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

too shocked to realize that he was already blocked in by the police. The other three, however, scattered in different directions across the yard. One made for the area of scrap to the right, scrambling over the pile nearest to him, failing to find purchase on the metal, which slid away beneath his feet with each step he tried to take. The other two cut left towards the carcasses of the cars.
    Lucy felt the Land Rover brake suddenly then one of the uniforms flung open the back doors and the four men jumped out and set off in pursuit of the gang members. Lucy and Tara followed, Tara heading straight for the man struggling through the piles of scrap, accompanied by a TSU officer.
    The other three TSU men made for the piled cars, in pursuit of the two who had run, leaving Lucy to approach the white Transit van. She pulled her own gun from its holster and, holding it in front of her, both hands to steady it, banged on the side of the van three times in quick succession.
    ‘PSNI,’ she shouted. ‘Show me your hands.’
    Behind her, she heard the thud of the police Land Rover door as the driver got out to support her.
    She could see the face of the man in the white van reflected in the side mirror as he tried to gauge the likelihood of his escape. Then, incrementally, she saw the side window begin to lower. Instinctively she pressed herself against the side of the van, gun ready.
    ‘Show me your hands,’ she shouted again. ‘Now.’
    The window cranked down faster now and, slowly, the man’s two hands appeared through the gap.
    With the PSNI driver approaching from the passenger side of the van, Lucy stepped up and pointed her gun into the van cabin. A single man, in his late teens at most, sat in the driver seat. His face was swarthy, a raw black beard on his chin. His eyes focused on the tip of Lucy’s gun and did not waver. Then he heard the passenger door of the van open behind him and turned to face a second PSNI gun.
    ‘Please,’ he whimpered, turning to look at the other officer.
    Lucy pulled the cable ties from her belt and quickly looped them around his hands, then pulled the plastic tight, cuffing him. Then she opened the door and gripping the man by his shirt front, pulled him out of his seat and onto the ground.
    He lay on his face while she sat astride his back, frisking him quickly to check for any weapons. Satisfied that he had none, she twisted him round, onto his back. The PSNI driver had approached them now and stood above them.
    ‘What’s your name?’ he asked.
    ‘Marcus,’ the man said, wide eyed.
    As the officer cautioned the man, Lucy moved to the back of the van and climbed inside to see what the men had been shifting. Coils of copper wiring were stacked to one side of the van, while against the back wall wads of folded lead flashing were piled to the height of the seats in the cab beyond. To the left-hand side were various bits of scrap metal, among which Lucy spotted one section of the cast metal fencing she’d had placed on Mary Quigg’s grave.
    She climbed back down from the van, just as Tara approached with the second man in cuffs.
    ‘Well?’
    ‘It’s the right team for the churches and graveyards anyway,’ Lucy said. Over to her left, Lucy could see the other three uniforms tracking their way through the rows of piled cars, still searching for the two men who were presumably hiding inside some of the wrecks.
    Lucy grabbed Marcus and, pulling him to his feet, brought him round to the rear of the van.
    ‘Is this cabling from the train line?’
    The boy nodded. ‘It wasn’t us,’ he said.
    ‘This wasn’t you?’
    ‘No. The girl. She was there when we arrived. We’d only cut a bit and we came round the bend and saw her. She was just lying there. She was dead already.’
    The boy was clearly terrified, perhaps believing that the police suspected the gang of Karen’s killing.
    ‘So you say,’ Lucy snapped.
    ‘I swear,’ the boy managed. ‘We saw someone leaving when we