Chapter 13
Chapter Thirteen
“We finally have intel on the brothers.” Lachy came running into the office like he was about to claim a prize.
“Tell me it’s a caravan and a slow cooker.” Wrigley spun round, grinning, then resuming his usual glare. “You’re all too young to remember Bullseye, aren’t you?”
“Not quite, Mal. My auntie went on that. Didn’t do so well.
” Jimmy Hibbert was one of the steadiest constables I’d worked with, also due to take retirement in the next couple of years.
He had a daughter the same age as me who’d moved to Australia.
I’d become a substitute in some ways, the odd cup of tea made for me here and there, and a sandwich – my favourite – left on my desk occasionally.
He’d bought me flowers when I got the promotion in a non-creepy, very proud way. “TV’s got shit since, hasn’t it?”
“Agreed. Which is why I prefer cricket. Go on then, Lachy, what’ve you got?
” Wrigley flicked back to Lachy who was still shifting around on his feet.
It had been suggested to him that he might have ADHD, but that had only prompted a long winded partial monologue that ended up with a summary on United’s chances of not being relegated this season.
“The Kinsella brothers have an alibi for the time frame for Chelsea’s murder.” His words came out in one single breath.
We all looked up, non-plussed. Although it was a lead of sorts, in the category of clutching at straws, this was a straw that had been disintegrating from day one, so none of us had held much hope that it was going to lead us somewhere.
But we needed to rule out as well as rule in, pursue all lines of reasonable enquiry.
“Go on then, lad.” Wrigley gestured at Lachy to continue. “We’re waiting for this revelation here.”
“They were involved in an attack on two blokes in Bristol, one of them’s still in a coma and they don’t know if he’ll make it.
It was a put up job – they were paid for it or had to do it, no one’s sure yet.
They were caught on camera down there on the night we know Chelsea was murdered.
They’ve spent the last few days on the run and were picked up this morning trying to get on a boat from Dover.
” He sank down on a chair, knocking the feet and nearly ending up on his arse as the chair moved unexpectedly.
“That’ll do. Doesn’t solve the conundrum around Neil Hunt and his alibi, but we can’t have everything, so crack on with the detective work you’re all paid for and update the board.” Wrigley headed off through the door, probably to report back to the DCI.
I settle back at my computer, debating whether now was a good time to wrangle some food from somewhere.
I was staring at my screen, debating what I wanted to eat, when an email notification flew up.
One word caught my eye and kicked my pulse into a sprint.
Atlas.
I didn’t open it, however, much I wanted to. Instead I dashed from my desk, almost knocking into Jimmy, and headed to the smaller office just off the main one where Nick and the tech team were glued to their screens.
Nick was engrossed in looking at a long list of text messages on his screen and jumped off his seat when I tapped his shoulder. He slid off his headphones, forcing anyone who didn’t have earphones on to be subjected to Steven Tyler at his Aerosmith finest.
“S’up?”
“I need your help.”
He stood up and frowned. “What is it?”
“Another email.”
He nodded, looking through the glass window into the rest of the office. “Have you shown it anyone else?”
“I haven’t opened it yet. I’ve just seen the name Atlas fly up. I don’t want to open something that hacks into every database we have and be forever known as that female cop.” Because my gender would be the determiner there.
“Got it. Why you, Mia?” he followed me to my desk, pulling up Lachy’s chair so he could sit next to me.
“I’ve been asking myself the same question.
” I entered my password, changed frequently, the first letters from the line of a song I usually had in my head with random numbers that weren’t that random.
I opened my email client; nine unread emails.
The third one down was from Echo_Atlas_4152, the subject ‘spot the difference’.
“Should I open it? There are no attachments.” I hovered the mouse over it.
“It won’t have a virus. Don’t click on any links or download attachments, but it wouldn’t have gotten through the firewall if it was buggy, unless it’s someone ten steps ahead of us malware wise.
” He sounded like he was being hypnotised.
I sometimes forgot how Nick’s passion, apart from Manchester City, was anything online.
I opened the email.
Mia,
Same blade. Different city.
Leeds — twelve months ago.
Male, 29. Found near Burley Park. Stabbed once — left lower quadrant.
