Shadows

The detectives’ office – or ‘DO’ as it was known locally – was its usual hive of midday activity, with many comings and goings, keyboards chattering, phones ringing.

‘Result, Luce!’ DS Banks shouted from across the room, briefly breaking off from a phone call. Lucy acknowledged with a thumbs-up, before stripping her mac off, draping it over the back of her chair and slumping down at her desk. Here, she found a note from Harry, explaining that he was now over on the Hatchwood, getting the ball rolling by re-interviewing the various burglary victims that DI Beardmore had linked together. She was welcome to join him whenever she was able to.

Before she drove over there, Lucy grabbed herself a cheese sandwich and a cola from the machine outside the DO’s main doors, and opted to check through her emails.

Almost immediately, a piece of apparent junk offering cut-price Viagra caught her eye, the main reason being that it had slipped past the spam filter. She swilled cola and crammed down her butty as she made a note of the final few characters on its subject line.

TC – Borsd 1-15.

Meaningless to anyone not in the know, of course – more internet gobbledegook – but to Lucy it was as familiar as a street sign. She checked her watch. It was almost quarter past one now. The service would be departing the town centre imminently, which meant it would be calling outside the police station in the next ten minutes or so.

She got up and pulled her coat on. Technically, she wasn’t supposed to attend meetings like this on her own. According to GMP rules, Harry ought to be present as well, but he wouldn’t get back here from Hatchwood Green in time, even if he was able to set off straight away – which he likely wouldn’t be if he was mid-interview. But it wouldn’t be the end of the world. If anyone asked, she was feeling out a possible lead. If it looked promising, she and Harry could do this thing together, officially, later on today or maybe tomorrow.

She rounded the front of the building to Tarwood Lane and joined a couple of mothers with prams waiting at the bus stop there. She probably made a slightly incongruous figure, still dressed for court in a smart blouse and slacks, heeled shoes and her poshest beige raincoat, but if this was the way she had to do it, there was no real argument. Besides, she only had to wait a short time before the one-fifteen from Crowley town centre to Borsdane Wood turned up. The two young mothers clambered aboard first, Lucy assisting them with their prams. After she’d paid for her own ticket, she climbed the tight stairway to the top deck, where a single fellow passenger rode in the front seat – this was his usual position, mainly because the upstairs security cameras on this bus route were also located at the front, and thus unable to see the persons sitting directly below them.

There was no one else anywhere near, so Lucy slid into the seat immediately behind.

You wouldn’t be able to tell it while he was seated, but Jerry McGlaglen was a tall man, about six-foot three and now aged somewhere in his early sixties. Almost invariably, he dressed in elegant fashion – flannel trousers and matching blazer and tie were his preferred combination, often with a carnation in the buttonhole – though this often jarred with his thin features, sunken cheeks and wispy grey beard and moustache, not to mention his mop of grey hair, which had something of the feather duster about it. When you spoke to him face-on, he had odd-coloured eyes, one blue and one green, and unhealthy, brownish teeth; his personal hygiene wasn’t quite what it had used to be, either. As such, while he might strike an imposing figure from a distance, up close it was strange and rather scuzzy.

‘Why are we persisting with this cloak-and-dagger stuff, Jerry?’ Lucy asked quietly, after the bus recommenced its journey. ‘Can’t we just meet in the pub like everyone else?’

McGlaglen didn’t look around. ‘Because what I am giving you today, my dear, is the biggest tip-off you’re ever likely to receive.’

Lucy nodded. She’d heard this kind of promise before, but to be fair to McGlaglen, he rarely offered anything that wasn’t at least interesting. She clutched the horizontal bar at the top of his seat as they swung around a tight bend.

‘A particularly unpleasant fellow,’ McGlaglen added, ‘a true reprobate and degenerate is in town.’

He’d been given to using flowery language for as long as Lucy had known him; he even delivered it in a dramatic, Shakespearean tone, all traces of his local accent suppressed. It was something to do with his past, she understood, though she’d never questioned him on it. Police informers came in every shape and size; all that mattered was the reliability of their intel.

‘A true degenerate, eh?’ she said. ‘Go on. I’m all ears.’

‘The Creep. You know of this beast, I take it? He’s in the town now … as we speak.’

At first Lucy thought she’d misheard. ‘Sorry … what?’

