Shadows - Paul Finch

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to your question, boss,’ she said, ‘we don’t know whether he’ll reoffend while he’s here, or not. But just because the psyche evaluation suggests he’s an organised offender, that doesn’t mean he doesn’t have mental problems. It also, see …’ she indicated a particular paragraph, which she’d underlined with red biro, ‘… it proposes the possibility that, whoever he is, he’s suffering from Antisocial Personality Disorder.’

      ‘So, he’s a sociopath. There’s a surprise.’

      ‘At the very least he’s a sociopath, I’d say. Look at this section.’ She read aloud: ‘“The offender demonstrates a considerable degree of delusion. For example, taking precautions to avoid identification but at the same time not realising that such a distinctive and exaggerated MO will in itself narrow his chances of remaining at liberty. The same conclusion may be drawn from his chosen attack-zones, the vicinities around cash machines, which any ordinary thief would surely expect to be progressively more heavily policed. Highly likely, the offender knows right from wrong, and is thus able to function normally when it pleases him, which will be most of the time. However, there are clear indications that when his desire to inflict violence becomes overwhelming, there is little to hold him back.”’

      Beardmore looked to be lost in thought.

      ‘In other words,’ Lucy said, ‘it’s quite possible that when he slips back into this deluded state, whether he’s down in Brum or up here in Crowley, he’ll go straight back to work, as Jerry McGlaglen calls it.’

      ‘That McGlaglen’s an oddball. Are we sure he’s given us everything on this he’s got?’

      ‘Well … we’re never sure of that, are we.’

      ‘He’s grassed for us a few times, hasn’t he?’

      ‘Been good as gold up till now.’

      Beardmore eyed her carefully. ‘What does Harry Jepson think?’

      She shrugged. As Jerry McGlaglen’s joint handler, Lucy had spoken about it to Harry on the phone, but in truth he hadn’t been especially interested, pointing out in his usual frustrated way that they had more than enough work to be getting on with already.

      ‘He thinks it sounds promising,’ she lied, feeling certain she could pull Harry along.

      ‘Well …’ Beardmore planted both hands on the spillage of paper in front of him. ‘I can see you’ve done quite a bit of spadework on this, Lucy. An impressive amount, given the short time you’ve had available.’ He arched a busy white eyebrow. ‘But I can’t help wondering what it’s got to do with the burglaries I assigned you and Harry to look into on Hatchwood Green?’

      Her cheeks coloured, but she’d been expecting this. ‘Harry’s still over there.’

      ‘I wanted both of you over there.’

      ‘I’ll be going there soon … I just thought you’d want this bringing to your attention.’

      ‘Hmm.’ He pondered. And then sighed. ‘Crowley CID certainly hasn’t got the time or resources to mount a surveillance on every cashpoint in town on the off-chance this nutcase breaks his cover. But … DI Blake may be a different story.’

      ‘DI Blake?’ Lucy was a little surprised. ‘You mean the Robbery Squad?’

      ‘Why not?’ Beardmore scrabbled the various documents and photographs together. ‘They’re in trouble, aren’t they? Could be just what they need, this, a big case to get their teeth into. A result wouldn’t do them any harm, either.’

      No, Lucy thought to herself, somewhat ruefully. Nor me.

       Chapter 8

      Crowley Robbery were a branch of Greater Manchester Police’s Serious Crimes Division, and were formerly the Manchester Robbery Squad, whose original purpose was to investigate commercial armed robberies across the whole of the Greater Manchester area. However, the current age of cascading budget cuts had seen them reduced significantly in size and divided into smaller units which were now allocated to GMP’s various divisions. Highly likely even that wasn’t the end of it; as Beardmore had alluded to, with police expenditure still being slashed across the board, talk was rife that Crowley Robbery – like Salford Robbery, Rochdale Robbery, South Manchester Robbery and so forth – were luxuries that local law enforcement could not really afford, at least not currently.

      Despite this, Crowley Robbery – or ‘Robbery Squad’ as they were still referred to in rank-and-file parlance – were highly valued by most CID officers, who saw them as an elite outfit. Headed up by the highly decorated Detective Inspector Kathy Blake and, in the short time they’d been operating from out of Robber’s Row, already responsible for taking down a number of high-profile blaggers, Lucy in particular had been fascinated that the fabled bunch of thief-takers were suddenly working only a couple of floors overhead.

      Not that she wasn’t nervous in their presence, even with Beardmore by her side.

      Though she’d passed various Squad members in the station corridors and the canteen, this was the first time she’d been up close to them, particularly to their mythical leader, whose desk she and Beardmore now stood in front of, though she also felt vaguely surprised. Lucy had half been expecting a policewoman with DI Blake’s reputation to be a real hard-bitten toughie. But in fact, she was attractive and looked rather refined. She was also surprisingly young. Lucy was thirty-one, but she doubted DI Blake was more than a year older than her, if that. In addition, she was short – perhaps no more than five-six, whereas Lucy was five-eight. She had long, honey-blonde hair, which she wore in a ponytail, and was ‘peaches and cream’ pretty, with a dusting of freckles and intense green eyes. In fact, DI Blake’s unblinking, laser-like gaze was something Lucy had heard about before; even the most rugged customers were said to have struggled to meet it during interrogation.

      However, that intense gaze was now directed downward as she rifled through the heap of documentation that Stan Beardmore had brought up from CID.

      Lucy glanced around the Robbery Squad office, while she waited. It was a big room, which had been put to lots of different uses in the past, but currently was cluttered with desks, tables, filing cabinets, VDUs and whiteboards covered in scribble, its walls adorned with paperwork and pictures. One thing she noticed in particular was an entire section of room that appeared to have been cordoned off with workbenches. Two detectives were currently in conflab there, discussing a series of blown-up CCTV screen-grabs pasted onto a Perspex screen and apparently depicting an armed robbery in progress: two figures in khaki fatigues and stocking masks were unloading money bags from a G4S security van on a shopping centre forecourt. The security staff lay face down, and were covered by two other masked figures, one wielding a pickaxe handle, the other a sawn-off shotgun.

      DI Blake’s desk was at the opposite end of the room from this, set against the wall, to an extent lost among the desks belonging to the bulk of the lower ranks, and certainly no larger or grander. However, one thing that was different was the wall behind it, on which a series of large square photographs had been pasted in seven orderly rows. Each one depicted a face, the bulk of them ugly and brutish – clearly the headshots of known criminals, one or two of whom Lucy thought she recognised straight away – but approximately half of them defaced by a big red X, which had been drawn in vivid marker-pen, and with some vigour.

      It fleetingly distracted Lucy from DI Blake herself. But not for long. While most of her team wore casual gear – jeans, sweat-tops, trainers and the like – the DI was almost formally attired in a neat grey skirt-suit, pearl blouse and heels. She tapped her pen on the desk as she checked through the last few pages that Beardmore had supplied her with.

      ‘Do you trust your informant, DC Clayburn?’ she suddenly asked.

      ‘I suppose so, ma’am,’ Lucy replied.

      ‘He’s no track

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