Free Hurt (DS Lucy Black) by Brian McGilloway Page A

blue lights through the chink in the curtain over the front door. She pulled the curtain back, turned the key left in the lock and opened the door, flooding the stultifying atmosphere of the hallway both with light and fresh air.
    ‘Is there an officer down?’ the paramedic asked, stepping into the hallway and catching sight of Fleming at once.
    ‘I thought he was injured when I looked in from outside,’ Lucy explained. ‘I don’t think it’s quite as serious as I thought.’
    The paramedic approached him. ‘Sir?’ he said. ‘Can you hear me?’
    Fleming groaned and tried to shift himself again.
    ‘Is he pissed?’ the paramedic asked incredulously.
    Lucy nodded, the gesture greeted by Fleming’s grumbles of disagreement.
    ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I thought it was ... you know. I looked in and saw him lying there.’
    ‘We’ll give him a quick check over,’ the man said. ‘He might have injured himself in the fall.’ He shifted across to Fleming again. ‘We’re going to lift you, mate, all right?’
    Fleming muttered something, but the man moved in and, gripping the drunk man under the armpits, hefted him to his feet.
    ‘Sit there a moment and I’ll get some help,’ he said as he helped Fleming to sit on the bottom step of the staircase.
    Fleming slumped on the step, then leant sideways, against the wall. His face was pale, his stubble grey against his skin, flecked with his vomit.
    ‘Are you OK, Tom?’ Lucy said, stepping past the pool on the floor and laying one hand on his shoulder.
    He stared at her accusingly. ‘What the hell did you call them for?’ he said.

Chapter Fifteen
    She was making coffee for them both in Fleming’s kitchen when Tara Gallagher called. They’d had a hit on the metal thefts. Finn’s scrap metal yard had called to say that a team was offloading cabling at that moment. Finn, keen to avoid charges of handling stolen goods, had said that if the police were quick enough, they might catch them in the act.
    Finn’s yard was on the outskirts of the city, past Ballyarnett, where Amelia Earhart had landed following her cross-Atlantic flight in 1932. The yard itself was a half-acre compound, enclosed on all sides by a metal palisade fence. A small portable unit from which the owner operated his business sat behind the front section of the fence, at the single gateway into the yard.
    The PSNI teams had parked some distance away and were watching the gang as they moved to and fro, shifting metal from the rear of their white Transit van, which was parked on the roadway that bisected the yard.
    To the left-hand side of the road, the skeletal remains of crushed cars sat atop each other, three high, six piles deep, against the palisade fence. The other half of the yard, to the right of the gang’s van, was comprised of piles of scrap metal and skips, some already filled, as best Lucy could tell. She could see four men moving backwards and forwards, removing scrap from the back of the van and depositing it in different piles and skips, perhaps in an attempt to mix the stolen metal more thoroughly with the legitimate scrap.
    Lucy approached Tara. ‘What’s the plan?’
    Tara smiled. ‘There’s only the one roadway, with the entrance, next to the Portakabin,’ she pointed out. ‘We’ll block it with the Land Rover and move in and arrest them. Simple.’
    They climbed into the Land Rover, alongside the four Tactical Support Unit officers who had accompanied Tara and the driver down. They wore blue cargo pants and fleeces over their shirts. They all carried guns with them.
    The Land Rover’s doors slammed shut and the vehicle’s engine roared into life as the driver accelerated it up the roadway towards where the van was parked. Leaning forward, Lucy could see through the reinforced windscreen over the driver’s shoulder. The four gang members outside heard their approach and instantly dropped what they were doing. One’s instinct was to run for the white van, possibly