LITMIR.BIZ

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going to take point, and I can spare you four other detectives. After that we’re using spare bodies from Uniform.’

      ‘No one else from divisional CID available?’ Lucy asked.

      ‘I think you’re pretty pulled-out down in the DO. But me and Stan go back a bit; at least I was able to get you.’ She gave another half-smile.

      DI Blake was a distinctly warm presence, even if she wasn’t especially demonstrative.

      ‘Don’t worry about it,’ Tucker chipped in. ‘Uniform jumped at it. We’re only taking a couple from each relief, so we’re not thinning them out too much. The younger lads and lasses can do the decoy stuff, the older heads can ride in the support cars with us.’

      ‘You’ll be working awkward hours, of course,’ Blake said.

      Lucy shrugged again. ‘Only to be expected.’

      ‘We’re looking at nine in the evening till five in the morning,’ Tucker added.

      ‘We’ve also had it cleared that we’ll be working clean through the next fortnight,’ Blake said. ‘No days off, but overtime will be paid as per the norm.’

      Lucy nodded. That made sense too, but it was impressive that the DI had managed to pull this off. She might be supervising a unit whose existence was under threat, but she clearly still had influence.

      ‘You can get off home for now if you want,’ Tucker said. ‘Take a few hours R&R. Briefing in here at nine p.m., operation goes live at ten-thirty. Alternatively …’ He tapped a stack of bulging buff folders on top of the filing cabinet next to him. ‘Since we’ve copied West Mids in on what we’re doing, they’ve sent quite a bit more paperwork through. So, if you’re bored, or you fancy a quick shuftie, it might be of some interest.’

      As it wasn’t inconceivable that her life could be in danger during this operation, Lucy agreed that the new material would probably, at the very least, be worth a skim-read.

      She found a spare desk, and laid the folders in front of her.

      ‘Oh, ma’am … Kathy!’ she said, as Blake and Tucker wandered away.

      The DI glanced back.

      ‘You say we’re on this for two weeks. But DI Beardmore says he can only spare me for one.’

      Blake gave another of those bland but warm half-smiles. ‘Like I say, Lucy … me and Stan go back. Let’s see how it plays out.’

      As Lucy expected, the new stuff from West Mids mainly comprised copies of crime-scene observations, forensic and medical reports, witness statements and plenty of additional photographic material. There was also an updated e-fit.

      Lucy found herself staring at this long and hard. The face looking back at her almost seemed inhuman; its eyes little more than slits and yet possessed of an eerie glint, its mouth curved upward in OTT fashion, creating the most extravagant image of pantomime villainy she’d ever seen. As far as she knew, this picture, or others like it, had been screened regularly on the news bulletins, and had been appearing in all the papers and online ever since the most recent attack. Surely, if there was anyone walking the streets whose face even vaguely resembled this bizarre image, he’d be in custody by now?

      Definitely a mask. It had to be.

      ‘No wonder they call him the Creep, eh?’ a voice said.

      Lucy glanced up and, fleetingly, her enthusiasm for working with the Robbery Squad flagged.

      Detective Constable Lee Gaskin had just come in, and now stood alongside the desk. He hadn’t changed much since she’d last worked with him, standing about five-ten with a stocky frame, a thick neck, broad, sloping shoulders and big arms with heavy-knuckled hands. What remained of his hair was thin and mouse-brown, while his face was notched and pitted all over as though he’d had chickenpox as a child and had vigorously scratched – Lucy had never thought any face could exist that was so well suited for the scowl Lee Gaskin habitually wore. On this occasion, ironically, he wasn’t scowling, but smiling. It was cold, though, and it offered more than a glimpse of the nicotine-yellow teeth clamped together underneath it.

      ‘DC Gaskin,’ she said. ‘What a delight.’

      She had already known that Gaskin was a part of the Robbery Squad. She’d glimpsed him several times in other parts of the building during the intervening weeks since the Squad had set up its base here, but so far had managed to avoid him.

      ‘I heard you’d finally got your long sought-for CID post,’ he said quietly but intensely. ‘Un-fucking-believable. Anyway, the good news …’ He stuck his thumb in the direction of the door. ‘The local DO’s downstairs. There can’t be anything up here for you, so don’t trip on your way down. Or rather, do trip … but make sure you fall all the way to the bottom, so they have to deal with your body rather than us.’

      ‘You sure you’re not confusing me with one of your prisoners?’ Lucy wondered, standing up, determined not to be cowed by him. ‘Isn’t that what normally happens to them?’

      ‘Whoa!’ he snorted. ‘A smarty-pants too since she’s put her civvies on. I’ll have to be on top form from now on.’

      ‘Well … first time for everything.’

      ‘And a last.’ He leaned forward, bringing his scabrous face right into her personal space. She was resolute that she wouldn’t flinch, difficult though this was. ‘Whatever you’re up here for, love,’ he said quietly, ‘I really, really hope it’s nothing to do with this big obbo we’ve got starting tonight …’

      Lucy glanced across the office to see if anyone else had noticed the altercation, but they were all too busy, and Gaskin was still keeping it low key.

      ‘But if it is,’ he added, ‘and you have another cock-up … well, I’ll just have to make sure the boss knows damn well that you’ve got a long track-record for that sort of thing.’

      ‘You finished?’ she said. ‘Because if you have, get your rotten fag-breath out of my nostrils … right fucking now.’

      Grinning almost ghoulishly, he stepped away from her and turned.

      Slowly and precisely, Lucy replaced the West Mids paperwork in its relevant folders. Re-stacking them on the filing cabinet, and checking again that no one else had observed the minor incident, she walked from the room.

      ‘Why does it have to be him?’ she said under her breath.

      She could ride this complication out; she knew she could. But it undeniably put a dampener on things. Why the hell did it have to be him?

      ‘Now, stranger,’ Lucy’s mother said from over the counter at the Saltbridge MiniMart.

      Cora Clayburn was fifty-four now, and since her long fair hair had finally started running to silver, she had begun cutting it to shoulder-length. She was still a handsome woman, though – Lucy remembered her as a stunner in her younger days; she could even make the unflattering blue smock and heavy plastic ‘Assistant Manager’ tag look good.

      ‘Thought I could take you for lunch,’ Lucy said.

      ‘Ooh, had a pay rise or something?’

      ‘No, it’s just …’ Lucy shrugged. ‘You know.’

      Cora eyed her suspiciously, sensing something untoward. It was always the same; Lucy had once successfully lied her way into the inner sanctum of the two most dangerous female gangsters in Manchester, but she could never fool her own mum.

      ‘You trying to bribe me?’ Cora wondered.

      ‘It’s not really a bribe.’

      ‘But there’s something you need to tell me and you want to sweeten the pill?’

      ‘Mum …’ Lucy tried her most plaintive voice. ‘I don’t live with you anymore, so you wouldn’t have

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