‘About eleven. I’d just heard the beeps on the radio and shouted for my son to get out of bed otherwise he’d be late for work, his shift starts at noon. He’s a lazy one, he is, and is gonna lose his job, but he don’t care. Twenty-six years old and still living at home…’
‘So at eleven you reached the end of your path. Which house?’
‘Behind me, number twelve, diagonally opposite Michael and Carmen, God bless her soul.’
‘And Michael Connelly lives at number seven.’
The woman nodded. ‘Just him and his daughter, Carmela. Graham stays there sometimes, but I don’t see him much. I think he’s got his own place in town. Wish my bloody useless son would move out too.’
‘So a car pulled up outside the house. What sort of car?’
‘A white one.’
‘What make of car?’
‘I dunno. Quite big. A BMW or summat like that. I don’t know cars from Adam.’
‘OK, a car drove up. How many people in it?’
‘I can’t remember. You’re asking too many questions. It does me head in.’
Claire Trent reached over and touched the woman on the arm. Don’t worry, Mrs Conroy, you’re doing great. We have to ask these questions I’m afraid and it’s always best when the events are fresh in everyone’s mind.’
Behind her, the squeal of brakes. A transit van had stopped next to where the sergeant had stretched tape to block the road. The leading officer, carrying a Heckler and Koch across his chest, approached her.
‘Inspector Hurd, Armed Tactical Unit. You’re the senior officer, ma’am?’
‘I am. Take your men and seal both ends of the street. DCI Whitworth is at the house now. The suspect is in a white car but we believe he’s already left the scene.
‘Yes, ma’am.’
His men fanned out behind him like a well-drilled army unit.
Claire Trent turned back to Mrs Conroy. ‘Just a few more questions, OK?’
Mrs Conroy nodded.
‘How many people were in the car.’
‘Just the one I think. The driver.’
‘Did you see his face?’
She shook her head. ‘No, after I heard the shots I got on the floor. When I looked up again the car was gone.’
‘Which way did it go?’
‘It must have gone towards the other end of the street because I didn’t hear it come past me. That’s the way he was facing anyway.’
‘Can you give a statement to this detective, DC Alan Johnson.’
‘Will it take long? Only I’ve got to get my husband’s tea and he don’t half give me gyp if his snap ain’t on the table when he gets home.’
But Claire Trent was already walking across to where Charlie was staring up at Michael Connelly’s house.
He glanced across at her as she arrived. ‘Looks like at least thirty shots. A sub-machine gun is my bet. Low calibre I would guess. See, not much impact on the brick.’
The front door opened and Michael Connelly peered out. Instantly, his son ran to his side. He stepped through the door with his arm around the shoulders of his daughter. Her head was down, the shoulders trembling with fear.
‘Where’s the bloody ambulance? We called the bloody ambulance years ago.’
As if on cue, in the distance the wail of an ambulance was approaching.
‘Look at her.’ Michael Connelly shouted. ‘She could have been killed. My daughter could have been killed. Where were you lot? Tell me that. Where were you lot when Terry Marsland was shooting up my house?’
‘Calm down, Mr Connelly, the ambulance is on its way.’
‘Calm down? Calm Down? You’re telling me to calm down? He let go of his daughter and raced towards Claire Trent as if to attack her. Charlie and Dave Hardy stepped in front of their boss as she shied away, wrapping their arms around Michael Connelly.
‘You want a charge of assault too, you stupid old bastard. One more step and I’ll have you in the nick so quick your feet won’t touch the floor.’
He pushed Michael Connelly back towards his daughter.
The ambulance turned the corner and drove through the crowds of people that had begun to gather from the neighbourhood, drawn like vultures to carrion. It approached the police tape slowly, was allowed through and parked outside the house. Two medics ran out and one placed a blanket around Carmela Connolly’s shoulders before leading her to the back of the vehicle.
‘Go with your daughter, Mr Connelly. You’re more use to her than you are here,’ said Claire Trent.
