Strangers (43 page)

‘He’s also your father.’ Cora said this in a calm but firm voice, as though there was no soft way to do it. But she’d turned white as a sheet in the process.

‘This is a lie,’ Lucy whispered harshly. ‘This
has
to be a lie.’

‘I know it’s a shock,’ McCracken chipped in; the only one in the room who looked unfazed by the situation. ‘It was a shock to me to learn my daughter was in the fuzz. But why else do you think I thought I recognised you in SugaBabes that first time?’

Lucy looked round at him, unable to form words, barely hearing what he was saying. She rubbed at the tears of rage blurring her vision.

‘Your mum sent me a photo of you when you were sixteen,’ he explained. ‘At my request. I’d finally got curious. I admit I probably haven’t looked at it for a decade or more. So when I saw you in the club that night, I didn’t make the immediate connection … but something about you seemed familiar. Your mum confirmed it when she came to see me last Wednesday.’

This had to be rubbish, Lucy told herself. It had to be. Rubbish of the vilest, most disgusting kind. But
was
it? Hadn’t she perhaps suspected something like this? Why on Earth would her mother have even gone to see McCracken? Just a friend, she’d said. But it was a strange thing, staying in touch with a friend when he’d morphed into one of the deadliest criminals in Britain. What kind of friend did you ask favours of, who, with a click of his fingers, could and would have people killed?

She gazed at her mother again, wet-eyed. ‘What … what about the likeable rogue bus driver? All that guff you filled my head with when I was a girl!’

‘It wasn’t total guff,’ Cora said. She at least had the good grace to look embarrassed by this part of it. ‘He was real. The only difference was, I was seventeen at the time and he was twenty-four. That day he turned up at our house in his bus, when he was supposed to be delivering passengers, my dad sent him off with a flea in his ear. I never saw him again, much less slept with him.’

‘Always been a sore point with me, that story,’ McCracken said chattily, fingers steepled. ‘I mean, I’ve never minded not getting any credit for producing a fine specimen like you, Lucy. But the thought of some prat with a big plastic badge on his lapel and a stupid hat. Probably fancied himself a regular Reg Varney …’

‘Shut up!’ Lucy howled. After all the violence and terror he and his kind were responsible for! After what had happened to Des Barton! Just sitting here in their living room like … like he
belonged
. ‘Just don’t talk again in this house!’

McCracken smiled blandly, and made a zip-fastener motion across his lips.

Lucy looked at her mother again. ‘And you never told me? Not even before I decided I was joining the police … you never once told me the truth?’

‘I didn’t want you in any way connected with that life,’ Cora replied. ‘Lucy, I experienced it for myself, and I wanted so much better for you. And Frank agreed.’

‘Oh, Frank agreed, did he? Very bloody big of him!’

‘He stepped back,’ Cora said. ‘Agreed to respect my independence and keep out of it. He even offered me money to help me through, but I refused …’

‘That’s money he now spends on high-class whores!’ Lucy blurted.

‘We went our separate ways by choice,’ Cora said. ‘I’m not going to criticise him for finding other girlfriends later on.’

‘No, but don’t you go thinking he ever regretted that decision.’

‘Oh now, fair’s fair,’ McCracken complained. ‘I
did
wonder from time to time how you were getting on.’

‘And he offered me money more than once,’ Cora added.

‘Blood money,’ Lucy scoffed. ‘Mob money. He robs other criminals, Mum … and if they refuse to pay up, he tortures and kills them. That’s what he does. That’s his job.’

Cora remained pale-faced, but apparently wasn’t shocked.

‘You don’t even look surprised,’ Lucy said.

‘What was I supposed to do, Lucy?’ Cora said. ‘Get rid of you … on the off-chance my evil boyfriend had planted some kind of demon seed in my womb? To protect you from someday making a discovery like this?’ She paused to let her words sink in. ‘What was done was done. I did the best I could to try and fix it, and your father did too.’

‘Don’t call him that!’

‘It’s only a biological term, love,’ McCracken commented.

‘And don’t give me “love”!’ Lucy spat at him.

‘Frank’s here now because he’d heard you got shot,’ Cora said.

‘Incorrectly, as it turned out,’ McCracken added.

Lucy laughed bitterly. ‘I bet that was disappointing for you.’

‘Lucy,’ Cora said, ‘you don’t know Frank.’

