Hunting for Crows

by Iain Cameron

  He turned. At the far end of the ship, close to the bow, Mathew Street was pulling the motionless figure of Derek Crow towards the edge of the hold, a job made more difficult due to the absence of his big mate. Henderson staggered and limped the length of the ship, the noise of his exaggerated movement drowned by Street’s puffing and wheezing and the shouting and grunting of the two men fighting behind him, so Street didn’t look up. A look of triumph appeared on the old geezer’s face as he wound up to make a last, final heave when Henderson’s fist smacked him in the jaw and he staggered back.

  Henderson bent down to help Derek. He looked a mess, his face covered in blood, drifting in and out of consciousness. He tried sitting him up but he flopped back down like a rag doll. Henderson gripped his shoulders and pulled him away from the edge but he was a dead weight, his body snagging on every rivet and seam.

  He heard a noise behind him and turned. The warning was enough to prevent Street burying his knife somewhere between his shoulder blades, but not to avoid him sticking it into his left shoulder. Street pulled the knife out, but before he could make another lunge and finish him off, Henderson let go of Derek and rolled away. The pain in his arm began as a serious sting and then it hit him in waves of torment, making him sweat, nauseous and distorting his sense of balance.

  Henderson staggered to his feet and moved away before Street realised where he was and dodged into the shadows. He bent down on his knees and took a succession of deep breaths. ‘C’mon Henderson,’ he said to himself, ‘you’re not going to die here.’

  Enveloped in darkness, in the shadow of a large piece of winding equipment, he felt safe for the moment, as Street didn’t look like he fancied diving in after him. He stood on the deck waving the knife from side to side, urging him to come out. He might be a sixty-seven-year-old man, but by the way he handled the knife it looked like his weapon of choice, wielded by his hand many times in the past.

  Henderson reached out around him, feeling for a weapon. His hand touched a thick, coiled rope, and never taking his eyes off the demonic face of his armed assailant, in case he felt emboldened and ventured after him, felt for the end. He found it and pulled a section free. Street, realising he might be up to something, decided to go for broke and stepped into the shadow.

  He came closer, slashing at Henderson’s chest, the blade parting the material of his shirt and leaving an untidy line of blood in its wake. Before he could strike again, Henderson lifted the rope with two hands and swung a length at Street’s face, as if chopping a tree. The rope was heavy, as thick as his wrists and wet from rain or seawater and it made a satisfying ‘thurump’ noise as it made contact with the side of Street’s head. The swipe took a huge effort from his damaged shoulder, the pain surging with a constant throb as he tried to put his arms down, almost forcing him to black out.

  Street had stepped backwards into the light, shaking his head, trying to clear it, but before he could come at him again, as Henderson knew he couldn’t keep this up, he pulled more rope free and swung it again. It hit Street full-force on the side of the head and he stumbled backwards as if drunk. He lurched towards the hold but he couldn’t control his own momentum. His foot snagged on a raised edge and he tumbled headlong into the abyss.

  Henderson waited for a sudden bolt of pain to ease and then lurched over to the edge of the hold and looked down. Street flailed around like a drowning man, but the consistency of the ‘pool’ was more like quicksand than water and his strokes only seemed to make the situation worse. Henderson looked around for help and then he spotted Ace coming towards him. On the other side of the hold, under the harsh scrutiny of a security light, Don’s immobile body was lying in a heap, blood pooling around him.

  Henderson moved back to the dark place where he’d found the rope, and started searching around for something else; he knew he couldn’t lift it again and a wet rope wouldn’t stop this guy. His hand touched something heavy and he picked it up. It was a heavyweight chisel or riveter, he couldn’t be sure, but too short to use against Ace. When he moved closer, he threw it towards his face. It was crap shot with a tool as un-aerodynamic as a Dodo and missed the intended target but bounced off his shoulder. It didn’t seem to bother him much as after a quick rub, he kept coming.