Graham got hold of his father. ‘Go with Carmela, Dad Me and the lads will look after the house.’
‘You were supposed to be looking after it before.’ He gestured up at the broken windows. ‘Look at it! This was your mother’s house. Look at it.’
‘I’ll get whoever did it, Dad. I’ll make them pay. But now, you need to go with Carmela, she needs you.’ He called two thugs forward. ‘Stay with my dad, make sure nobody gets close to him or my sister.’
Reluctantly, Michael Connelly followed the ambulance men. As he passed Charlie Whitworth, he leant over and whispered. ‘That’s the last time you lay your hands on me, Whitworth, understand?’
He walked to the ambulance followed by the two thugs.
‘DCI Whitworth to me.’ Claire Trent had moved to one side and was calling him to her.
Michael Connelly climbed into the back of the ambulance following his daughter. The two thugs got into a black Mercedes parked outside the house and started the engine
‘DCI Whitworth.’ Claire Trent was calling again.
He walked over to her as the ambulance pulled away, followed by the black Mercedes.
‘Charlie, I want you to go back to HQ and co-ordinate the operation from there.’
‘But I want to be here, ma’am.’
‘No. I need somebody back at HQ, manning the phones and sorting out resources.’
‘But, I’m always on the operations, it’s my…’
Her jaw set. ‘Don’t argue. I’m giving you a direct order, DCI Whitworth. Go back to HQ.’
He looked around him. The house was covered in bullet holes, armed police lined the streets, flashing lights illuminating their faces in the grey light of the spring morning and he was being ordered back to HQ.
‘Yes, ma’am, as you say, ma’am.’ He strode away over to Dave Hardy. ‘Your keys.’ Dave handed them over. ‘The car is still outside the taxi shed?’
‘Yes, boss, but…’
Charlie Whitworth turned his back on his friend and marched up the road. The sooner he got out of here and away from that bitch the better.
Chapter Sixty-Nine
She watched Charlie Whitworth’s back as he walked up the road. He was a good copper but a major pain in the arse. As long as he was around, she would never get proper control of MIT, the men would constantly look towards him for orders rather than her.
And it was time to get control. Sending him back to HQ was just the beginning. From now on, Charlie Whitworth would toe the line or he would be out.
Alan was running towards her.
‘We’ve a got hit, guvnor, a white car abandoned two miles away in Urmston. It might not be the one but it fits the description.’
‘Send a team to check it out.’
Alan ran off to pass on the order.
‘Scratch that, Alan,’ she shouted after him, ‘I’ll go myself, bring the car.’
‘Yes, guvnor.’
Dave Hardy was still standing around, staring forlornly after his boss. Time to get him working. ‘Dave.’ She called him to her.
He ran over. ‘Yes, ma’am.’ There it was again. Why couldn’t he just call her guvnor? ‘I’m going to check out a lead in Urmston. I want you to organise the SOC team when it arrives and makes sure the Armed Tactical Unit forms a proper cordon around the area.’
‘Yes, ma’am.’
The car with Alan at the wheel raced up, coming to a stop at the kerb.
‘Make sure all these
thugs stay away from the area. I want it clear for the SOCOs.’
Dave Hardy looked over his shoulder. At least six thugs were standing in front of the bullet- shattered house, with more arriving, all being directed by Graham Connolly.
‘And how am I supposed to do that, ma’am?’
‘Use your charm, Dave. And if that doesn’t work, arrest the bloody lot of them. This is now a crime scene.’
‘Yes, ma’am’.
As Claire Trent was about to get into the back of her car, a sound like ripping fabric came from the end of the street.
‘Gunfire!’ shouted the inspector in charge of the tactical unit.
Chapter Seventy
It was him.
The man on the motorway.
Ridpath leant in closer, staring at the Facebook page.