‘I know him better than you do! For God’s sake, mother, he’s probably here to finish me off. He’ll have been the one behind the original attack.’

‘Uh-uh,’ McCracken said in a firmer, sterner tone, as if this was one point he quite categorically wanted to make. ‘I was
not
. And if you don’t believe me, officer, you can pat me down right now.’

‘Wild accusations won’t resolve this, Lucy,’ Cora said with a hint of reproof.

‘Wild accusations?’ Lucy jabbed another finger at McCracken. ‘This so-called man is the exact opposite of everything I stand for. And you’ve got the nerve to …’

‘I didn’t choose your career for you!’ Cora’s tone had finally toughened, as if the time for tantrums was over. ‘I always told you I’d much rather you became a teacher or a nurse or a librarian or even a shop girl … anything to keep you from sliding back into that world I left behind.’

‘So that’s why you’ve always hated me being a cop?’ Lucy said scornfully. ‘Because you were afraid it might one day expose your dirty little secret.’

‘It’s not unproblematic for
any
of us,’ McCracken opined.

‘Yeah, but she had me thinking she was actually
worried
about me.’ Immediately, Lucy felt like kicking herself. She couldn’t believe she was actually talking to this guy.

‘Of course, I was worried about you,’ Cora said. ‘Every day you went on duty, I worried. Because I’ve seen it from the other side. I know what can happen when things turn ugly.’

‘Yeah, well, they’re
really
going to turn ugly now.’ Lucy chuckled harshly. ‘In fact, you’d better kiss this fella goodbye while you’ve still got the chance, mum. The Twisted Sisters are facing imminent annihilation, and he’s going down with them.’

‘And maybe not.’ McCracken smiled at her; again blandly, with that infuriating air of easy confidence. ‘Sorry to burst that balloon, pet.’

‘Are you on some kind of fantasy kick?’ Lucy wondered, genuinely flabbergasted by his manner. ‘Your whole attitude since I walked in is that at some point I’m going to start liking you … that whatever I say now, I’ll eventually be your mate. Are you for real, McCracken? I’ve had ten years of cleaning up the messes in this town that people like you leave behind. The ruined lives, the bereaved parties … you may be my father in the dictionary definition of the term, but I’m never going to pay that more than lip service. Because you see, I’m a police officer and I uphold the law … while you mug people, and arrange assassinations, and run child prostitutes …’

‘I wouldn’t get your hopes up about making that latter charge stick,’ he replied. ‘My associates and I knew absolutely nothing about that underage brothel.’

‘Yeah … tell it to a judge.’

‘I won’t need to.’ His tone was now tolerant, as though he was imparting a difficult lesson. ‘It’ll never get to a judge. I mean, the McIvars will, but they’re a busted flush. No doubt your colleagues are trying to pitch a deal to the pair of them as we speak, hoping to net themselves some bigger fish. Am I right?’

‘Like I’d tell you,’ Lucy sneered.

‘I’m right. I know I am. But it won’t work.’

‘McCracken … you’re a fucking nonce.’

The smile on his lips tightened a little. ‘I wouldn’t push your luck too far …’

‘Luck won’t come into it. You’re going down.’

‘You say you’ve been a copper ten years, Lucy. If so, you ought to have learned by now not to listen to the assurances of solicitors. They’re professional liars. Especially when they’re representing clients facing life imprisonment.’

‘We’ll see.’ Lucy strode to the door.

‘Where are you going?’ Cora demanded.

‘Where do you think? Home.’

‘
This
is your home.’

‘Not as long as
he’s
here! And not as long as
you’re
here, either. My own mother … a gangster’s bloody moll!’

Lucy raced back up the stairs, still in a state of horrified bewilderment. She almost diverted into the bathroom so that she could vomit into the toilet bowl, but, determined to remain strong, she barged into her bedroom instead, where she unzipped her tracksuit top and ripped her sling off. If there was any pain to be had, the fresh-flowing adrenaline accounted for it. Besides, she needed something warmer if she was getting out of here. She pulled on a thick, fleece-lined hoodie, grimacing a little as she gingerly fed her plaster-sheathed arm through its sleeve, and then threw the padded anorak over the top of that. As an afterthought, she tugged the trackie bottoms off and climbed into a fresh pair of jeans and trainers, before grabbing her personals, which the hospital had given her in a small plastic bag: her keys, her wallet, her warrant card, her phone and such.