  Henderson moved in the direction of the bow and put all stupid thoughts of jumping overboard or climbing down a mooring rope firmly out of his mind when he found a large box and pulled it open, hoping for a fish-gutting knife or a gun. It took him a few seconds to realise he wasn’t looking at a box of fireworks but distress flares. He knew enough about sailing to appreciate the different types of flares and if these were the warning or smoke variety, he would be as sunk as a capsized yacht.

  In the past, he had fired one or two in practice drills but could he remember how? On the side of the tube, he saw helpful multi-language instructions, just the ticket for the owner of a sinking boat, seconds away from jumping for his life into the grey water, or a panicking detective trying to stop a psychopath. He picked out a flare, pulled off the cap and pointed it at Ace who was about ten feet away. Nothing happened. If the light was better he would have a chance of seeing what he was doing, as there was also a little picture-diagram on the side, necessary as there were many types of flare. He turned it towards the light, spotted the hanging tape, pointed the flare at Ace and pulled the tape. The flare kicked in his hand and a bolt of white light shot out from the end and rocketed towards the ship’s control tower.

  He bent down and reached for another but when he turned, Ace was almost upon him. He yanked the cap off, pulled the tab and Ace’s face exploded in an intense white light, temporarily blinding Henderson. He felt for another, just in case Ace could see better than he could, but when his sight cleared, Ace was backing away, clutching his face.

  Henderson moved towards him, aiming to pick up Street’s abandoned knife from the deck, but as he got closer, Ace, his face blackened and marked, straightened and charged towards him. Henderson lifted the flare in his hand and fired it. It hit Ace smack in the face and he roared in agony and staggered backwards clutching his eyes. He started to run, perhaps thinking he could find water in the crew’s quarters, but instead of running down the length of the ship, he ran across it. Before Henderson could shout a warning, he hit the side rail and toppled into the dark waters of the canal.

  Henderson ran over, expecting to see this seemingly indestructible man stroking for the shore but no, a few minutes later he spotted his body; face down and motionless.

  FORTY-FOUR

  Henderson pressed the ‘send’ icon and pushed his chair back from the desk. Doing things with one hand was more tiring than it looked, including dialling a number on a mobile, buttoning a shirt and now added to the list, writing an email. He couldn’t touch-type, but he usually did a reasonable job using two or three fingers from each hand, but now with one arm in a sling, even this was beyond him.

  He had walked out of the Royal Sussex Hospital on Sunday, two days after being stabbed aboard the Baltic Star. Street’s knife wound to his shoulder had been deep, but it missed slicing nearby arteries. Equally important, at least the doctors seemed to think so, the knife didn’t appear to be stained with any gunk or bacteria, as the wound hadn’t become infected.

  He returned home to his flat in Seven Dials to convalesce. After a few days, the pain was about manageable and some feeling was returning to his hand, but the inactivity was driving him up the wall. In addition, his mind was buzzing, not from the antibiotics or painkillers, but from all the loose ends which needed tidying up.

  It took a couple of calls to CI Edwards, from him and his doctor, before she relented and allowed him to return to the office. He was under strict instructions not to go out on any operations but to stay at his desk and let DS Hobbs or DS Walters take the strain. This suited him fine as he had hundreds of emails to read, reports to write and a murder team to manage.

  Another reason for coming back was to escape the negative thoughts crowding his he
ad in the middle of the night. Was he was getting too old for this? Were wounds like this taking longer to heal? Would a desk job or the inside of a motorway patrol car suit him better? Should he consider doing something else altogether?

  With his good hand, he picked up a file from his desk and went in search of the murder team. It wasn’t the first time he had put together such a group after a series of murders, but it was the first time he’d done so after the perpetrators had been killed. It made sense, not only to keep the records straight, inform the media and notify the families, but also to determine if anyone else was involved.

  The team were located in a corner of the Murder Suite, overlooking the car park. The whole group were there, not because they found his status meetings so riveting, but because the bulk of the investigation work could be done from their desks by phone and email.

  ‘Afternoon all,’ he said.

