Ruthless (Cath Staincliffe) Read online

  About the Book

  A community on the brink.

  An abandoned chapel burns. In this part of Manchester, destruction is not unusual. But this time, the body of a man lies inside.

  And it’s down to Scott and Bailey to save them all...

  Detective Constable Rachel Bailey is struggling to come to terms with huge change, just as her partner, DC Janet Scott grapples with a horrifying tragedy. But they must put aside their own troubles if they are to solve this murder investigation. Especially when a second building goes up in flames...

  Contents

  Cover

  About the Book

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Wednesday 9 May

  Chapter 1

  Day 1: Thursday 10 May

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Day 2: Friday 11 May

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Day 3: Saturday 12 May

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Day 4: Sunday 13 May

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Day 5: Monday 14 May

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Day 6: Tuesday 15 May

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Day 7: Wednesday 16 May

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  Also by Cath Staincliffe

  Copyright

  RUTHLESS

  Cath Staincliffe

  For Ellie, who lights up my life

  Wednesday 9 May

  1

  Rachel stopped at the brow of the hill to catch her breath, a stitch in her side and sweat trickling down her back. Panting, she bent double, touched her toes then straightened up.

  It was almost dark and she watched the streetlights come on in the valley below, delineating the ring road and the motorway and the web of residential streets that sprawled up the sides of the hills. Mills and churches and tower blocks were dotted here and there, rising among the terraced housing.

  She hadn’t brought a torch and the track back to the car would be treacherous in the gloom, rutted and riven by tree roots and the gnarled heather that clung to the slope.

  Rachel felt something nip her neck and waved a hand to swat it away. Gnats.

  As the darkness deepened it seemed to bring a silence with it, an interruption of the distant traffic sounds so she could hear the tick of the ground cooling and something rustle in the foliage behind her.

  A flash of black disturbed the air by her face and she cried out then felt like a right tit. A bat, that was all. Fetching its supper.

  The glow caught her eyes, down in the west of town. A rich orange that reminded her of bonfire night. Looked too big to be a bonfire, wrong time of year – May. Perhaps a car had been torched, the petrol tank going up in flames. Joyriders, some lowlife toe-rags, getting rid of a vehicle used in a robbery. Looks bigger than that, too, she thought, flinching slightly as the bat swooped past again.

  A shriek carried on the still air, high and hoarse. Fox, owl? Some predator. She felt her muscles stiffen in her calves and kicked each foot in turn. Time to head back. The thought brought a sullen burn in her guts. Daft. She was just being daft.

  As if on cue, her mobile trilled. She yanked it from her pocket. Sean on the display. Her husband. How the fuck had that happened? She knew of course. He asked her and she said no, joked with him, shagged him, kept saying no and he kept on asking until one day, everything else gone to shit and he was still there, kind, shaggable, cheering her on and she had buckled, said yes, defences down.

  She read the text: spag carbonara half an hour x.

  He was more of a pie and chips, kebab and onion rings bloke. Born on the same estate in Langley as she was. Dragged up like Rachel and her lot had been. And like Rachel he escaped into the police. But since the wedding he’d gone all Jamie Oliver on her. Trying out this and that. Rachel hadn’t a clue why. She’d be just as happy with egg and chips or burger and beans but she went along with it. A phase, she reckoned. Least Sean never had any expectations that she’d be cooking or ironing his boxers or any of that malarkey. That was one thing they had going: he knew the score. He was a PC, the fire-fighting side of crime, out on patrol, while she was a detective on MIT, investigating murder and serious assault.

  She texted him back: OK x. Considered putting a smiley face instead. Kisses on texts seemed adolescent – well, on texts to Sean anyway. And they weren’t kids, were they, not now? But they’d had a thing back then, from time to time, when there was nothing better on offer.

  She ran as hard as she could on the path back down, savouring the feeling of speed and power, feet thudding and her heart beating fast in her chest. If she could just keep running, how great would that be? To just go, leave it all behind, Sean and her mother and her brother Dominic. Except for the job, she didn’t want to leave the job. Or Janet, who she worked alongside.

  Halfway down she pitched forward, her left foot catching on a stone, she yelled out, slammed into the ground with a jarring thud. She staggered to her feet. Her knees stung. She took a couple of deep breaths then carried on.

  At the car, she saw the dark slashes of blood on her knees. Nothing to worry about. She ran a towel over her face and neck, her arms.

  The route back to her flat, their flat, she reminded herself, took her through Manorclough, where the blaze she’d seen from the tops was still raging. One of the buildings was on fire. Curious, she parked in the car park at the small shopping precinct and walked past the shops and on to the road where the fire was.

  She knew the area. They’d done a few jobs roundabout here in her time: a domestic where the bloke had paid a mate to knife his ex, to teach her a lesson for chucking him out; and the rape and murder of an elderly woman.

  Closer to the blaze, the stench of the fire filled the air and she could see fire tenders at the scene, three of them, as she walked up the road. Uniformed officers were keeping the crowd away from the site. The Old Chapel, she realized, now belching clouds of acrid smoke into the air, the inferno roaring. Hoses were spraying water but bright flames were still visible through the holes in the roof and the windows where the shutters had burned away.

