LITMIR.BIZ

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even saw the machine.

      The previous night, when she’d headed up to the West Pennine Moors to meet Kyle Armstrong and the rest of the Low Riders, had been an exception; riding her bike to that meeting could only have helped to win their approval. But later on that night, when she returned to Crowley, she parked the bike back in its shed, and without bothering to pop indoors to see her mum, who by that hour was most likely in bed, she headed across town in her Jimny. First thing this morning, she was back behind its wheel, eating toast as she drove into central Crowley, not towards Robber’s Row police station, but to the central Magistrates Court.

      En route, she used her hands-free to place a call to the CID office, where she asked DS Kirsty Banks to sign her on for duty. And then placed a call to DCI Geoff Slater, at the Drugs Squad. Slater, whom Lucy had worked with in the past on ‘Operation Clearway’ – a non-drugs related case – was not available to take the call, so she left a message instead, asking him to contact her.

      On arrival at the Court – an authoritative-looking Victorian building, complete with tall, stained-glass windows and faux Grecian columns to either side of its front steps, and yet faded to a dingy grey through time and weathering – she parked in the staff car park at the rear, entered through the staff door and went down the steps to the police room and the holding cells.

      ‘Where’ve you been?’ DC Harry Jepson snapped.

      ‘Why … I’m not late?’ She threw her overcoat onto a hanger.

      ‘I know, but I wanted to make sure we’ve got everything straight before we go up.’

      ‘Listen, Harry …’ Lucy checked her watch as she entered the kitchen area; they had a good twenty minutes before the trial commenced, ‘… if you tell the truth in Court’ – she stressed the word ‘truth’ as if it might be a novel concept for him – ‘then there’s nothing to get straight, is there. We’ll both be on the same page automatically.’

      Jepson looked hurt. ‘I am going to tell the truth.’

      ‘Good.’ She put the kettle on. ‘So, what’s the problem?’

      After ten years working as a uniformed constable out of various police stations in Crowley, her home town, but also home to GMP’s notorious November Division, or ‘the N’, as it was sometimes called, Lucy had made the long-awaited permanent move to CID the previous winter. To some extent, this had been a battlefield promotion, a result of the ‘exemplary courage and resourcefulness’, to use the words of the Deputy Chief Constable at her commendation, that she’d displayed during a long, complex and particularly dangerous undercover assignment, the now legendary Operation Clearway. Without any of this, it was highly unlikely that she’d ever have made detective. Long before Clearway, at a relatively early stage of her career, one spectacular foul-up had almost seen her kicked out of the job and had certainly looked as if it would follow her round forever. Even with Clearway under her belt, it was mainly thanks to the persuasive powers of Detective Superintendent Priya Nehwal of the Serious Crimes Division, that the GMP top brass had finally decided to overlook her previous indiscretion. That was the good news.

      The bad news was that, for her first posting, working out of the CID office at Robber’s Row – Crowley’s divisional HQ – Lucy had been partnered with Detective Constable Harry Jepson, who, though affable enough when it suited him, was a bit of a throwback.

      Harry had already been a detective for fifteen years when Lucy came along, but in all that time he’d never once been promoted, which implied that his dual habits of cutting procedural corners and showing heavy-handedness with suspects did not always pay dividends. He was a reasonably good-looking bloke, fair-haired and with a big frame – like a rugby player – though he was now in his early forties and a tad beaten-up around the edges. He was also a divorcee, unhappily so, with several kids to support, which embittered him no end; he drank too much as well, was increasingly slovenly in appearance, and inclined to gruffness with those he didn’t know.

      Lucy occasionally wondered, though had never asked aloud, if her being partnered with Harry was deemed to be as much for his benefit as hers. Not that she was renowned for playing a totally straight bat, herself, she had to admit.

      It was also a growing concern that she thought Harry might secretly be carrying a candle for her. She knew he was lonely and frustrated, and he was well aware that she too was a singleton. Though they enjoyed a productive working relationship, she’d several times caught him eyeing her approvingly when he thought she wasn’t looking. Not that Lucy was in any way tempted. Harry wasn’t unfanciable – he had a certain roughneck charm. But she had strict rules about mixing work and pleasure, much to her mum’s helpless fury.

      ‘Brew,’ she said. It wasn’t a question; she handed him a mug of tea, while still stirring her own.

      ‘Ta,’ he replied, distracted and flustered as he went through the details of the original arrest, noted in his pocketbook.

      Lucy was quietly amused by that. Out on the street, he was as cool as they came – casually and confidently dealing with even the worst of the town’s yobs and criminals; a good man to have in a tight corner. But confront him with a wall of bureaucracy, and he became childlike in his ineptitude; face him with officialdom, and he lost all sense of who he was – grew nervous and frazzled.

      Giving evidence in Court was never less than an ordeal for him.

      The defendant that morning was a certain Darren Pringle, a repeat violent offender whom they both knew of old. Lucy didn’t think that Pringle had much chance on this occasion – he’d been charged with wounding, yet again. A habitually aggressive drunk, the previous August he’d come stumbling out of a Crowley pub, taken offence that a young chap was sitting at a nearby traffic light in a sports car, and with no provocation whatsoever, had walked around the vehicle, punched out its driver-side window and then punched out the driver, blacking his eye and splitting his eyebrow in the process. He’d then run for it, but Lucy and Harry, having taken various statements from onlookers and following a ‘vapour-trail’ of CCTV, had arrested him at his council flat the following morning, where they’d also seized his clothing, which had later proved to be covered with glass fragments and spatters of blood – both his own and the aggrieved party’s. It didn’t look good for him, but strange things happened in courtrooms.

      They discussed the detail while they had their tea, and then traipsed upstairs to the lobby, where they had a quick conflab with the civvy witnesses and the brief from the CPS.

      After that, they sat down on a bench to wait.

      ‘By the way,’ Harry said. ‘You know there’ve been a number of breaks on the Hatchwood?’

      Lucy nodded. Hatchwood Green was one of the most deprived housing estates in the whole of Crowley Borough. Crime there was nothing new. But the recent spate of house burglaries had occurred at a remarkable rate, and a quick analysis of the various crime reports would reveal many similar characteristics between them.

      ‘Well … from today onward,’ Harry added, ‘that’s me and you.’

      She glanced round with interest.

      ‘Stan’s had enough and wants it clearing up,’ he said.

      Stan Beardmore was the divisional detective inspector at Robber’s Row, and Lucy and Harry’s immediate senior manager.

      Before she could question him further on this, the clerk appeared and called Harry into Court. He stood up, straightened his loosely knotted tie and brushed down the lapels of his crumpled jacket.

      ‘Once I’m done, if I’m discharged I’ll head back to the nick and gather the intel,’ he said. ‘So we can hit the ground running.’

      Lucy nodded, and waited. As she did, her phone rang.

      ‘DC Clayburn,’ she answered.

      ‘Lucy …?’

      ‘Morning, sir.’ She immediately recognised the gruff but friendly tone of Geoff Slater.

      ‘How

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