  ‘Afternoon sir,’ came the sullen reply. It was the sound of a team, leggy and tired at the end of a long investigation, when all they could look forward to was compiling reports and updating files for the CPS. He would excuse them this time.

  ‘First up,’ Henderson said, perching himself on the edge of a desk as pulling out a chair and sitting down was too much of a faff, ‘what’s the status on Don Levinson and Derek Crow?’

  ‘I called the hospital an hour ago,’ Sally Graham said. ‘Mr Levinson is now out of a coma but still in Intensive Care.’

  ‘Good to hear. Did they say what his chances are of making a full recovery?’

  ‘They were cagey on the subject, I’m afraid. So many things can still go wrong, but they think it’s unlikely he will return to his job as a personal protection specialist. In time, he should recover most of his faculties, but he’ll need to do something more sedentary in future.’

  ‘At least the news is on the positive side. Thanks Sally. What about Derek Crow?’

  ‘That’s me, sir,’ Seb Young said. ‘As we know, he didn’t suffer any stab wounds, but multiple broken bones, including ribs, cheek and skull. He could be in hospital for another few weeks and this will be followed by a long convalescence, possibly two or three months, before he’s back to any sense of normality.’

  ‘Is he conscious?’

  ‘He is.’

  ‘Who’s handling the interviews? It’s you, isn’t it, DS Walters?’

  ‘Yes sir, it is.’

  ‘Good. Get somebody down to the hospital over the next few days and take a statement from Derek. It shouldn’t be much different from all the stuff I overheard aboard the Baltic Star, but you never know.’

  ‘No problem.’

  ‘Phil, you’re covering the P-M’s, if my memory serves me right. How did they go?’

  ‘Much as we expected.’ He lifted some papers from the desk beside him. ‘Mathew Street’s body was recovered from the hold of the Baltic Star on Sunday.’

  ‘How did they get him out? Did they have to drain the hold?’

  ‘No, they didn’t. They used a tall crane belonging to a ship repairer on the other side of the canal.’

  ‘What happened to all the wheat?’ Walters asked. ‘Would they scrap it knowing a dead body had been found in there?’

  ‘Maybe not,’ Henderson said. ‘They gets rats in ships’ holds, dead and alive, and that doesn’t deter owners from selling the cargo.’

  ‘No wonder I don’t like bread,’ Seb Young said.

  ‘I thought you were gluten intolerant,’ Sally Graham said.

  ‘Phil, what was the P-M verdict on Street?’ Henderson asked.

  ‘Asphyxiation.’

  ‘What about Ace?’

  ‘Ace, or to give him his real name, Stephen Watson, drowning. Apparently he could swim, but when he fell overboard on the Baltic Star, he hit his head on something in the water, like a plank of wood, rendering him unconscious.’

  ‘Why was he called Ace? Was he good at cards?’ Seb Young asked.

  ‘According to a fellow prisoner,’ Walters said, ‘his favourite song was How Long by the band, Ace.’

  ‘Oh, I get it,’ Young said. ‘Prison, how long; very clever.’

  ‘Apparently not,’ she continued. ‘He sang it all the time, driving all the other cons spare as it reminded them of how long they had to go. The guy I spoke to said, if Ace hadn’t been such a nutter, they would have done him in ages ago.’

  ‘What do we know about him?’ Henderson asked.

  ‘He had been orphaned at the age of ten when his parents died in a house fire,’ Seb Young continued. ‘He lived with a succession of foster parents when, at the age of seventeen, he murdered the last couple he stayed with. Sentenced to life and released on licence around the same time as Street, the man he befriended in jail and who according to some, became a sort of father figure to Ace.’

  ‘Some role model,’ Walters said.

  ‘Does Ace have any living relatives?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Where did we get with the ‘Blakey’ reference?’

  ‘His real name is John Blake,’ Phil Bentley said, ‘and he was identified as the ringleader of the AeroSwiss robbery gang when they appeared at the Old Bailey in 1990. We believe he was putting Street under pressure to locate the missing gold.’

  ‘Did you interview Blake?’

