Not without arousing even more suspicion. The way I see it, what we really need to know next is who Charlie is. I mean her true identity, where she lives, what her other life’s all about …’

‘You’ve checked the database?’ Nehwal asked.

‘Been on it all morning, ma’am. No one matches.’

‘And nobody else at SugaBabes is in a position to fill you in?’

‘I’m not sure anyone there knows her that well. But again, I don’t want to risk asking too many questions. I’ve already been warned to keep my head down.’

‘I suppose uncovering her real ID would help us build a proper picture,’ Slater said. ‘Trouble is, short of tailing her from the brothel – which is always problematic, as they’ll have spotters everywhere – I don’t see how we can do that.’

‘I do,’ Lucy replied.

Nehwal glanced up at her. ‘Okay …?’

Lucy leaned forward to speak in confidence. ‘We need to put an obbo on Frank McCracken.’

The two senior officers regarded her askance.

‘Excuse me?’ Nehwal finally said.

‘You want to put the Shakedown captain of the Crew under surveillance?’ Slater asked in a tone that suggested he needed clarity, that he’d obviously misheard what she’d just said.

‘Only his home address,’ Lucy confirmed. ‘That way we can spot Charlie whenever she arrives. And when she leaves again, we put a tail on her.’

There was a protracted silence at the hemmed-in table.

‘She’s his on/off girlfriend … at least that’s my information,’ Lucy explained. ‘So she’s bound to be there some of the time. Look … I know we’re already pushing the boat out having me at SugaBabes. It’s a high-risk environment – at times it feels very high risk. It’ll be no different at McCracken’s home address. But there ought to be more places to conceal a vantage point around there, plus Charlie’s going to be less on her guard, isn’t she? She comes out of his front door in the morning, on some quiet suburban housing estate … is she really going to be looking over her shoulder when she heads for home? And we might not need to sit on the place for too long … sometimes Charlie and McCracken leave the club together. All I’d need to do in those circs is alert the surveillance team soon as I get off shift, and they can watch out for the first girl who exits McCracken’s pad the next day.’

Nehwal said nothing, but by her expression the idea was growing on her.

‘We ought to consider this, ma’am,’ Lucy urged her. ‘It surely can’t hurt.’

Eventually, the DSU nodded. ‘I guess it’s what you call lateral thinking. Which is all we can really ask for in this situation.’ She glanced at Slater. ‘Any resources you can divert from the Intel Unit for this?’

The shock of Lucy’s suggestion seemed to be fading from his face too. ‘Don’t see why not. We aren’t getting any other results.’

That wasn’t entirely true, but they weren’t the results the taskforce needed. Only the previous day, Ripper Chick enquiries had led to the arrest of a couple of suspects: two female addicts from Stockport, who, in the guise of turning tricks, had rolled a number of drunks at knifepoint, though their motive had always been robbery rather than murder. Only one person had actually been stabbed, and that had been superficial. The arrest team had obtained the blade, which was nothing like the sort of weapon required to saw off a penis and scrotum. In any case, the two prisoners were human scarecrows on whom the slutty street-gear had hung like rags on wire frames; neither of them had even closely resembled the buxom suspect on the CCTV footage. They’d both now been charged with other offences, but were no longer implicated in the Lay-by Murders.

‘If I put in an action request, ma’am, can
you
okay it?’ Slater said.

‘Gimme a break!’ Nehwal replied. ‘This is Frank McCracken we’re talking about. The SIO can okay it, or no one does.’

‘You really sure about this?’ Slater asked Lucy.

‘I’m not sure of anything, boss,’ she replied. ‘But I went to SugaBabes looking for their top girl, and I found her. Whether she likes collecting male sex organs, or just says she does, is another question.’

Nehwal deliberated. ‘McCracken lives in Didsbury, doesn’t he?’

‘Like a king,’ Lucy said. ‘I’ve been checking him on the system today, too.’

‘Didsbury …’ Nehwal thumbed her chin. ‘I’m sure we can find an observation point round there somewhere. Okay … assuming the boss has it, it’s an obbo for Mr Shakedown.’

‘Whoever it is, ma’am, just make sure they keep their heads down,’ Lucy said. ‘I’ve seen these fellas in action, and I’m telling you, it isn’t pretty.’

Nehwal gave her a frank stare. ‘It’s
you
who’ll have to keep your head down.’

‘Ma’am?’

‘
You’ll
be on the obbo too.’

‘Me?’

‘Frank McCracken may be the smoothest gangster in Manchester,’ Nehwal explained, ‘but he’s also Jack-the-Lad. Yeah, some nights Charlie will go home with him and that’ll give us an advantage, but overall, how many bimbos are likely to visit that palatial residence of his? Probably more than a few. And thus far there’s only
you
can really identify the main suspect.’

‘But I’m working for the Twisted Sisters, ma’am … it’s not like I can just take time off.’

Nehwal considered this. ‘Well … it’s too early for you to resign from SugaBabes. How about you working there nights and manning the OP during the day?’

‘And when’s she going to get some kip?’ Slater wondered.

Nehwal sighed. ‘Well … you’ll need to be on the OP now and then, PC Clayburn. We can’t have this thing dragging on. We have to find this girl, Charlie, and either bring her in or dismiss her from the enquiry.’

‘I’m sure we can sort something out,’ Slater said.

‘Send me the forms, Geoff,’ Nehwal told him. ‘And I’ll prioritise them. In the meantime, sort out your surveillance team … quickly.’

A couple of minutes later, Lucy and Slater were heading back up the stairs in Robber’s Row, the DI having wolfed his pint and his pie and chips.

