As Lucy pulled onto the drive of her bungalow on Cuthbertson Court, she heard the landline ringing inside. She hurried indoors, just in time to catch it.
It was Tessa Payne at the other end. ‘Lucy … glad I caught you. I’ve been trying your mobile, but—’
‘Don’t worry, it’s kaput,’ Lucy said.
‘Well … at least it’s not you, eh?’ Once again, the trainee detective sounded breathless and excited. Doubtless, this fast-moving enquiry, with its potential enormous pay-off, was just the sort of thing she’d joined CID to get involved in. Evidently, she hadn’t yet learned that Lucy was persona non grata.
‘I suppose I agree with that,’ Lucy replied, too emotionally exhausted even to make it sound like the sarcasm she’d intended. ‘Sorry, Tessa. Yeah … least I’m alive.’
‘I’m so sorry … I mean, sorry you had to go through all that alone.’
‘Two of us being nabbed wouldn’t have improved things, Tess. Thanks for the thought, though. How’s it going?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘The search for the Torgau girls.’
‘Oh … well, the house is getting turned over. Their escape route led through an old sewer and came up again in a derelict garage about three streets away. We’ve located a lock-up near the town centre too. Think that’s where they were keeping the van. There’s a respraying kit in there, goggles, paint-stained overalls, a load of fake registration plates and spare clothes. The van’s not there though, obviously.’
‘No indication where they might have taken it?’ Lucy asked.
‘Not yet. But I heard some of the Serious crowd talking. They don’t reckon they’ll get very far. I mean, they can travel as far as the petrol takes them, obviously, but we’ve put an all-points out, so it won’t be easy getting a refill. On top of that, what are they going to do in the middle of the night? Park in a layby and sleep? Maybe one night, maybe two, but that can’t go on indefinitely, can it? Even if they change vehicles, that situation won’t improve.’
‘Unless they’ve got somewhere else to lay low,’ Lucy said. ‘Somewhere more secure.’
Payne thought about that. ‘You mean if they’ve got more accomplices?’
‘It’s hardly going to be the Crew. But the Torgau girls are bound to know other folk. They’ve not been living like nuns … hang on, whoa!’
‘What’s up?’ Payne asked.
‘Nuns,’ Lucy said, mainly to herself.
‘What do you mean, “nuns”?’ Payne wondered. ‘You said something about that before.’
‘Nothing, it’s all right.’ A compelling new thought had just occurred to Lucy, and it was already taking a deep, fast root. ‘Just let me know if you hear anything, yeah?’
‘Aren’t you off sick?’
‘Yeah, but this was my case, I want to know how it pans out.’
But Payne now sounded intrigued. ‘What did you mean, “nuns”?’
‘Tessa, I’ve got to go. Stick with the footage.’
Lucy cut the call and stood thinking.
Nuns …
She dashed back outside, jumped into the Jimny, threw it into reverse and swung it onto the road.
The Torgau girls could be anywhere. They could have another vehicle, another lock-up, not to mention all kinds of well-resourced associates that no one in the police knew about. But most likely the latter did not apply. Martin Torgau had been successful for so long because he’d kept everything in-house. He’d flown under the law enforcement radar, shielded by a façade of decorum. By playing the good neighbour, socialising only with respectable people, he’d done nothing whatsoever to draw police attention to him – which also meant that he’d kept his fraternising with fellow criminals to a minimum. Even if that hadn’t been the case, the Crew had tried to wipe both him and his daughters out. So how many hoodlums would seriously be willing to offer them refuge? And yet those two girls had taken off like bats out of Hell, like girls with a real purpose.
And that purpose wasn’t just to ride the roads until they ran out of fuel. They were headed somewhere they could hole up, somewhere they could lie low and reorganise, somewhere no one outside themselves and their father knew about.
With one possible exception.
Lucy turned her vehicle in the direction of St Clement’s.
This enquiry had seen her gamble on some genuine long-shots, and yet this would be the longest shot of all. It was tenuous as a strand of chewing gum, but just at present, as her entire career was hanging by it, she’d take any chance that came her way.
‘Oh dear, look what I’ve found,’ Lucy said, after kicking open the door to the only cubicle in the row that had a door attached.
It was obscenely filthy in there, the walls covered with brown smears and scrawls of vile graffiti, the stench thick enough to knock a person down. But unlike all the others, this toilet had a seat and a lid on it, though the lid was currently closed, Sister Cassie’s satchel lying on top, and on top of that her a slim metal box lying open on several key items: a foil wrap, a cigarette lighter, a blackened spoon and a small plastic syringe cap.
The ex-nun herself was on the floor, crammed into the niche alongside the porcelain throne, her left sleeve unfastened and rolled back, and a cord tied around her upper arm. In her right hand, a syringe filled with clear fluid hovered over one of several ugly bruises.
‘If it isn’t someone in possession of controlled drugs!’ Lucy declared.
Sister Cassie’s face looked pinched and pale. Now it turned peevish. ‘My child, let’s not be foolish. You know that I’m purely a user. I never distribute this material.’
Lucy pulled one of her leather motorcycle gloves on and flexed her fingers. The ex-nun watched, helpless, as the cop reached down and took the syringe away, fitting its cap in place and sliding it into one of her jacket pockets. After that, she took the wrap of heroin.