When she got back downstairs, her mother and McCracken stood by the lounge door.

‘Lucy, you’re not thinking of telling anyone about this?’ Cora said.

‘Course I am,’ Lucy mocked her. ‘I’m always looking for new ways to hammer nails into the coffin of my career. Mind you –’ she smiled coldly at McCracken ‘– it’d be the end of
your
career too, wouldn’t it? Might be worth it just for that.’

‘We’d
both
have an awful lot to lose,’ he agreed.

Lucy headed to the front door. ‘Be thinking about that when you make your next move.’

‘One other thing I came to tell you,’ McCracken said; she glanced back. ‘Mick Shallicker’s legal rep won’t be pressing any further claims against you.’

Lucy shrugged. ‘What’s that, an attempted bribe?’

‘A statement of fact. No one on our side considers there was any police brutality during the course of Mick’s arrest.’

‘Next time I’ll try harder.’

Lucy banged out through the front door, but halted on the step. It was only mid-afternoon, but already a dank autumn dimness lay along the street, through which the dull glow of the streetlights barely seemed to penetrate. Fat, icy droplets spat from a sky as heavy and grey as concrete. She’d never seen less promising conditions for a brisk outdoor walk. But she didn’t have much choice. Behind her, she heard them move back into the living room. Their voices were muffled, but as long as the door was open she could hear.

‘She’s a real piece of work,’ McCracken remarked.

‘Her father’s daughter,’ Cora said tearfully. ‘And don’t smile like that, Frank. This has ruined my life.’

‘You were living a lie anyway, love.’

‘It was a lie I liked.’

‘I can sort this out.’

‘So long as it doesn’t involve killing anyone.’

‘Lucy was exaggerating about that.’

‘I hope so.’ Cora’s tone turned harsh. ‘I mean … I’d really hate to think that you
were
the one who tried to have our daughter shot last night.’

‘Do you think that’s even vaguely possible? Given that I came here incognito, unarmed, unaccompanied …?’

Lucy couldn’t bear to listen to any more and struck out on foot into the rain, which, by the time she’d reached the end of the street was pouring heavily. With no option and nowhere else to go, she grabbed the first bus that came along. It was bound for the town centre, but conveniently, one of its stops was close to Robber’s Row.

When Lucy entered the nick, it was a quarter-to-four. She’d hoped to sneak in unnoticed through the rear personnel door, creep upstairs, grab her motorbike helmet, which with luck had been left somewhere where she could easily find it, and then quietly leave again, reclaiming her bike en route and heading over to Cuthbertson Court.

It didn’t quite work out that way.

Almost immediately, she met people she knew, both coppers and civvy staff, and a succession of shoulder-slaps followed. If anyone felt peeved with her for getting yet another of her colleagues injured, it was forgotten, at least for today. Word of the previous night’s incident had got around quickly, and congratulations were heaped on her both for her bravery and her quick thinking, along with commiserations for the loss of her witness. Some she met, mainly CID officers who’d been filled in on the bigger picture, wanted to shake her hand for the damage she’d done to the McIvars’ firm and because her exposure of the child brothel in Whitefield was going to send several scrotey characters down for some lengthy stretches.

It was all very enjoyable, but it was a hollow victory too, because internally she was still raw. Lucy’s home life as she knew it was over; the agony of that burned her like acid, and she had no idea how she was going to make such pain go away. At the same time, no amount of heroic do-gooding would secure her future in the police when she harboured a damaging secret like this. At some point, inevitably, the truth would come out.

Despite all this, Lucy kept a brave face, insisting that she’d just been doing her job. When someone enquired how she was feeling, expressing surprise and admiration that she was even here after being gunned down herself, she tried to correct this, assuring them that she hadn’t taken a bullet even though she had been slightly hurt – though this only elicited further questions and answers.

In one way, these delays worked in Lucy’s favour. They prevented her going straight upstairs, so by the time she finally did, moving past the door to the MIR on cat-like feet in case she ran into Nehwal, the rest of the Ripper Chicks had already gone out. The office was empty and, even better, the crimson globe of her helmet sat on her desk, awaiting collection. She didn’t rush straight in to reclaim it, but glanced first into Geoff Slater’s office. This too was empty. His laptop was closed, which implied that, wherever he was, he wasn’t about to return imminently.