by Nick Oldham
Henry hitched his trousers up with his fingers and thumbs on the creases and sat in the vacant seat. He crossed his legs.
Sands glowered cocksurely at him.
‘ As you know, Jack, Louis Trent did a runner from jail last night and he’s almost certainly back in town. Obviously we need to try and recapture him as soon as possible. I spoke to Mr Fanshaw-Bayley this morning and he told me to use Danny to lead the team because she knows Trent so well. No doubt you agree with this thinking.’
Danny shot Henry a quick look of concern. To say he was distorting the truth was an understatement.
‘ Because it was such a rush to get things pulled together,’ Henry added, ‘I didn’t have time to explain, so I apologise for that. At least you know now.’
‘ Well, now that your team are up and running, I’ll have her back, thanks.’
Henry shook his head. ‘As of now she’s on CID.’ He handed a rolled-up fax to Sands, rather like a Biblical scroll. Sands unrolled it and read it slowly. It was confirmation of what FB had promised Henry that morning, written and signed by the man himself. Danny was on CID as of now.
Sands’s face looked like it would burst. ‘This is completely out of order. He can’t do this, not without consulting me.’
‘ He’s an ACC. He can do mostly what he likes and usually does.’
‘ I’m going to go to the Detective Superintendent and get this blocked. She’s on my Department until next Monday.’ And Sands stood up to leave.
‘ Sit down Jack, there’s more we need to discuss… I said, sit down.’
‘ All I’m doing,’ Henry concluded patiently, ‘is giving you the opportunity to say, "Hey, yeah, got a bit upset, bit obsessive and it won’t happen again." That’s all, Jack. Just hold your hand up, say sorry and we’ll all walk out of here and that’s that. Promise.’
‘ You can stick your promise right down your prick, Christie, because I’ve done nothing wrong and I’m not apologising to a paranoid bitch who can’t bear the thought of me finishing with her.’
‘ We’re not in the business of name-calling, Jack,’ Henry said softly. ‘We’re trying to solve a problem, adult to adult, and swearing isn’t gonna help.’
Sands held his hands up. ‘Sorry… just got a bit up-tight. Wouldn’t you? What you’ve alleged is absolute crap and you’ll never prove a thing because there’s nothing to prove.’
Henry tutted. He hadn’t wanted it to go this far. To Danny he said, ‘Last night you said you received several phone calls of a distressing nature?’
‘ That’s right, from about eight o’clock onwards. But whoever it was must have either dialled 141 before putting my number in to ensure the call couldn’t be traced, or they were phoning through a switchboard.’
‘ How many calls did you receive?’
‘ Four that I answered. I took my phone off the hook then, but I checked with BT this morning. They told me I got twenty-five more calls up to midnight.’
‘ How did you feel about the calls you received?’
‘ Frightened. Scared. As if I was being violated in my own home.’
‘ Thanks, Danny.’ Henry raised his eyebrows at Sands. ‘Jack, did you make those calls?’
His answer was short and to the point. ‘Did I fuck.’
‘ Okay,’ said Henry, unflustered. ‘Danny, what else happened last night?’
‘ Some creep,’ she shuddered at the memory, ‘stuffed a dozen red roses through my letterbox about half-one this morning.’
‘ I’ll bet that had an effect on you, too?’
‘ I was absolutely terrified.’ Her breath came in steps now as she thought about it. ‘Someone prowling round my house, watching me, stalking me.’
‘ Jack — any response?’
He remained silent for a while, considering, lips pursing and unpursing. He breathed in and sat up. ‘Yeah, just get to fuck, the pair of you. This is absolute shite. I’m off.’ He pushed himself up again.
Henry said evenly, but with a deadly tone, ‘You walk out of this room, Jack, I’ll arrest you.’
The words struck Sands as heavily as a lorry. He sat slowly back, eyes fixed firmly on Henry, who held the look, unwavering. Inside, Henry’s heart was pounding dramatically. It was all he could do to maintain his composure. His mouth was dry, but his armpits were very wet. He knew he was in very dangerous territory.
Sands was the one to break the gaze between the men. He re-focused them immediately and savagely on Danny.
‘ Danny?’ Henry continued. ‘The night before last?’
‘ Someone smashed a window at my home, cut my face.’ She placed the tip of a fingernail on the stitched cut on her cheek. ‘They also damaged my car, scratched it and snapped the Mercedes badge off.’
‘ Jack?’ said Henry, feeling like a facilitator.
Sands was tight-lipped. ‘Evidence?’ he snapped.
‘ I saw you holding a Mercedes star in your hand when I left work last night,’ Danny accused him.
Sands uttered a short, barking laugh. ‘Your word against mine,’ he said pityingly.
