LITMIR.BIZ

Скачать книгу

on her personal details, her address was still listed as the children’s home they had just visited. It looked like she had kept out of trouble since she left.

      He scrolled down to the intelligence file, and saw that it ended a couple of years earlier, when she turned seventeen. The entries before then were just as Marian described. Calls to the police from the home to report her missing, and then an entry to report that she had been found. A few men had been issued with Child Abduction Notices, where it was noted officially that the care home did not approve of her being with them, and one more time would mean a court appearance and a reputation as a paedophile. Apart from that, it was quiet.

      Sheldon frowned and clicked on her antecedents, the list of her convictions and cautions. Lucy was only nineteen, and it was as Sheldon expected, filled with her route to a court appearance. A youth reprimand for theft, and then a final warning for criminal damage, followed by her climb up the ladder of youth sentences. A referral order for an assault, then an action plan order, followed by a supervision order. It was the usual trail of one more last chance, another failed attempt to reform a troubled youth. Sometimes they worked, sometimes they didn’t, and often it was the child who decided that there were better things to do.

      It seemed like Lucy had got into scrapes when she was at the home, and then she stopped. The Youth Offending Team would call her a success. Or perhaps she had just learned that it was more fun to get other people into trouble. Leering men maybe, an outlet for her new-found power, tinged by anger from her earlier life experiences.

      Sheldon was about to click off and admit defeat when he scrolled through to the non-conviction disposals, the list that was made up of acquittals or fixed penalty notices, sometimes cases that were investigated but never got as far as a charge. For Lucy, there was just one entry.

      Six months earlier, Lucy had been arrested for shoplifting some booze from a late night grocery shop in Oulton. At least that put her in the right area. Penwortham was more than twenty miles away. The case was dropped before she got to court though.

      Sheldon clicked on the related case file, which would consist of an incident log and a crime report, along with a record of the outcome. The witness statements would be held over in Oulton.

      It was nothing remarkable. Lucy had been caught trying to leave the shop with a bottle of whisky hidden in her coat. Sheldon scrolled through the crime report, and as he got to the bottom, he saw an entry that said RNC, no public interest.

      Released No Charge? Why was that?

      He made a note of the custody number and searched the database for it. It wasn’t a long record. She was brought in and booked in, but she didn’t even get as far as an interview. There was an entry forty minutes after her arrival. A visit from CI Dixon, who spoke to Lucy in her cell.

      Why was a chief inspector talking to a shoplifter in her cell?

      The custody sergeant had done his job well. He had noted when Dixon went in and when she came out. He was looking after himself, making sure that if anything went wrong, it wasn’t going to come back to him. Dixon was in there for thirty minutes. Five minutes after that, Lucy was released, no charge.

      Sheldon sat back and stared at the screen. Sometimes senior officers did interfere with suspects, particularly for minor things. It might be a deal, an exchange for information, or because the suspect was being looked at for something bigger. A sergeant would be used to that, but why Dixon? She didn’t work on a team dealing with informants or undercover work. Her job was to run the Oulton station, to argue her case for a bigger budget at headquarters and to allocate resources.

      But it was the timing that bothered Sheldon, and he remembered how Dixon had been earlier. The way she had almost dropped her cigarettes when she saw Christina in the corridor. Or Lucy Crane, as Sheldon now knew her. There was something else going on. Something more personal.

      He clicked off the computer and headed for the door. When he got to the car, he asked Ted, ‘How long ago was it that you were caught in the car with Lucy?’

      Ted did some quick calculations in his head. ‘Just over five months ago.’

      Not long after Lucy was released by Dixon, Sheldon thought.

      He climbed into the driver seat. ‘We need to get back to Oulton.’

       Chapter Thirty-Seven

      Charlie turned around in the hallway. There were sounds behind him, people in the living room, everyone suddenly aware that he was there. The way out was blocked by the shadow of a man, large and threatening. It wasn’t just his size that told Charlie that he was in trouble. It was his readiness. Charlie hadn’t had a fight since he was at school, and the spread of the man’s arms and the gleam of his teeth as he grinned told Charlie that he would enjoy whatever came next.

      There was movement from the living room. Charlie looked round and saw the man he had spoken to the day before, with the wild black hair surrounded by teenagers.

      ‘Charlie Barker,’ he said, laughter in his voice.

      ‘Who are you?’ Charlie said, trying to watch the man in the hallway at the same time.

      The man with the wild hair stepped closer. ‘I thought you’d lost interest in us?’

      Charlie looked past the man and into the living room. Donia was there, kneeling down, a young woman holding on to her hair, making Donia grimace. ‘What are you doing to her?’

      ‘Don’t worry about her. She looks like she could give us some fun. She’s safe, for the moment.’

      Charlie got the smell of cannabis and unwashed clothes as the man stood in front of him.

      ‘Fun? What do you mean?’ Charlie said, and then looked down. There was a knife in the man’s hand, the blade protruding from his clenched fist. The shock was like a kick to his stomach. ‘You killed Amelia and Billy.’

      The man tilted his head, amused. ‘They wrote their own destinies, don’t you think?’ he said. ‘Now you can write yours.’

      Charlie closed his eyes. He swallowed when he felt the prick of the blade in his neck. When he opened them slowly, the large man had his arm stretched out, and Charlie could feel moisture on his skin. He didn’t know if it was blood or sweat.

      ‘You know what we want,’ the man said.

      ‘I don’t know what you mean.’

      ‘Don’t be foolish, Mr Barker. Amelia tried to keep her secret, but everyone has a pain threshold.’ He nodded slowly. ‘She was good, better than Billy, but it ended just the same. So we want the footage. Where is it?’

      ‘What footage?’

      The blade pressed in more, making Charlie wince.

      ‘The video of Billy,’ the man said coldly, the laughter gone from his voice.

      ‘You took them,’ Charlie said, his mouth dry, swallowing hard.

      ‘Not the original, but you know that,’ he said. ‘We’ve just got copies put onto discs. I want the original footage, and any copies that are left.’

      Charlie took no comfort from the fact that he had guessed right. He tried to think of what to say, but his mind was confused by adrenaline, so that all of his thoughts rushed him at once. He knew the original footage would most likely be in the office safe, but he remembered the sight of Amelia, and how she had ended up.

      ‘We use an off-site facility for things like that,’ Charlie said, hoping that they couldn’t detect the lie. ‘We keep the child witness videos there, and only Amelia or I can get access. We are the only signatories.’

      Charlie closed his eyes again and felt the rise and fall of his chest, his heart beating hard. If they believed him, they would have to keep him alive.

      ‘And if you or Amelia couldn’t go to the facility anymore?’

      ‘The

Скачать книгу