‘Someone needs to get onto Cheshire CID too, sir,’ Lucy said. ‘Seems there’ve been three aggravated burglaries down there in the last few months, two in Wilmslow, one in Delamere Forest. Townhouses and a farm. Occupants badly assaulted. I’ve no actual details, but tell the investigation teams they need to look at a guy called Pixie. It’s obviously a street name, but I’m sure they’ll have it listed.’

‘This undercover stint’s proving useful,’ Slater remarked.

She shrugged.

‘How you finding it?’ he asked. ‘I mean day to day.’

‘I won’t pretend it isn’t a challenge. There’s something about that Suzy McIvar. She’s not a full shilling.’

‘You’re telling me.’

‘If she was blonde and white, I’d have her down as a suspect.’

‘Wouldn’t be a bad call.’

‘And I don’t think she’s overly fond of the Crew.’

‘She likes to take care of business personally … but the Crew have rules and the McIvars are signed up to them.’

They entered the Intel Unit, which at present was empty, the rest of the girls having not yet mustered for duty, and trekked into Slater’s office. While the DI booted his desktop up, Lucy slumped into a chair. The night shifts weren’t a problem for her in themselves – so long as she didn’t have to come to work during the day as well, but at the moment there was no other way she could have conflabs with supervision. She yawned and stretched.

‘What does your gut tell you about this lass, Charlie?’ Slater asked as he typed.

‘You mean do I think she’s the killer?’

‘You’ve been in this job long enough to let your nose lead you.’

Lucy pondered. ‘I find her suspicious, sir. Even in that company, she stands out.’

‘And yet don’t serial killers supposedly like to hide?’

‘Suppose that depends on how narcissistic they are?’

He nodded and continued typing.

Like most wannabe detectives, Lucy had read extensively on serial murderers. A rare breed among criminals, they often had unique psychological characteristics, not least an overwhelming desire to remain central to the story. For most repeat killers, it wasn’t simply a sexual thrill; it was a power game. And that wasn’t just the power they wielded over their victims, but the power they could exert over entire terrorised communities. You didn’t hear about bank robbers writing cryptic letters to newspapers, or drugs couriers taunting the police with complex clues. In their twisted fantasies, serial killers were the most dominant personality around, and yet to make that fantasy real they needed to impose themselves constantly, even if such self-promotion ultimately compromised their anonymity.

‘This Charlie is so narcissistic she even prick-teases the mob,’ Lucy said. ‘No one gets what they want from her unless they pay.’

‘Perhaps she’s just a hard businesswoman,’ Slater said.

‘She’s still on the meat-rack. Either way you cut it, boss, it’s odd.’

‘Okay.’ He typed on. ‘That’s good enough for me.’

Chapter 20

Frank McCracken’s private residence was located at 17 Yellowbrook Close, Didsbury.

This was a swish suburb by almost any standards. Formerly a prosperous township in its own right, Didsbury had been absorbed by Manchester during the Industrial Revolution, but was now famous for the quality of the restaurants and boutiques on its high streets, and for its leafy residential avenues. It would never have surprised the police to find a major league criminal living here. Their home addresses were rarely located in districts where dealers and prostitutes plied their trade, where there was aggro in the pubs, or where underworld rent-collectors spent each crack-of-dawn kicking down shabby front doors.

Seventeen Yellowbrook was a particular case in point. Frank McCracken might have risen through the criminal ranks after his misspent youth on a Salford council estate, but these days he occupied a luxury, five-bedroom villa, detached from the equally affluent properties on either side of it and standing at the end of a long, block-paved drive. Thanks to a preponderance of trees and shrubbery around its boundary, it was heavily secluded from its neighbours, but the cops were fortunate enough to find a spot in the adjacent Leatherwood Road; a house that was currently between owners and whose upper-rear bedroom window gave reasonable vantage over the premises in question.

Basing the OP on Leatherwood Road wasn’t ideal, but it had some advantages.

By necessity, the surveillance team had to leave the blinds on their window half-closed, mainly because it served as a useful shield, though this obviously restricted things a little. At the same time, the two houses were about seventy yards apart, and 17 Yellowbrook could only be viewed through the gap between two other properties, but if you had a telephoto lens handy – which the team did – a clear visual could still be had of its electronically operated front gates, the whole of its front drive and its front door. Another perk of being in the next street was that it meant the team could come and go without attracting suspicion. McCracken’s people wouldn’t even see them, while to prevent the occupants of Leatherwood Road getting curious, they dressed in paint-stained overalls and used vehicles mocked-up as decorators’ vans.

But from Lucy’s point of view, this whole thing was far from easy.

Her initial hope that Charlie would simply leave the club with McCracken one night and all she’d need to do was call the team and let them know the target twosome were en route, was thwarted by the rareness of these occasions. It seemed that Charlie didn’t go home with Frank McCracken as regularly as he might have liked. (What was it Delilah had said … about the brothel’s top girl playing hard to get?) As such, Lucy, the only one – as Nehwal had said – who could identify the suspect, had to play her full part in the obbo, which was scheduled to operate around the clock, rotating staff.

And in reality this was pretty impractical.

Lucy was still working at SugaBabes, and that was already a thirteen-hour day. More to the point, Didsbury, which was in south Manchester, was a good half hour’s drive from the centre of operations, even on her Ducati Monster. Initially, she attempted to manage this, heading straight home after finishing at the club, grabbing five hours sleep, then biking down to Didsbury for about one in the afternoon, from where she could participate in the surveillance until about five, which left her two hours to bike it back to Robber’s Row, get herself ready and then use public transport to head into work at SugaBabes. When she wasn’t at the OP, the team would photograph all comers and goers at 17 Yellowbrook, and Lucy would assess them on the iPad at the next opportunity.

As it was, for the first three days no one Lucy recognised visited McCracken’s house, either when she saw them herself in the flesh or later on film – apart from McCracken himself, Shallicker, who seemed to live there, and a few other lackeys from their firm.