He neither looked round nor raised his voice. The one thing Jerry McGlaglen defended more zealously that his air of faded flamboyance was his right to anonymity; when imparting information to his police handlers, he was never less than exceptionally wary. He would do nothing whatsoever to attract attention to himself from the ordinary public. To Lucy’s mind that somewhat contradicted his manner of dressing and speaking, but when she’d raised this with him once in the past, he’d replied that his attire served its purpose as a double bluff.

‘They look twice, that is undeniably true. But when all they see is a well-known eccentric, they rarely look again.’

‘The Creep?’ she said, puzzled. ‘You mean the lunatic who hangs around cashpoints in Birmingham late at night, robbing people at sword-point. You say he’s in town? You mean here … in Crowley?’

‘This is the story I’ve been told, my dear.’

‘Jerry … how is that possible?’

‘Why … I’d imagine he bought himself a ticket at New Street, climbed onto a train and headed north.’

‘Funny man. I’ll rephrase the question. Why is he here … I mean in the Northwest?’

‘How could I know? Perhaps he has relatives here. He was unlikely to linger in the Midlands after what happened during his last attack, don’t you think?’

Lucy pondered the info with rapidly growing interest. Even though Birmingham was eighty miles south, she’d read all about the case on various bulletins. The offender was basically a mugger, but the West Midlands press had named him ‘the Creep’ because of his crazy fixed grin, which owed possibly to a mask or heavy make-up. A Joker lookalike, then; a comic-book madman. But there hadn’t been much to laugh about for his victims, who’d not just lost wads of cash but, even when they’d complied, had been slashed with what appeared to be an old-fashioned but well-honed cavalry sabre. Invariably it had inflicted gruesome wounds, and in the case of the most recent victim, had proved fatal.

She leaned forward. ‘How’ve you heard about this, Jerry?’

‘Now, my dear … as you know, I never divulge such things. But as you also know, my sources are impeccable.’

‘What’s the Creep’s name? I mean his real name.’

‘This I cannot tell.’

‘Cannot, or will not?’

‘Cannot.’

‘So where will I find him?’

‘Alas, I have no answer for that either.’

‘Jerry …’ she leaned closer to his ear, ‘you seriously think you’re going to get paid for this? Passing on an unfounded rumour that this guy may be in Crowley … may be? And giving us nothing else whatsoever?’

‘I suspected you’d be hostile. Ignorance, as always, breeds contempt. I imagine I will only get paid if you apprehend this scoundrel … as per our usual arrangement. How you make that happen is beyond my control.’

‘Do you have anything else on him at all?’

‘It is my belief that he will have come here to work.’

‘Work?’

‘To continue his bloody reign.’

‘Seriously?’ Lucy wondered if he was winding her up. ‘You think this bloke’s on the run from a murder charge, and a few weeks later he’s just going to blow all that by starting again only an hour up the railway line?’

McGlaglen shook his head. ‘I know no more about this case than you, Miss Clayburn, but I have read sufficient disgusting detail to form an opinion that for this malefactor it is as much about the swordplay as it is the money. I appreciate that sudden fear has driven him to change towns. But really … how long can such a depraved individual resist temptation?’

Lucy had also read plenty of material regarding the Creep, and on reflection, it wasn’t difficult to draw a similar conclusion. In each incident thus far, the offender had inflicted unnecessary violence; the slashing of the APs with his sword after they had handed over their wallets was completely uncalled-for, which implied that at least part of the abnormal gratification he drew from these attacks was from seeing first the terror of his victims, and then their blood. It might indeed be that this was all of it, the cash obtained little more than a bonus. And if that was the case, it seemed likely that he’d struggle to resist the impulse when it came. It could even be that, while here in Manchester lying low, maybe staying with friends or holed up in a B&B, he would feel more secure than he had in Birmingham, where the hunt for him was now really on, and so he might be even more encouraged to renew his violence.

‘How long’s this guy supposed to have been in Manchester?’ Lucy asked.

‘I only heard about him a couple of days ago, my dear,’ McGlaglen replied. ‘But it must be longer than that, surely.’

She considered this. The last Creep attack in Birmingham had made the papers about two weeks ago. Prior to that, he’d struck every few days or so. He could well be getting itchy fingers.

‘Jerry … you’re absolutely certain about this? People you know and trust are saying the Creep is in Crowley? I mean, this isn’t some flight of fancy?’