  Fire always drew a crowd, a spectacle and free at that. It hadn’t been a chapel for ages. Probably closed back in the seventies and she remembered it was a carpet place for a while then that went bust. Rachel had no idea what it was used for now, if anything. The state of the grounds, neglected and overgrown behind the wire fencing, and the holes in the roof suggested it was derelict. Just begging for some fire-starter to come along and set light to it.

  She looked at the crowd. Whole families, mum with a pram and a bunch of kids around. Teenagers, some of them filming with their phones. A few older people too; one man had made it with his Zimmer, determined to be at the party. A lad on a BMX bike, stunt pegs on the rear wheel. Dom had wanted one of them, their dad had played along but they all knew the only way it would happen was if it was robbed. So it never happened. Rachel had found an old racing bike at the tip and dragged it home and Sean had begged new tyres off a cousin and they’d done it up for Dominic. Never had working b
rakes but Dom was made up.

  All we need is an ice cream van, she thought, or toffee apples. A loud cracking sound and the crowd responded, oohing and aahing, as part of the roof collapsed and fell inside the building sending fresh flames and sparks heavenwards. Rachel shivered, damp from her run and not near enough to the heat from the fire.

  She should go. She hated the word should. She would go. Get some grub, glass of wine, swap news of the working day with Sean. She was already late.

  As Rachel went back to the car she caught a different smell on the air, the stink of skunk, dark and pungent. Saw two figures walking away down the alley next to the old dole office, hoodies up, slogan emblazoned on the back in Gothic typeface, CLASS OF 88 and an outline of an eagle. More interested in getting smashed than watching the fire. Or maybe they’d just gone to get refreshments at the shops for the next round. The dole office closed down some years back. People had to travel into town to sign on nowadays.

  ‘I’ll zap it,’ Sean said, when she apologized for being late, ‘you get a shower, no worries. What have you done to your knees?’

  ‘It’s nothing, I tripped, that’s all.’

  ‘You want to clean it.’ He peered closer, touched the side of her leg.

  ‘Don’t fuss,’ she snapped. Then felt awful for the edge in her voice. ‘I’m fine. Big girl.’

  ‘In all the right places,’ he winked. Not put off his stride at all.

  Why couldn’t she just relax? She had it all, didn’t she? Job, flat, fella? The run was supposed to get rid of it, the tension, the irritation, the sickening sense of disappointment. Only weeks since they wed, this was meant to be the honeymoon period. Instead she felt trapped, stuck and restless. She kept waiting for Sean to go but he was here, always bloody here.

  Give it time, she thought, I need to get used to it. Too comfortable with her own company, too used to her own way of doing things, to her hard-won independence. So she sat and ate pasta and shared a bottle of wine and listened to Sean. She smiled and nodded and chewed and swallowed and kept on breathing. And they went to bed and shagged and then she lay in the dark, listening to him breathe. Wondering what the fuck was wrong with her.

  Day 1

  Thursday 10 May

  2

  Janet was making packed lunches, cheese and tomato butty for Elise, peanut butter for Taisie, crisps, apples, fruit juice, muesli bars. She snapped each lunchbox shut and set them on the counter by the door. She probably ought to get the girls to do their own, they were old enough, but she’d not got round to talking to them about it. Best to discuss it first with Ade, who made the lunches more often than Janet, as he didn’t need to leave the house as early as she did. Better to present them with a united front. Not that there had been much unity since he’d moved back in. He seemed to disagree with her at every chance he got. Still punishing her.

  She tried to be conciliatory, play the penitent, smooth the waters but it rankled. She heard the slam of the letter box, the thud as the paper hit the mat, Ade’s footsteps coming downstairs. He was scanning the front page as he came into the kitchen, his hair wet from the shower, smelling of deodorant. In his teacher’s garb, white shirt, navy tie, black trousers. He always wore a tie. School expected staff as well as students to conform to their dress code. Smart, respectable. Dull, a little voice whispered in her head.

  ‘I’ve done their lunches,’ Janet said.

  ‘Right.’ He put the paper down. Janet took her breakfast, a round of toast and a cup of coffee, to the table. Read the headlines upside down, GROOMING GANG GUILTY, while Ade filled the kettle and put bread in the toaster.

  ‘Mum?’ Elise, still in her pyjamas, stood at the door. ‘This party. Can I go?’

  ‘Yes,’ Janet said.

  ‘No,’ said Ade.

  ‘We’ve not had time to discuss it.’ Janet took a bite of her toast.

  ‘What do you need to discuss?’ said Elise.

  ‘Whether you can go,’ Janet said.

  Ade poured water into coffee. ‘Whose party is it anyway?’

  ‘A friend.’

  ‘What friend?’

  ‘John Planter – well, his brother,’ Elise said.

  ‘We don’t know them,’ Janet said.

  ‘So? Please?’

  ‘Look, we don’t have time to talk about it now,’ Janet said.

