Cath Staincliffe - Hit and Run

The man had turned to Chris and let go of the girl. Released, she flew at Chris. ‘Get off him,’ she shrieked, oblivious to the fact that Chris hadn’t laid a finger on the guy, ‘yer wanker, eff off.’ And she had clouted Chris with her handbag then kicked out at him with one vicious looking stiletto which raked a neat quarter-inch furrow down his shin.

Now he wasn’t frightened or agitated because it was like he was on automatic. He imagined that soldiers maybe felt like that before battle or someone jumping out of a plane.

He knew the way. He’d done a few jobs on one of the estates on the fringe of Wythenshawe. Sort of places people bought because it was near the airport and the motorways. They wouldn’t be there more than a few years and they could buy it newly built and sell it for a neat profit and it even came painted, carpeted and fully fitted. Move in a couch and a bed and you were in business.

The address he was making for was less desirable. Council flat in the worst part. No one here ever rang a plumber; under the tenancy agreements they’d all be fixed up by direct works, or they wouldn’t – depending on who you talked to. Regular items in the free newspapers featured scenes of council tenants pointing to leaking pipes, giant field mushrooms on the wall and sodden carpets.

She’d just finished feeding Charlotte and Pete had his coat on and was kissing the baby goodbye when Richard rang. ‘Bad news. Stone and Gleason, obbos have lost them.’

‘They’ve lost them! Shit!’ She flushed with irritation. ‘Circulate descriptions to all patrols. Get Butchers and Shap and anyone else you can pull in on standby, we’d better bloody well find them. Keep me informed.’

Tom picked up on the language like a shot. ‘Aw! Mum said the s-word and the b-word.’

‘How did they lose them?’

‘They were on foot, our lads were following but they weren’t quick enough. Stone and Gleason gave them the slip. There’s more,’ Richard added.

‘What more?’ Her voice dangerous.

Richard exhaled. ‘Chris Chinley was seen in the area around the same time.’

‘What!’ she snapped. ‘You are joking!’

Pete raised Charlotte high. ‘Houston,’ he said, ‘we have a problem.’

Butchers and Shap waited in the car. They had driven round in circles looking for signs of the missing men but seen nothing.

Shap was bored, shifting in his seat and sighing loudly. Butchers was tight-lipped; he started when the radio crackled. ‘Two men answering descriptions of suspects seen on Bradbury Road, near Halton Lane junction, heading west.’

Butchers started the car. ‘Unit responding.’ It was five minutes away. Butchers made it in three. The location was deserted, amber streetlights reflecting off broken pavements. Small houses, curtains drawn and locked up tight. Everyone in safe behind closed doors.

‘Get a closer look.’ Butchers said unbuckling his seat belt.

‘What’s the point?’ Shap asked him. ‘They’ll be long gone.’

‘You coming or not?’ Butchers snarled.

‘Not,’ Shap retorted, folding his arms and wriggling down in his seat.

Butchers slammed the car door, fastened his coat against the rain, switched on his torch and walked along the street. Once there had been a parade of shops but a combination of vandalism and poverty had forced most of them to close. Nowhere now to get a carton of milk or a packet of fags. Butchers walked round the block and back. He could smell curry from somewhere and for a moment he thought about getting a take-away. There was a place back towards town – Chinese. It was hours since he’d eaten.

On the side road he saw movement, a dog? No, a fox. The distinctive tail, the rusty colouring. He smiled. The animal slipped out of view into some sort of an alleyway. Butchers crossed over and followed, the beam of his torch picking out steps. Not an alleyway but an old subway tunnel. He wondered why they’d built it here, something to do with the warehouses across the way, or the railways. He went down the steps, played the light into the subway.

He could see the fox ahead; the animal hesitated at a heap of rubbish by the far steps, glanced at Butchers and then back at the rubbish, reluctant to leave. But as Butchers drew closer the animal skittered away up the far steps. Butchers swung his torch over the rubbish. His heart juddered, his hand began to tremble, the yellow light of the ray jouncing up and down, erratically.

‘Oh, sweet Jesus,’ he prayed. ‘Oh, no. No,’ as he stared at the crumpled figure, the clothes. The dark mess, the slick pool on the floor. Jeremy Gleason. With half his head blown off.

The Press had got wind of a fresh kill and Janine was temporarily blinded by the barrage of bright flashes from the cameras. She skirted the crowd and ignored the clamour for comments.

It was cold enough for gloves but she had to peel her own off and flex her fingers into thin plastic ones. She already wore a protective suit over her trousers and now she pulled the top of it over her arms and zipped it up. The scene of crime manager signed her in and she edged past the gantry of lights that were illuminating the steps leading down to where the body lay.

The sight made her recoil in shock, though anyone looking would only have noticed a sharp intake of breath and a tightening around the jaw. She looked at the mess around the man, the copious amount of blood and gore, the position he lay in, one leg flung out from his body, the thin pale ankle showing between his sock and his trousers, a fake Rolex on one wrist still ticking away. She felt a wave of sadness, too, that a life should end this way, suddenly, savagely, in a disused subway.

Richard stood beside her. ‘Gunshot wound to the head,’ he said grimly, ‘they’ve not found the weapon. And no sign of Lee Stone – he’s not been back to the flat.’

‘Maybe I should have hung on to Gleason – gone for broke. If letting him go led to…’ she broke off. She recalled the fear in Gleason’s eyes when she had questioned him. She had assumed that he’d been fearful of the police but maybe there’d been more to it. Frightened of Stone, too?

‘We don’t know that,’ Richard said. ‘We’ve no idea what’s behind this.’

‘We need to find Stone,’ she said decisively. ‘Get a team onto likely haunts, friends and family. And put out a bulletin. But warn the public not to approach him, he’s probably armed.’ She hugged herself, tucking her hands under her arms in an effort to keep warm.

Richard stood aside as another piece of the forensic kit was brought through. ‘If this is Stone’s doing, what’s his motive?’

‘Stop Gleason talking? He was shaky when we had him in.’

‘Talking about the hit and run? Or he knew something about Rosa?’

‘Take your pick.’

‘If Stone did both killings,’ Richard spoke slowly, testing his thoughts, ‘they’ve got very different MOs. Here we’ve got a shooting and no attempt to hide the body. With Rosa we’ve strangulation and then efforts to disguise her.’

She thought about it. ‘Maybe because he had different motives?’

‘OK. With Rosa – he blows his cool and kills her when she rejects him, whatever…’

‘And this is more like an execution.’

‘There is someone else – with a cast-iron motive. Chris Chinley. We know he was in the vicinity.’

Janine’s stomach clenched. ‘How did Chris Chinley know who our suspects were?’ she asked sharply.

Richard raised his eyebrows.

‘Unless a little bird told him?’ Janine said, thinking of the visit to the Chinleys – of how Chris had stormed out followed by Butchers. ‘In which case, I’ll ring its flamin’ neck.’