‘You’re still in contravention of the law, Sister.’
‘And are you really going to arrest me?’
Lucy backed out of the cubicle, beckoning. ‘Come on, on your feet.’
Sister Cassie stayed where she was. ‘It wasn’t my fault about this morning. I came to the police station, like you said, but you weren’t there.’
Lucy was briefly regretful. It was correct that she’d arranged for the ex-nun to come in and give her statement, but in the fury-ride of overtaking events, she’d forgotten all about it. Not that it made any difference now.
She beckoned again. ‘Come on, Sister. Move it.’
Whimpering with frustration, the ex-nun released the cord and put what remained of her bits and pieces back into the flat tin, which she carefully lidded. ‘Lucy Clayburn, I am very disappointed in you. I thought you were different from the others.’
She got to her feet, shivering as she tightened her cloak against a chill that Lucy didn’t feel. She was sweaty too, her nose running, all of which implied that she was strung-out, which wouldn’t help. But it could have been worse. She could have been high.
Shouldering the satchel, she emerged into the main body of the toilet block. It was the one Lucy had been told about, on the end of the row of derelict shops near Penrose Mill, and it was a dank, dingy hole, filled with litter and broken glass, and strewn with old syringes.
‘I thought you were different too,’ Lucy said. ‘You might not be a dealer, but you keep the dealers in business, don’t you? And what about this place? It’s supposed to be a public convenience, not a dump site for dirty needles.’
‘Those are not my needles,’ the nun protested. ‘I always take mine to the Exchange.’
‘Unless you’re too stoned to remember.’
Sister Cassie looked shocked at the suggestion. ‘That’s never happened.’
‘How would you know? Uh? When you’re walking down the street like the living dead, throwing away that wonderful education you gained at the taxpayer’s expense? Do you ever wonder about the generations of kids you didn’t inspire after you became an addict?’
‘What’s all this about?’ The ex-nun looked puzzled, at least partly because she’d offered her hands to be cuffed, and it hadn’t happened yet. ‘You’ve never moralised like this before.’
‘I’ll tell you what this is, Sister … I’m about to do the world a favour. I’m going to throw you in the slammer. They’ll break you of the habit in there. They’ll make you get clean.’
‘And what about my regulars? Who will look after them?’
Lucy shrugged. ‘They chose this bed to lie on, so that’s their problem. Unless …’ She raised a cautionary finger. ‘Unless there’s a way we can help them too.’ She paused. ‘What does “Maggie” mean?’
Sister Cassie looked bemused. ‘Isn’t it a name? Short for Margaret?’
‘Yeah, but it’s a name I’ve heard used twice in the last couple of days … on both occasions in reference to you.’ Lucy paused again, but the ex-nun merely shrugged. ‘The girl who attacked you yesterday night. You said she called you a “stiff-arsed virgin bitch” and said that she would “take you back to fucking Maggies”. And then, not four or five hours ago, the same girl referred to you as a “Maggie slut”.’
Sister Cassie looked even more baffled. ‘I honestly have no clue. Obviously, a disturbed individual, who—’
‘None of this “disturbed characters who don’t know what they’re doing” crap.’ Lucy grabbed her by her wrists. ‘Listen to me, Sister … it’s vital that you help me. Otherwise, your regulars are going to find there’ll be no one to tuck them up at night for quite a few months. What does “Maggie slut” mean?’
‘How could I possibly know?’
‘Because I had a thought earlier on. It’s got to be in reference to what you are, or what you once were. That girl I spoke about, she and her sister spent some time in a Catholic care home … when their father was in prison.’
‘But that had nothing to do with me. My students were O Level and above. There were no special needs, no children with any kinds of problems that I … oh!’ Her expression changed, as if something remarkable had just occurred to her. ‘Oh, my word … Maggies.’
‘Yes?’ Lucy prompted her.
‘Bless my soul. I’d never have … oh, but it can’t be that.’
‘Can’t be what?’
Sister Cassie’s eyes, previously clouded with pain and misery, had suddenly cleared. ‘The term Maggies might refer to Santa Magdalena.’
‘Santa …?’
‘Santa Magdalena.’
Now, it was Lucy’s turn to look bewildered. ‘I’ve never heard of it.’
‘It was a childcare community operated by the archdiocese. On the outskirts of Crowley. If memory serves, the children used to refer to it as St Maggies.’
‘Take you back to Maggies,’ Lucy said slowly.
‘I only visited occasionally, but it was run by my own order,’ Sister Cassie added. ‘The Carmelite Sisters.’ She looked sad. ‘Rather a pejorative term for some very hard-working women … but they would most likely have been the “stiff-arsed virgins” that this ungrateful girl referred to.’
‘You say the kids used to call it St Maggies?’
‘That’s my point. It’s been closed for ten years at least. It’s no longer used for anything, but the buildings are still there. Some kind of dispute is raging about who owns them—’
‘Where is it?’
‘I don’t know the address, but it’s over towards Glazebury.’
‘Could you find it if we got in the car?’ Lucy asked.
‘We aren’t going to the police station?’
‘If you can direct me there, Sister … we’ll call it time served.’