Then a thunderous impact sounded on the other side of the back wall of the fourth garage. Lorna watched from the corner of her eye, unable to make sense of it as the rotted timbers broke apart, a sledgehammer’s head appearing, and then a heavy-booted foot kicking savagely and repeatedly at the lower planks until they too were smashed. By the time a dark-clad shape had fought its way through, Lorna’s eyes were fluttering closed. As her vision faded completely, two pairs of hands gripped her and turned her roughly onto her face. The last thing she knew, her wrists were folded across each other in the small of her back, and a tight plastic cord bit into them.

Chapter 10

Crowley, like so many parts of Greater Manchester, had once been heavily industrialised. In its heyday, it boasted coal mines, textile mills, rail sidings for heavy goods, and endless traffic on its canals. But those days had passed. The flywheels on its pit-heads were gone, and though its skyline was studded with tall chimneys, none of them smoked any more. Most of its factories had stood empty for years: towering red-brick edifices filled with dirt, dust and silence, decayed symbols of a formerly proud heritage, totemic reminders that municipal prosperity could come and go in the blink of an eye.

One part of Crowley where many of these defunct landmarks could still be found was the St Clement’s ward. Here, ten or twelve former industrial premises stood close together, forming a miniature ghost-town within the overall fabric of the real town. All were long disused, separated from each other by narrow, rubble-strewn lanes that no longer led anywhere, and mostly fenced off to prevent public access, though in many cases the fences themselves were so old that they too had collapsed. They now provided an unofficial refuge for the homeless, especially as a concerted effort was due in the next month to start clearing the town centre’s doorways and side passages of vagrants.

When Lucy drove over to St Clement’s, it was later than she’d intended, just after ten o’clock at night, mainly because completing the paperwork on the sixty-plus arrests made at Wellspring Lane had severely tested both her and her keyboard’s durability. But she didn’t think the lateness would be much of a problem. St Clement’s could be scary at night but going into dark and threatening places was the police officer’s lot.