He finally turned and frowned round at her, his odd-coloured eyes alight with intensity. On the basis of past information he’d provided, he probably had the right to look a little indignant.

‘Okay,’ she said. ‘I’ll go back to the nick and make this official.’ She saw a stop coming up where it would be convenient for her to jump off. There was another one on the other side of the road; she could catch a bus back to the station from there. She stood up. ‘If it happens, you’ll get your usual fee. But if it doesn’t … if we end up wasting a load of time and resources, they’ll mark you down as a bad bet.’

McGlaglen sighed melodramatically. ‘It is a sad state of affairs when a generally reliable man can only be allowed to fail once.’

‘We’re talking about someone who, for his hobby, hacks people up with a sword.’ Lucy swayed her way to the top of the stairs. ‘Forgive me, Jerry, if I’m keen to get it right.’

Chapter 6

He might have entered the criminal world relatively late in life, but Joe Lazenby had soon come to recognise this as a benefit rather than a drawback. It obviously helped that he didn’t have a rap sheet, and it helped enormously that after years of normality, he didn’t look like a criminal.

Whatever people said about the monsters in our society mingling easily and comfortably with the rest of us, that only really applied to the successful ones. As far as Joe Lazenby was concerned, some shaven-headed moron decked in cheap bling and wearing tattoos on his face and neck wasn’t even going to enter a street-corner boozer without the punters edging away from him, so his chances of getting close to someone it was actually worth robbing or conning were beyond zero. Not that Lazenby went in for primitive tricks like robbing or conning, but in complete contrast to those tattooed, knuckle-dragging apes, he still regarded his ‘ordinary joe’ appearance as his best asset.

In fact, that was the street name he used: ‘Ordinary Joe’.

He’d chosen it, himself, and almost unbelievably, it had caught on. Even so, as he sat here in the genteel environs of Hogarth’s Cocktail Lounge, working through his daily accounts, no one would ever know what he was really up to. They’d just see a guy in his mid-thirties, slightly stout of build, average height, with curly brown hair and a neatly trimmed beard and moustache, a wedding ring on one hand, a none-too-expensive Nautica watch on the other, wearing black horn-rims and a three-piece suit, sipping Perrier water as he tapped away on a laptop; clearly an averagely successful businessman wrapping up the day’s work with a few final, essential adjustments before winding his thankful way home – no doubt to a semi in the suburbs, where his pretty wife and two-and-a-half nerdy children awaited him.

It helped, of course, that most of the clientele at Hogarth’s were cut from exactly that cloth, though mainly that was down to the time and place – late afternoon on a Tuesday, and Pearlman Road in the very centre of Crowley, where, for the most part, it was office and retail staff now disgorging from the workplaces close by.

Outside, the mid-October dusk was falling quickly, and with it the temperature. But Hogarth’s prided itself on providing a warm, snug environment. The mullioned windows were shaded with velvet, the lamplight low-key, the various loungers and armchairs of the deepest, most comfortable variety. The music playing was easy jazz, while the real fire crackling in the grate threw cosy orange-gold patterns across the hardwood floors. There was no actual bar service in here; all drinks were supplied by waitresses, who would attend your seating bay or booth or coffee table, in response to the ornate Edwardian bell-pushes located nearby.

It wasn’t too busy at present. No one would really expect it to be, but that suited Lazenby. He might be confident of his anonymity, but it was still easier to relax when people weren’t constantly edging past your table, perhaps throwing covert glances at your laptop screen. There were perhaps six other patrons in Hogarth’s at present, all dotted around, either alone or in couples, those together chatting quietly over drinks, the others reading evening papers, or, like him, fiddling around with electronic devices.

Either way, it left plenty of spare places all over the wine bar’s comfy interior.

Which is why it was so annoying to Lazenby when another guy in a suit, someone he didn’t know from Adam, suddenly inserted himself into the same booth and sat down on the other side of the coffee table, on top of which he nonchalantly plonked a large G&T.

Lazenby tried not to look at him, but couldn’t help stealing a couple of irritable glances.

The guy was in his mid-fifties and sharp-suited, with an average build, lean features and silver-grey hair razored into a crew cut.

Lazenby didn’t like his personal space being invaded for no reason, but for the sake of appearances – he was Ordinary Joe, after all – he didn’t make an issue of it, merely nodded when the newcomer’s dark eyes flitted towards him, and continued working at his accounts.

