Hurt (DS Lucy Black) by Brian McGilloway Page A

until she heard the fingers’ crack behind the screaming of the man and the shouts of the TSU officer as he tried to pull her away.

Chapter Sixteen
    A fire tender was at the scene within minutes, with cutting equipment, lest it should be needed. They shifted the remains of the cars as carefully as possible in order to create sufficient space for the PSNI men trapped beneath to crawl out. In addition, it became apparent that in pushing over the cars, Shaun had trapped one of his own gang members beneath a badly rusted Scenic. He cried out periodically in rage as the officers worked first to rescue their own colleagues before coming to his aid.
    The metal gang members were brought back to Strand Road station, where Tara, preening herself on having overseen the operation to arrest them, briefed Burns. Lucy was called into his office after he had spoken with Tara.
    ‘I understand you questioned one of the suspects?’ he said, without preamble.
    Lucy nodded. ‘I wanted to be sure we had the right people,’ she said. ‘I’m sorry. I should have waited.’
    ‘You should indeed,’ Burns said. ‘You got a description apparently. What did he say?’
    ‘As they arrived, they saw an older man, grey haired, getting into a red car in the parking bay. He drove off and they started harvesting the metal. As they moved down the line, they came across Karen’s remains. He said they didn’t touch the body. They scarpered when they found it.’
    ‘You should have left it until he was brought back here.’
    ‘We have a description now, at least, sir.’
    ‘Though there’s no guarantee that the man they saw had anything to do with Karen’s disappearance.’
    ‘It seems a little odd that a man would be in the park at that time of night for any legitimate reason.’
    Burns accepted this with a curt nod. ‘Regardless, we needed him to make a proper statement.’
    ‘Sorry, sir,’ Lucy said.
    ‘I understand you also broke another suspect’s fingers.’
    ‘That was an accident. I didn’t feel his hand beneath my boot until he cried out.’
    ‘You were asking the first suspect you arrested about taking fences off a child’s grave, apparently. I hope the two things aren’t connected.’
    ‘No sir,’ Lucy said, thinking back, trying to remember who had heard her asking Marcus about Mary’s grave. Then she remembered.
    As she left Burns’s office, Tara sat at her desk in the incident room, watching her. When she saw Lucy, she raised her hand meekly. Lucy nodded curtly and left without speaking.
    * * *
    After leaving Strand Road station, Lucy had headed back to Maydown. Fleming was in his office at least, though with the door closed. Lucy considered knocking to ask how he was feeling, but decided against.
    She’d just made it into her own office when her phone rang.
    ‘Dave Cooper here, Lucy. I think Bradley is about to go online.’
    ‘Is this some sixth sense, ESP thing?’
    Cooper laughed. ‘No. He’s online already. Just not as himself. Come across and I’ll show you.’
    Cooper’s office was as cluttered as it had been the day previous. The large iMac sitting on the main desk displayed Karen Hughes’s Facebook account profile.
    ‘I checked out Bradley’s account yesterday, tracing through all of the friends that he had, in case there were other girls there he was targeting,’ Cooper explained. ‘I have a feeling that a number of these friends are sock puppet accounts.’
    Lucy shrugged. ‘What’s that mean?’
    ‘I think Bradley created a whole load of accounts, all in different names, which he then befriended.’
    ‘He made friends with himself? Why?’
    ‘To make him seem more normal.’
    Lucy raised a sceptical eyebrow.
    ‘Look,’ Cooper said. ‘If he sent you a friend request, and he only had one or two other online mates, you’d think it a bit strange. If instead he has loads of friends, all your age, all with similar interests, he looks less suspicious.’
    ‘How do you know they’re sock