Dusty and tired, Lucy wheeled her Ducati back through the tunnels underneath the warehouse. Even with her broken helmet removed and hooked over one of the handlebars, this was a far from straightforward exercise. Her right hip ached abominably from where she’d crash-landed on it – by morning, she’d be bruised the entire length of that side of her body – and the bike was heavy. It hadn’t suffered anything more than superficial damage, and could easily be ridden, but she didn’t feel in a fit state. On top of all that, the route back wasn’t particularly easy to trace.
She’d hurtled through the network of passages so quickly that she’d barely had time to register landmarks. A couple of times she went the wrong way and had to double back, which was even more exhausting because it often meant manoeuvring the bike in a three-point turn halfway along corridors so cramped that there was minimal room.
It was a good fifteen minutes before she returned to the main undercroft. This place itself would have been difficult to identify, if it hadn’t been for the fresh air flowing in through the garage-sized entrance at the top of the concrete ramp. There was no longer any sign of Sister Cassie. Frustrated, Lucy climbed onto her bike, kicked it into life and rode it up and over the rubble barricade before mounting the ramp. When she reached the top and emerged onto Canning Crescent, she braked.
The ex-nun was seated on a nearby kerb. She’d replaced her wimple, veil and cloak, and was patiently rearranging the various bits of rubbish that had fallen out of her satchel.
‘There you are, child,’ she said, as Lucy trudged over. ‘Thank Heaven. I thought something bad might have happened to you. If only I had a phone, I could have alerted some of your colleagues.’
Lucy regarded her wearily. The ex-nun seemed to be unhurt. At least, no blows had left visible marks on her head or face. ‘Sister … don’t you think something like this was always likely to happen? The places you go, the people you interact with …’
Sister Cassie shrugged as she knotted the ends of the satchel’s broken strap. ‘On the mission, one must take the rough with the smooth, child. Besides, what am I, if not an addict myself, an outcast?’ She sighed. ‘It does happen. More than you might imagine. So long as we are alive at the end, all is well.’
‘How’d the bag get broken? Did they try to pinch it?’
‘Heavens, no. It was … well, it was me they tried to pinch.’
‘What exactly happened?
Sister Cassie frowned. ‘One of them was pretending to be one of us. A disgusting trick, in my view.’ She described how she’d seen the pathetic figure huddled and crying under the dirty piece of carpet, and how when she went over to offer succour, the child – who was clearly not a child, at least ‘not a child in its head’ – leaped up and tried to snatch her. At the same time, she said, a vehicle, a green van, emerged at speed from the entrance to the undercroft and pulled up alongside them.
‘A green van this time?’
‘I know what I saw, child.’
‘Don’t worry, I saw it too. Or glimpsed it.’ Lucy glanced around. ‘I don’t see any carpet.’
‘No.’ The ex-nun looked for herself. ‘Perhaps the van driver took it?’
Very likely, Lucy thought. Which means that they’re forensically savvy.
‘I actually hit my assailant with the bag,’ Sister Cassie added. ‘Which is why it broke and spilled its contents. But it’s not a major problem. As you see, I can easily make repairs. But it bought me sufficient time to flee down into the basement … alas, I wasn’t swift enough to make a complete getaway.’
‘I thought the van came from down there?’
‘It was lurking down there, yes. Just like the one that took Fred Holborn.’ The ex-nun eyed Lucy carefully. ‘I know that’s what you’re thinking, child. But this one was a different colour. That one was blue, this one green.’
‘Colours can be changed, Sister.’
‘Whatever, I’d just struck my attacker with the bag when this vehicle arrived. And that was when I ran. Briefly, the underground passage was the only route open to me.’
‘Sister …’ Lucy crouched alongside her. ‘What’s going on here? I mean … what do these abductions mean? If there’s something you’re not telling us, you really need to reconsider.’
‘My dear child …’ The ex-nun put her bloodstained hand on Lucy’s shoulder. ‘You know as much as I. But as I say, here on the outskirts of society, we get attacked.’ She sighed again. ‘Sometimes, it seems like our role … that we are destined to be naught but punchbags for the less than charitable.’
‘I’m sorry to say this, but I strongly doubt this was a routine mugging.’ Lucy stood up and helped her to her feet. ‘I know it might be comforting to think that, in a bizarre kind of way. But I’m not buying it. I saw the girl who attacked you. She was wearing military-style clothing.’
‘I see.’ Though Sister Cassie clearly didn’t see, from her puzzled expression.
‘She was also fit – extremely fit.’
The meaning of this was still lost on the ex-nun, who merely shook her head with disapproval.
Lucy didn’t bother elaborating on how all this, along with the organised nature of the ambush – the teamwork it had clearly involved, and the fact that the victim was being targeted for kidnap rather than a simple assault – put it way beyond common-or-garden street violence. Instead, she asked: ‘I don’t suppose the girl said anything to you?’
‘Hissed a few foul-mouthed things, that’s all.’
‘Anything you recognised?’
‘I suppose I recognised the words, even if I didn’t quite understand them.’
Lucy shrugged. ‘Any you’d care to share?’
‘Well … I dislike the language of course. But I suppose you’ll need to hear everything?’
‘Unfortunately, it’s essential.’
Sister Cassie nodded sadly. ‘She called me a “stiff-assed virgin bitch” and said something equally uncouth about “taking me back to fucking Maggies”.’
‘And did that mean anything to you?’
‘I assure you not. Such a foul mouth on one so young. But then it’s all we seem to hear these days, is it not?’
‘Sometimes feels that way,’ Lucy agreed.