‘You picked the wrong place to try and get some work done, I’d say,’ the guy commented.

Lazenby didn’t at first realise that he was being addressed. ‘Sorry, what?’

‘Noisy bar.’

It wasn’t an especially noisy bar – not at this time of day.

‘Didn’t notice,’ Lazenby replied, pointedly not looking up.

‘Hard to concentrate.’

The air hissed between Lazenby’s clenched teeth as he finally met the newcomer with his best blank-eyed stare. Ordinary Joe might value his average appearance and air of affability, but he was also a Scouser. He originated from Childwall, which wasn’t a poor part of Liverpool, but nevertheless, in archetypical Merseysider fashion, he didn’t take well to being hassled.

‘Especially when people keep talking to me,’ he said, ‘and only politeness is preventing me telling them straight that I’m not interested.’

He went back to his laptop, pink-cheeked, but reasonably confident that the unexpected show of no-frills hostility would have done the trick. It couldn’t be very often that tired, bored business guys encountered a straight-talking response like that in Hogarth’s.

‘You a polite guy, then?’ the stranger said. ‘Perhaps they should call you “Joey the Gent” rather than “Ordinary Joe”?’

Lazenby glanced up at him again, this time shocked.

The guy took a sip of his G&T, unfazed by the turn in the conversation. ‘But hang on, I don’t suppose that would work. “Joey the Gent” sounds like “Jimmy the Gent” … and wasn’t he some kind of gangster? That would never do, would it?’

‘Who are you?’ Lazenby asked, instinctively closing his laptop to protect the information it contained.

‘Me? Oh, I’m no one important enough to have a cool nickname.’

‘You a cop?’

The man smiled to himself. ‘I’m guessing they call you Ordinary Joe because you look and act like an everyday Charlie. Perhaps we should call you that, instead: “Everyday Charlie”.’

‘I could ring my solicitor right now,’ Lazenby said, talking tough, though in truth his hair was prickling because he didn’t know if he could; he had no clue how much the law might have on him. ‘This is harassment.’

‘Be my guest,’ the guy said. ‘Ring him.’

‘I’ll see you around, officer.’ Lazenby did his best to look relaxed as he lifted his briefcase, slid his laptop into it, and clicked it closed. ‘Come back when you’ve actually got something.’

He stood up.

‘You know harassment’s hard to prove,’ the man said. ‘I should know … me and my associates have made that call a few times. Never got anywhere with it.’

Lazenby was about to leave the table, when these words sank in.

He turned back, regarding the newcomer with careful deliberation, before sitting down again.

‘You’re the Crew, aren’t you?’ he ventured.

The man looked nonplussed as he sipped more gin. ‘The Crew? Never heard of them.’

One second ago, Lazenby had been stiff and numb; his spine had gone cold – internally he’d been reeling with shock that the law had so unexpectedly caught up with him. He’d tried to brazen it out, praying that whoever this interloper was he was merely on a fishing trip. Now he felt only relief, though there was no guarantee he was on safe ground yet.

‘Look …’ he said warily, ‘we don’t need to have a problem here. I’m more than willing to do a deal.’

The man raised an eyebrow. ‘Perhaps it should be “Co-operative Charlie”?’

‘I know what this is about. I’ve got somewhere you can’t. I’m selling all over suburban Manchester. Middle-class districts which you have no access to. I’m also in with the white-collar crowd in the commercial area. And believe it or not, they gobble the stuff like it’s free.’

‘Oh, I believe you.’

‘But it isn’t free.’ Lazenby leaned forward confidentially. ‘And I’m making good money without setting a single foot on the mean streets.’

This was an unashamed boast, and maybe that wasn’t always advisable where the Crew were concerned. They weren’t the Northwest’s premier crime faction for nothing; internally, Lazenby’s nerves were jangling. But it suddenly seemed important to him, if he was going to deal with these guys on an equal basis, to underline the fact that he was a real player who had something valuable to trade.

‘Yeah. Everyday Charlie and his gentlefolk customer base.’ The newcomer’s tone wasn’t quite derisory; he sounded vaguely interested. ‘I’ve seen it actually, and I am impressed. Ice cream vans, pharmaceutical deliveries, driving instructors … touch of genius, all that. Great cover.’