  ‘Olivia is going. We can share a taxi back to hers.’

  ‘Where is it?’ Ade said.

  ‘Middleton.’

  ‘Middleton where?’ he said.

  ‘Don’t know.’

  ‘What’s the party for?’ Janet said.

  ‘Why does it have to be for anything? It’s just a party, God!’

  ‘Look,’ Ade said, ‘if you want to go, here’s what you do: you find out exactly who is having it, what they’re called, where they live. Whether their parents will be there to supervise.’

  Elise opened her mouth in protest. ‘I can’t believe this.’

  ‘You’re fifteen, Elise,’ Ade said, ‘we’re not letting you swan off, God knows where, with a bunch of strangers without asking any questions.’

  Elise rounded on Janet. ‘You said yes, you said I could. If Dad hadn’t said—’

  ‘Enough!’ said Ade.

  ‘Find out,’ Janet said, ‘and when it starts and finishes. When we know all that, your dad and I can have an informed discussion and let you know our decision.’

  ‘This is outrageous,’ Elise said.

  Janet did think Ade was going a bit over the top but better safe than sorry. ‘We’re not doing this to be awkward,’ she said, standing up.

  ‘Yes, you are. It’s like living in a prison camp.’ Elise kicked the back of the door with her foot and stormed off upstairs.

  Ade sighed, Janet choked back a laugh. ‘She might want to turn the poor-oppressed-victim act down a bit if she wants to go,’ Janet said. ‘Not like Elise to be so moody.’ Elise was the sensible one, the elder daughter, hard-working, responsible. Usually it was Taisie who tested their patience. ‘I’m off, so we’ll talk about it when she’s done her research, shall we?’

  ‘Yeah,’ Ade said, face in the paper. Janet had a sudden urge to share a memory with him, a party they’d gone to as teenagers. One room full of couples smooching, the kitchen crammed. Janet had felt jittery, sensed people watching her, and Ade had tried to help her relax by pouring her a large glass of Southern Comfort which she drank far too quickly. They indulged in some heavy petting out in the alley behind the house then Janet had been sick as a dog all down her front. Ade had walked her the four miles home as they didn’t expect to be allowed on the bus.

  She’d not been out of hospital long then and social situations were still awkward. She’d feel people’s curiosity, sticky and keen, could hear their unspoken comments and questions as they swapped glances, she’s a psycho, a nutter, been in the loony bin. Did they strap her down, shock her? Do we need to hide the sharp objects? And their fear, as if having a breakdown might be catching and distress was an airborne virus. Keep your distance.

  Not Ade though. God knows where he got that compassion, that understanding, mature beyond his years – but it wasn’t much in evidence nowadays. Maybe it had all been used up, burned out. Maybe Ade was spent. He’d said at Rachel’s wedding perhaps they should get divorced. That it wasn’t really working, them sharing the house, putting it up for sale and not expecting to sell, stuck there. Had they just run out of steam, of passion, of love? Didn’t the years of backing each other up, of pulling together, of routine and quiet affection, didn’t they count?

  Twenty-six years. She owed it to him to hang on. It was Janet who had risked it all for a few snatched nights with another man. Janet who had brought mistrust and jealousy and disruption into the marriage. The least she could do now was bide her time, see if it really was possible to salvage anything.

  She looked at the back of his head, the hair thinning, and the folds of skin where his neck had thickened over the years. The warm flush of nost
algia evaporated.

  Janet picked up her keys and bag and left for work.

  The Old Chapel reeked. DCI Gill Murray could smell it as soon as she parked, even before she opened her car door. And once she’d been logged in and admitted into the scene, the acrid smell filled her nostrils and clawed at her throat.

  Not the worst smell at a crime scene, the worst were the corpses left undiscovered until nature had its way. Decay blooming like green and black flowers on the skin, body fat and fluids breaking down, melting, leaking from the corpse, flesh rotting, home to blowfly and their maggots. That truly was the most god-awful reek. This was simply unpleasant.

  The fire service had alerted the Major Incident Team earlier that morning, when officers doing a sweep of the Old Chapel had recovered human remains half buried among the charred debris of the fire.

  On the threshold, where the main doors had once hung, Gill surveyed the building. Or what was left of it. Above her, open sky, blue and streaked with thin clouds, was framed by the jagged remnants of roof beams. The centre, the spine of the roof, had collapsed taking many ribs with it but others, broken, split, now ringed the gaping hole like so many blackened, jagged teeth.

  The place was simply designed, a rectangular prayer hall with a rounded apse. Small anterooms off to either side of where the altar would have been. She could pick out several lumps of beams, charcoal now, among the ash and smashed roof tiles that covered the floor. The brick walls had withstood the ferocity of the fire though they were coated black with soot. Here and there were holes on the ground where the wooden floorboards had burned away.

  ‘Theresa Barton, crime scene manager,’ the plump woman introduced herself.

  ‘Trevor Hyatt, fire investigation,’ the man with her said. He was tall and bald with a red face and a nose that looked like it had been broken.