Depth: 10.5cm. Lacerated the inferior mesenteric artery and sigmoid colon. Death from rapid blood loss.
No struggle. No obvious motive.
Police called it gang-related. Mistaken identity.
But there was no follow-up. No match on blade.
No pattern — not then.
You’ll see it now.
—Echo_Atlas_4152
(This thread closes soon. Don’t reply.)
I read it three times and looked at Nick. “Why me?”
“I think you already know the answer to that, Mac.” His expression was the most serious I’d ever seen it. ‘He knows something about your background.”
The office suddenly felt too quiet, as if everyone was trying to listen in. “I need lunch. Want to join me?”
He nodded, grabbing his jacket from the partially broken coat stand while I locked my machine.
We headed outside, towards Piccadilly Gardens from the office, leaving behind the building we unaffectionately named the Pigeon Loft due to the copious amounts of the grey birds that gathered on the scaffolding that we suspected was holding the building up.
It was a listed building, used by the serious crimes teams for the last decade as the place they’d been in before it had been condemned.
We were awaiting the completion of a new building in the now trendy NOMA district, which was next to Angel Meadow, Engels’ favourite place to visit in Manchester, the home of pits of cholera victims.
There was a beautiful irony with it, really. Murder, rot and fire had become executive living.
For now, we hung with the pigeons and laughed every time one managed to crap on Vinny, never feeling quite alone even when we were there in the dead of night.
Manchester didn’t sleep anyway. Shoppers and office workers and daytime partiers were replaced in the evenings with theatregoers and meal eaters, then as nighttime came into play, different parts of the city awakened.
The early morning shift workers, postal workers, nurses, bus drivers, the people who should be home but circumstances – chosen or forced – meant that the Manchester dawn was their current companion.
The city crawled at different paces along the various shades of grey concrete and through the red brick.
We headed to the nearby sandwich shop, a little independently owned place frequented by cops and nearby office workers, where the bread was thick, and words were sparse.
Nick ordered something fried and I went for a ham salad, the brief respite from rain offering us a dry stroll while we ate.
He was quiet, not asking me anything but expecting an explanation anyway, although I wasn’t sure I owed him one.
“You need to share this with Wrigley.” He eventually spoke, probably because I knew as well as anyone the power of not saying anything.
“I know. I will.” I sighed, watching the beginnings of an altercation between two probably homeless men, hoping that they were too out of it to be bothered making a bigger scene.
“My dad – my actual biological father – is in prison. Banged up for fraud because they’ve never caught him for anything else. He’s part of Greystone Holdings.”
Nick almost choked on a piece of bacon. “The Whit Lane Boys?”
“The one and the same. His father was one of the founding members in the fifties. Stan joined them with his brother, Den, and it became the family business.” One that’d paid for my university education although the money had been washed clean by then. “The brass are aware of this.”
“I didn’t think they wouldn’t be. So could Atlas be someone who knows your dad, giving you a tip off?” Nick chanced it and sat down on a nearby bench, apparently the place where someone decided that Jez could get fucked.
I joined him, nibbling on a piece of the bread. “Maybe. Or it’s someone feeding false information, or it’s no one connect with Stan Garrity at all and they’ve just used this to get me to give what they’re telling me some credence.”
“Your old surname wasn’t Garrity though, was it?” Nick was now eyeing my sandwich.
I moved it away from him. “No. I had my birth mother’s surname. She was Carla Bryce and was in a relationship with Stan’s son, who I believed was my father – and so did he. My mum was having it off with the pair of them. She was a wannabe gangster’s moll, but it didn’t quite work out like that.”
“Is that how you ended up in care?’
I nodded, not making eye contact. It was easier to watch one of the homeless men, now settled in a doorway, shouting abuse at passersby.
“My mum disappeared. She was double dealing and got caught, so she did one, leaving me on my own. Romy McAllister took me in – I was best friends with her daughter and spent half my time at her house anyway – and when Carla did turn up and was arrested on various charges, Romy became a foster carer so I could stay with her. I had a good childhood. I was part of the family and never made to feel any different.” There was only one memory of my childhood that I wished I could change.
“How well do you know Stan?’