‘Look, I’ll be blunt with you,’ Lazenby said. ‘For two reasons. Firstly, because I’m a straight player. I always believe in saying it how it is. That’s how I’ve got where I am today, and I’ve no regrets about it. Secondly, because I figure you guys are smart enough to know what side your bread’s buttered on.’ He lowered his voice even more, increasingly confident of his position. ‘You can’t get into the leafy parts of town. But I’m already there. So why don’t we hook up? I don’t have to move my own product solely. I can move yours too. I’ll open a completely new market for you. But the terms have got to be favourable.’

The stranger mulled this over. ‘Like you say, straight to the point. Least that’ll make things easier.’

Lazenby made an expansive gesture. ‘That’s how I roll.’

‘What’s your annual turnover, just out of interest?’

‘Well, in the last nine months alone, I’m …’ Lazenby checked himself. It couldn’t be wise revealing too much about his operation. But then again, if he wanted to win their trust and at the same time impress on them that he’d be a serious asset … ‘In the last nine months, I’m two hundred-thousand net.’

‘And you’ll be looking at … what?’ the stranger said. ‘Ten per cent?’

‘Erm, no.’ Lazenby had to chuckle. ‘I like to earn in a way that’s commensurate with the risk I’m taking. I’ll take twenty-five, and that’s being generous. That’s out of respect for your status.’

‘Twenty-five eh?’ The stranger pondered this.

‘And of course, it depends on the quality of the product you’re pushing. I mean, I deal with discerning people. They smell chalk or talcum powder, it’ll be no more dice from them and no more dice from me.’

‘Everyday Charlie and his discerning customer-base, eh? I’ll have to bear that in mind.’

Lazenby glanced over his shoulder before leaning even closer. ‘What do you say? I was hoping to meet you guys anyway, at some point, so we could square this very deal.’

The man eyed him, for the first time closely; it was slightly disconcerting – there was steel in that gaze. ‘You want in, basically?’

‘Sure I do.’

‘Into what, though?’

‘The Crew. What else are we talking about?’

‘There’s no such thing as the Crew. Least, I’ve never heard of them.’

Lazenby sat back exasperated. ‘Listen mate …’ He knew he shouldn’t do it, but he couldn’t really control the snap in his voice. He needed to advise them that he was serious about his business. ‘There’s something you need to know. I’m not Mickey Mouse, all right …’

‘No, you’re Everyday Charlie.’

Frustrated that they were still playing this silly game, Lazenby grabbed his briefcase. ‘When you find out who the Crew are, and more importantly, where they are, let’s talk again.’

‘I’ve got another deal for you,’ the man said.

Lazenby stayed in his seat. ‘I can do twenty per cent, but that’s got to be it. That’s as far down as I’ll go.’

‘Let’s stop talking figures, and focus on responsibilities.’

Lazenby shrugged.

‘Because, I think you’ve got me confused with someone else.’ The man took another sip of G&T – in ludicrously genteel fashion; he even raised his little finger. ‘You see … I don’t have any product for you to sell. That’s not my line at all.’

‘So why are we having this conversation?’

‘We’re having this conversation because, like I say, I think you seem like a decent, straight-to-the-point kind of fella, and in addition, you’ve got this ingenuity thing going on. You’re someone who deserves a bit of a heads-up.’

‘To what?’

‘Well, not to how much you’re going to earn.’ The guy treated Lazenby to that steely gaze again, now coupled with a wire-thin smile. ‘But to how much it’s going to cost you.’

‘Ahhh …’ It was several moments before Lazenby was able to work enough saliva into his mouth to reply properly. ‘You’re a tax collector, is that it?’

‘No.’ Though the man’s smile broadened, it still didn’t reach his eyes. ‘I’m the tax collector.’

‘You’re Frank McCracken.’

‘Never heard of him.’

‘Don’t they call you “the Shakedown”?’

To a degree, Lazenby was honoured, and not a little proud of himself, to have attracted the personal attention, not just of a senior lieutenant in the Crew, but the lieutenant whose main purpose it was to get the syndicate its cut from all those criminal enterprises in the Northwest of England that weren’t actually their own. But he couldn’t deny that he was unnerved too; his hands now shook, their palms moist. The approach had been gentlemanly enough, but Lazenby wasn’t deceived. He’d heard some bone-chilling tales.