It was definitely him. He was dressed differently, in camouflage uniform, posing alongside two other soldiers, a rifle comfortably balanced on his hip. ‘This is the man I saw on the motorway chasing after Gerard Connelly.’
‘It’s Reginald Stokes, or Reggie as he calls himself on Facebook. Looks like he had two tours of duty in Afghanistan, but he hasn’t posted anything for the last six months. According to his Facebook page he left the army nine months ago. Do you want me to get on to them in Aldershot, they may have forwarding address for him.’
‘Please do it, Maureen and thanks, the work is great.’
‘Just doing the job.’
Ridpath sat down as Maureen picked up the phone.
He had to get everything straight in his head. He tapped his forehead. It was hot and he could feel a headache growing between his temples. One of those obscene headaches that expanded slowly to fill the brain.
He tapped his forehead twice, pulling the skin over the bridge of his nose as Polly had shown him. The Chinese way to get rid of a headache.
‘It’s all about Chi. There’s a major energy pathway running through the nose to the brain.’
Ridpath didn’t know about that but he pulled the skin anyway. For some reason it worked. Perhaps it was because the skin became so painful and bruised that it took his mind off the headache.
He forced himself to think about the case. Harry Wilson had been executed in a gangland killing in 1995. By 1996 Doreen Wilson had married again, moving down south with her new husband. That’s what Elsie Granger had said and it checked out.
In the background Maureen was talking to somebody on the phone and then slammed it down, waited a few seconds, picked it up again and tapped out a new number.
He took out his notebook and began to write it down. He often found writing something laboriously in longhand forced him to slow down and lay things out clearly.
Harry Wilson and Doreen had three children. A girl, Christine, and a pair of twins, Ronald and Reginald. Ronald stayed with his grandmother and grandfather, living with them until he was sent to prison. It seemed Reginald had been taken by his mother to live with her new husband in Fleet in Hampshire, eventually joining the army. What had happened to him after he left the army nine months ago? Where did he go? He wrote down the questions on his pad.
Ridpath had definitely seen him beside the motorway chasing Gerard Connelly. Was he taking revenge for the murder of his father twenty-three years ago?
Maureen turned back to face him. ‘The army are going to get back to me. At first they were playing bureaucratic buggers but I explained to them that this was a murder investigation with the possibility that this ex-soldier was about to murder again. If they didn’t release the information, the newspapers would love to hear the story.’
‘You were liberal with the truth, Maureen.’
The PCSO smiled broadly. ‘I know, but they are going to get back to me in five minutes. I’ll say a few Hail Marys at confession on Saturday. I’m sure God will forgive me.’
Ridpath glanced down at his notes. It all looked clear now. Only one thing bothered him.
Where was the girl?
What had happened to Christine? When the boys had been taken by the grandparents and the mother, where had the girl gone?
The phone rang.
It was immediately snatched up by Maureen, ‘Right, go ahead.’ She grabbed a pen and began writing on her pad. ‘OK, great. This is his forwarding address and it’s in Manchester?’ She nodded her head. ‘Thanks for this. You may just have saved somebody’s life.’
She put the phone down, ripping the page from her notebook and handing it to Ridpath. ‘This is the address they have, but I’ve never heard of it.’
Ridpath stared at the address written in Maureen’s neat capitals. ‘Never heard of it either. Can you pull up Google Maps and type the address in?’
Maureen opened her computer. A Google Map of Manchester appeared on her screen. She typed the address in the search box and the map began to zoom in on a red marker over a house.
It was right next to the M60 motorway in Sale Water Park.
‘Jesus,’ said Ridpath, ‘that’s the house I saw.’
He picked up his mobile and dialled Charlie. He had to let his boss know.
Chapter Seventy-One
Bloody woman treating him like a young copper, fresh out of Sedgley Park. He had twenty years under his belt. Twenty years of hard graft to get to where he was now. Twenty years of late nights and long hours. Twenty years of working his bollocks off, living with the slime that was the criminals of Manchester. Twenty years of yes sir, no sir, three bloody bags full sir.