  ‘I did, sir. He’s a nasty bit of work, but he’s over seventy now and in poor health. I think his sons are running the criminal show now. Enquires are continuing.’

  ‘For those who don’t know or didn’t read my statement, a few weeks ago, Eric Hannah’s wife Suzy tried to sell a bar of gold stolen in the Gatwick Airport robbery. As Phil said, this robbery looks to be the motive behind the murder of the Crazy Crows, as Street was convinced the Crows stole their gold.’

  He stopped to take a drink of water as his throat was parched. Coffee was off the menu for the moment as even the smell of it made him feel sick.

  ‘Going by what I heard, it was Eric Hannah who stole the gold, and the bars found at the houses of Barry Crow and Peter Grant by Ace, were given to them by Hannah to help kick-start a new career after the band split.’

  ‘So, by implication,’ Walters said, ‘Eric Hannah had possession of most of the gold, and providing he didn’t spend it in the intervening years, some of it may still be hidden at his house.’

  ‘You’re quite right. Before this meeting, I sent an email to the Met’s Serious Robbery Squad and told them the story. It’s their problem now.’

  ‘Knowing them,’ Walters said, ‘the next time we hear about it will be on the front pages of several national newspapers, telling everyone what a great job they did and what brilliant detectives they are.’

  ‘They didn’t turn you down again, Carol, did they?’ Phil Bentley said.

  ‘Bugger off.’

  ‘Phil, did you get a sense from this guy Blakey when you met him as to whether he knows any of this?’

  ‘It’s hard to tell, sir, as he denied having anything to do with the gold since the robbery, but I would take anything he said with a pinch of salt as I’m sure he would grab it all tomorrow if he could. However, I didn’t detect any urgency around the place and all three sons were there.’

  ‘Maybe he’s got it already. Keep your eye on this one, Phil.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘I’ve got nothing more, does anyone have anything else they want to add?’

  ‘Just one more thing,’ Seb Young said. ‘A local promoter by the name of Ainslie Wicks is aiming to stage a tribute concert at the Brighton Dome in May. He says he’ll have two or three bands on the bill and they’ll play a selection of Crazy Crows songs. All proceeds will be donated to Barry Crow’s breast cancer charity.’

  ‘A fitting memorial,’ Henderson said. ‘I’ll certainly be buying a ticket.’ He rose stiffly and stretched. ‘Is there anything else?’ He looked around at their faces. ‘No? Same time tomorrow.’

  He turned and walked back to his office. He had just slumped in the seat when his phone rang. It was tricky diallin
g a number on a mobile, but he’d perfected the technique for answering it, as long as the caller didn’t mind waiting while he transferred from one hand to another.

  ‘Henderson.’

  ‘Good afternoon, DI Henderson, DI Long of the Serious Robbery Squad.’

  ‘You got my email?’

  ‘I did and thank you for all the good work you and your team have done. This robbery has been on our books for over twenty years without a dicky bird and now I can see it being wrapped up in the space of a week.’

  ‘I’m pleased to hear it.’

  ‘The thing is, we’re conducting a search of the Hannah household in the morning. Since you gave us the lead, I would like to ask you to come along as an observer.’

  FORTY-FIVE

  Henderson arrived at the Farnham house of Suzy Hannah five minutes before DI Long of the Serious Robbery Squad pulled up in a grubby Vectra, and following behind, a van with a six-man search team. While Henderson and DI Long went to the door to present the search warrant, the forensic team decamped from the van and donned over-suits, gloves and unpacked detectors.

  It must have been a scary prospect for the diminutive Suzy Hannah to be confronted by the over-size figure of DI Ken Long and half-a-dozen eager blokes intent on rustling through her smalls, but she took it in good grace and after inspecting the paperwork, allowed them to get on with it.

  Henderson was nothing but a spectator, there to admire the professional approach of the Serious Robbery guys, a reward for re-awakening the AeroSwiss case when without it, they would still be in the Dark Ages. With much stomping and rummaging going on upstairs, he approached Mrs Hannah and asked to see the place where she had found the two gold bars.