‘At least I clouted her a good one.’ Sister Cassie’s face coloured a little. ‘My old mother, a devout Christian woman despite her own occasional use of inappropriate words, always used to say that turning the other cheek was only good so long as no fella came up and striped it with his razor blade. She grew up on Sheriff Street, of course, an unforgiving neighbourhood in her day. But alas –’ she held up her injured right hand ‘– though I followed her instruction and tried to stand up to this young bully, I fear I’ve paid a price.’
‘Let me look at that,’ Lucy said.
The ex-nun obliged. Her hand was now sticky with blood, most of it from the top of the stick-like middle finger, where the entire nail had been torn away.
‘I think this happened when I struck the girl,’ the ex-nun said.
Lucy glanced up at her. ‘Really?’
‘My fingernails are not exactly manicured, as you can see. So, I must have hooked her in some way when I slapped her. But this is a minor thing. I am more than used to—’
‘Sister, can you follow me down the slope?’
‘Go back below?’
‘Just for a minute. Please. I promise you it’s important.’
The ex-nun acquiesced, buckling up her satchel, while Lucy went over to her Ducati. She rode it back down the ramp, angling it up on top of the rubble barricade again and parking it just over the apex, so that her headlight flooded the floorway beyond. She climbed off and waited for Sister Cassie to join her, then the two of them scrambled down the rest of the way on foot.
‘In case you’re wondering, we’re looking for your missing fingernail,’ Lucy said.
‘Dear child … I hardly need that back.’
‘You misunderstand me. If you managed to rake some exposed flesh with that nail, and we find it, it’ll be the first piece of physical evidence we actually have.’
The floor was already strewn with trash, and they weren’t sure where the main altercation had occurred. Lucy finally resorted to what she told Sister Cassie was a ‘pattern search’, whereby they divided the space up into an imaginary grid and worked their way from one section of it to the next, scrutinising each ultra-carefully – and it was this that paid the dividend.
‘Ah-ha!’ Triumphantly, Sister Cassie indicted a minuscule object at her feet.
It was indeed a human fingernail, blackened and chewed, but slimy and red on its concave side, particularly around the root, which had clearly been torn out.
Lucy ran up to her bike, took a pair of tweezers and a small plastic envelope from the under-seat storage and hurried back down. Once the nail was in the envelope, she sealed it. They held it up for a closer look. At the business end of the nail, which was jagged, dangled a single tiny thread of skin-like fibre.
‘This is going to our lab tonight,’ Lucy said. ‘And you need to come back to the station too.’
Sister Cassie thought about this. ‘I can meet you there at a time when it’s convenient …’
‘No, Sister – it’s convenient now.’ Lucy was firm. ‘I need a full statement from you, okay? Not just about this attack tonight, but about everything else that’s happened.’
The ex-nun looked doubtful. ‘It’s rather a long walk. And I was hoping to sleep …’
‘I’ll saddle you on my bike, don’t worry. You need to come back with me, anyway. So we can get that hand fixed up.’
For the first time all evening, the ex-nun looked genuinely horror-stricken.
‘Me! Ride a motorcycle? I doubt I’d have the courage.’
‘Sister, you’ve just fought off a violent attacker, who could be responsible for several abductions. Plus, you live here.’ Lucy made an exasperated gesture. ‘I’m pretty sure that if you look deep inside yourself, you’ll find the necessary courage.’
Sister Cassie looked unsure but accompanied Lucy up the ramp, the latter pushing her bike. As they reached the outside, the mobile buzzed in Lucy’s pocket. She was puzzled to see that the call was from her mother even though it was after one in the morning.
‘Yeah, Mum?’ She leaned the bike on its stand.
‘Lucy … are you at the hospital?’ Cora sounded tense and upset, which made the question all the more worrying.
‘No, I’m not,’ Lucy replied. ‘Mum, what’s—’
‘Then I’ll see you there. I’m guessing you know what’s happened?’
‘I don’t know anything. Look … are you okay?’
There was a brief, breathy silence. Lucy pictured her mother sitting in her little car, about to set off, possibly surprised by her daughter’s ignorance.
‘Mum … what’s going on? Seriously, I’ve not heard anything.’
‘Frank’s been shot.’
At first, Lucy was too stunned to coherently respond. She edged away from Sister Cassie, lowering her voice. ‘How … I mean, hold on a sec …’
‘I was just about to go to bed, but then it was all over the late evening news. I suppose someone at the hospital talked. Notorious Manchester criminal Frank McCracken … found dying from a gunshot wound at the entrance of St Winifred’s Hospital. I don’t know how badly hurt he is, or how he got there, but –’ Cora’s voice threatened to break ‘– but … that blonde trollop’s with him. I’m sure it’s her. They say he had a female companion, who’s also been shot …’
‘Okay, Mum … listen …’ Lucy’s panicky thoughts tumbled over each other. At first, no possible solution suggested itself, let alone made sense to her. But there was a question at least. ‘Mum … why are you going there?’
‘Why on earth do you think?’ Cora sounded shocked.
‘What good can you do?’
‘I can’t do any good. But I’m not just sitting around at home.’
‘They don’t even know you’re connected to him.’
‘I don’t care about that, Lucy. Like I say, I’m not sitting around at home. It’s not like anyone would call me with an update.’
‘Mum, listen …’ Lucy felt a growing sense of alarm. ‘Frank McCracken is not your concern any more. He’s not your husband. He’s not even your boyfriend.’
‘But he’s your father, Lucy. So, as I say, I’ll expect to see you there. As soon as possible.’