And all for what?
To be told to go back to HQ like a naughty boy and organise the bloody phones.
Charlie Whitworth kicked a stone lying in his path, sending it slamming into a parked car. Around him, people were milling on the other side of the police tape stretched across the road. Armed officers were standing behind the tape, their Heckler and Koch rifles across their chests and their funny little baseball caps worn at a jaunty angle.
Charlie forced himself through the crowd, ripping off his stab jacket.
Bastards. This is where he should be, not stuck in some bloody office behind a desk waiting for a phone to ring. He was an active officer not some pen-pusher, happy to wear a bloody uniform and pretend he was still doing vital police work moving forms in triplicate from one computer to another.
What had GMP become?
It wasn’t a police force anymore. It was full of fast track university graduates who wouldn’t know a criminal from a cream cake. All he ever wanted to do as a policeman was to lock up bad guys and keep them off the streets. But now the bosses were only concerned about window dressing for PR. They cared more about having police attend local community meetings, where the main complaint was about dogs fouling the pavements, than stopping real crime.
Sod the whole lot of them.
He shook his head like a dog shaking a rat.
Violent criminals are left to roam the streets because locking them up is too much bloody hard work. While good coppers, like himself and John Gorman, are forced to retire or put behind desks answering bloody phones.
The crowd was thinning out as he reached the top of the street. With all the police around, there was no need for the surveillance car anymore. He would drive it back to HQ and park himself in front of his desk just as she’d ordered, holding a phone in his sticky little mitt.
But it was time for a transfer. Time to find something else. Time to do real police work again.
Suddenly, the sound of a gun firing rapidly came from the right. Charlie lifted his head and listened for a second.
More firing coming from the direction of the taxi shed. Somebody was shooting up Michael Connelly’s place. He ran round the corner.
Up front, a white car had stopped in front of the shed and was firing into it. Bullets were ripping into the wood, sending splinters flying, shattering the windows. One of the bodyguards was sitting with his back against the shed wall, blood pouring out of his chest.
For a second the bullets stopped firing and the car moved slowly forward, stopping
next to the old Vauxhall Vectra, the police surveillance car.
The passenger window rolled down and a hail of bullets slammed into the metal of the car.
Charlie ran forward into the middle of the road, shouting. ‘Police.’
The driver looked, turned his head, and stared straight at him. The muzzle of the gun vanished from sight.
For a second, time stood still. Then the car surged forward, accelerating straight towards him.
Charlie put his hands out in front, like a matador trying to stop a runaway bull.
But the car kept on going, getting closer and closer. Speeding up all the time.
Charlie tried to shout, but no words came out of his mouth. He tried to move his legs, to jump out of the way, but they wouldn’t react, as if rooted to the tarmac of the road.
He was too old now.
Too slow.
The car was close, he could see the driver’s face. A young man, eyes dark and empty. The face in Ridpath’s E-Fit.
The same face.
He didn’t feel anything when the bonnet of the car hit him.
Instead, he had the sensation of flying, of being free and soaring up and over the car.
For a moment, he looked down on himself, flying through the air, the car racing past him, his body upside down, one shoe slipping off to go in a completely different direction.
And then his body hit the hard concrete.
The air left his lungs. A sharp pain seared through his right leg.
All went dark.
The blackest black he had ever imagined.
Chapter Seventy-Two
‘With me.’ Claire Trent shouted the order and began running towards the gunfire.
Dave Hardy was slightly ahead of her, surprisingly fast for an obese man. On her right, the inspector in charge of the armed response team and two of his men were slightly behind but running quickly.
The crowd who had been quietly watching the events outside Michael Connelly’s house were now screaming; some running back to their homes, some throwing themselves to the ground. A young child, no more than four years old, was crying at the top of his voice, his eyes searching for his mother.
Where the Dead Fall Page 25
