a break, love. No john’s going to want to give me one now, is he? The first whiff he gets, he’ll chuck his tea up.’ Tammy continued scrubbing on her own. ‘Can’t believe we’re actually getting blamed for these murders now.’
‘Yeah, how about that,’ Lucy said.
‘You picked a good time to start out, I’ll tell you.’
‘That’s what I was thinking.’
‘Don’t worry …’ Tammy actually managed to crack a smile.
In the process of cleaning away the filth, she’d also removed most of her slap, but she was none the worse for that. She had rosebud lips, a snub nose, a dusting of freckles and a pair of fetching green eyes – there was something of the saucy minx about her. Lucy couldn’t help wondering how so pretty a youngster had finished up in this profession.
‘I’ve got just the thing for us,’ Tammy said. ‘Look in my bag.’
Lucy did as instructed, and alongside Tammy’s purse found the vodka bottle. It was still half full.
‘Help yourself,’ Tammy said.
‘Nah …’ Lucy shrugged ‘I’m teetotal.’
‘What the fuck!’ Tammy broke off cleansing herself to gaze at her new pal in disbelief. ‘Aren’t you full of fucking surprises? You’re the hottest thing I’ve seen up here in yonks, you chuck your money round like there’s no tomorrow and now you don’t imbibe!’
‘I used to, but it never did me any good.’
‘Never does me any good either, but that doesn’t mean I don’t like it. Hand it over.’
Lucy obliged, and Tammy took several large swigs, a quarter of the bottle vanishing in one fell swoop. She screwed the cap back on and belched again.
‘Ahhh … nothing better when you’ve had a chocolate log chucked in your face. Anyway –’ she grabbed the handbag and shoved the bottle back inside it ‘– gotta make a move. Nice meeting you. What did you say your name was?’
‘Keira,’ Lucy replied. ‘But my real name’s …’
Tammy held a hand up. ‘Best if I don’t know your real name.’
‘You told me yours.’
‘Yeah, but I’m a fuck-up … as you’ve seen. Bad stuff always happens to me, but it’s usually for a reason. Anyway, thanks again for your help.’ Tammy turned back from the doorway. ‘Listen … if you need someone to show you the ropes, the blonde bimbo outside, Sandy, can be alright. She’s a bit of piss-taker, but her bark’s worse than her bite. Just watch the other one, Tomasina. If she finds out you’ve got that much dosh in your purse, she’ll have the lot. And she’ll kick your face to mush in the process.’
Lucy nodded and smiled in thanks. And then Tammy was gone, the toilet door slamming, the sound of it echoing through the damp cell that appeared to be their one and only indoor refuge on these cold, wet autumn nights. She turned back to the mirror, the sheet of grimy glass with Blowjob Queen of Manchester! scrawled over the top. A foul stench emitted from the sink. When she glanced down, she saw that someone had vomited into it. And now, just to complete the picture, it was also crammed with Tammy’s screwed-up, shit-stained tissues.
Lucy regarded her sallow features in the tarnished glass.
This was going to be a vastly more challenging stake-out than even she’d anticipated.
As a policewoman, Lucy counted herself an old stager. She’d dealt hands-on with all the horrors of urban living, from child abuse to fatal road accidents, from violent brawls on Saturday nights to forgotten OAPs so long abandoned there were only bones remaining when someone finally found them. Nothing shocked her, nothing upset her – she simply refused to let it. But possibly thanks to her being in a semi-disorientated state due to the new work patterns, not to mention the strange nature of the new work, she couldn’t help but brood on what she’d seen that night. The memory alone was hardly conducive to sleep: that dank, soulless location; those wet woods and rain-washed roads; that grubby little lorry drivers’ caf with the rubbish heaped behind it and the nasty little toilet in its guts. And then the shadowy forms on the edges of her vision: the girls themselves, the pimps, the addicts, the muggers.
Lucy’s alarm was set for two o’clock that afternoon, but she gave up on bed around seven-thirty a.m. When she tottered downstairs in a sweater and pyjama bottoms, her mum was still in the house, dressed for work but clearing away the breakfast things in her usual efficient way. The explanation Lucy offered was that she’d try to snatch some zeds later but that for now she wanted to catch up on what was happening, which was at least partly true. She curled on the couch and tuned the television to one of the all-day news channels, from whose coverage of the two latest murders she immediately detected a change in tone.
The news teams were now all over it, to the exemption of any other item. It was still early, but various anchormen had already departed the studios. One was broadcasting live from outside Robber’s Row, which was almost hidden from view behind a wall of press and TV vans, while another was intoning into a microphone on the edge of one of the north-west’s many interchangeably bleak and featureless wastelands. In this latter case, dog-teams, both the officers and their pooches clad in hi-viz jackets, could be seen progressing slowly across the grey clinker-desert.
‘Two of them this time, apparently,’ Cora said, placing a cup of tea and a plate of buttered toast in front of Lucy as she sat riveted to the screen.
‘Yeah, I know … I heard last night.’
‘They don’t think these two were actually up to anything.’
Lucy glanced at her. ‘Sorry … what do you mean?’
‘According to the news, they were just a pair of lads trying to sling some rubbish.’
‘Yeah?’ This was first Lucy had heard about the new murders in any actual detail, and it surprised her. She turned back, refocusing on the breaking story.
It seemed that two young men from Hindley Green, Wigan, Kevin Crumper, aged twenty-five, and Arnold ‘Barney’ Hall, aged twenty-seven, were thought to have been fly-tipping on the evening of October 18th, on a stretch of former colliery wasteland at Bickershaw, when they’d encountered their killer.
Twenty-five and twenty-seven.
Two robust young blokes.
Again, Lucy wondered if there might be more than one assailant. If there was – say if there was more than one prostitute involved – it meant that she and the rest of the Ripper Chicks would have to step even more lightly. One twisted killer was dangerous enough, but a conspiracy of them? Under those circs, you had to be extra wary who you got friendly with and who you asked questions of. But still … there had only been that single figure on the Atherton CCTV video.
What kind of girl would a single killer have to be to overpower two red-blooded young guys on her own? In her mind’s eye, Lucy pictured a kind of Amazon, an unfeasible