Henry reached for a folder on his desk. His hand slid into it and extracted a piece of paper. ‘Our IT department ran this off for me,’ he explained and handed it to Sands. ‘It’s a printout of all the phone numbers dialled from the extension in your office between 5 p.m. and midnight last night. You’ll see that one number features pretty highly, wouldn’t you say? In fact, it features twenty-nine times, Jack, doesn’t it?’
Sands swallowed. His eyes were transfixed on the figures in front of them. His cocksure exterior crumbled slightly with the assistance of Henry’s hammer and chisel. ‘Wonderful thing, this IT lark,’ Henry commented.
‘ Anything to say, Jack?’
‘ Proves nothing. I needed to speak to her on a work-related matter. She’d obviously taken her phone off the hook.’
‘ The work-related matter was what, Jack?’
‘ I’ll think of something,’ he said blandly.
‘ Fine, fine.’ Henry’s hand disappeared back into the folder and pulled out another slip of paper. He gave it to Sands. ‘This is a copy of the receipt from the florist on Elm Avenue. That’s your Barclaycard number, your signature and your order for twelve red roses.’
Sands leaned back, his look of defiance wavering after his previous rally. ‘Still proves nothing.’
‘ It can stop here and it can stop now, Jack. Believe me, trust me. This does not have to go on. You can say sorry and walk out of here and forget it.’
‘ You mean that’s all you’ve got? It’s crap and you know it, Henry. I have an answer for everything and I’m therefore not apologising for something I’m not guilty of.’
Henry pointed at Sands. ‘Don’t forget, Jack, I gave you the chance to save face.’
His hand went into his jacket pocket and extracted something. He held out his hand, turned it over and slowly opened his fingers to reveal a small, clear, plastic evidence bag.
In it was the famous three-pointed star seen so prominently on the front radiator grilles of Mercedes Benz cars. A silence fell heavy on the three people in the room.
Myrna Rosza looked down at the two dead bodies of Bussola’s bodyguards. The one sprawled to the right had been taken down by Mark Tapperman’s double-tap. Ba-bam! The other on the left had been killed by herself. She was painfully aware that the first bullet which left her gun had basically removed the guy’s throat and smashed through the back of his neck. He had been dead before he hit the ground squirming. Myrna didn’t know that for sure, but she would happily have laid money on it.
She too had attempted a double-tap. The idea of that method of shooting was to put two bullets pretty roughly in the same hole in quick succession. Her second shot, however, had gone well off-target and disappeared to where only God knew.
She stared down at the dead guy, fascinated by the pool of blood forming slowly underneath his grotesque body. It was going nowhere fast on the non-porous surface of the parking lo
t.
The first man she had ever killed.
Her jawline tightened.
Her time with the FBI had been concerned with more mundane matters — accounts, financial fraud, the occasional mob-related paperwork.
Nothing like this.
Never once had she faced a gunman, let alone drawn a weapon in anger. The only raids she had ever been on were the ones where she had been armed with folders, and were carried out during office hours — rifling through suspects’ desks, drawers and computer files, arresting people possibly armed with a letter-opener at worst. The only real danger she had ever faced had been from paper cuts.
Now this.
What surprised her was how little it was affecting her, but she was intelligent enough to know about delayed shock. A reaction would come — and she would have to deal with it. For now, she was cool.
‘ Y’okay?’ Tapperman asked.
She nodded. ‘Yeah, thanks.’
Behind her, this level of the parking lot was a flurry of police activity. Why the hell did the emergency services love flashing lights so much? A migraine threatened. She closed her eyes and held the bridge of her nose with thumb and forefinger. ‘Switch the damned things off!’ she wanted to yell.
‘ You did good,’ Tapperman said encouragingly. He patted her arm, squeezed it gently. ‘There won’t be any legal repercussions. I’ve already spoken with the DA and the Coroner. Nothing to worry about.’
She pulled her arm out of his fingers. Courts and the American legal system were a long way from her mind. ‘You’re still an asshole,’ she said bluntly.
A crime-scene photographer pushed past and began taking shots of the two dead men. He was followed by another with a camcorder. Crack! With a noise like a firework, a huge arc lamp exploded into life, illuminating the scene, shining right into Myrna’s eyes.
‘ Fuck!’ she hissed angrily. She turned sharply away, blinking, literally seeing stars. Then, vision regained, she heaved Tapperman out of her way and walked over to talk to Steve Kruger.
She arrived at the moment before the plastic undertaker’s bag was zipped up with him inside. Briefly she saw his horrendous head injuries. Kruger had taken three bullets smack in the face. They had been of a type designed to explode on impact, and succeeded in removing both the front and back of his head, splattering his brains everywhere. The man who had killed him had been good.
Myrna reeled at the sight. She had to reach out for a car to lean on to support her woolly legs.
With Steve Kruger dead she suddenly felt she didn’t want to go on living. She cursed the cruelty of it all and wished she had actually told him she loved him when she had the opportunity. If only she hadn’t been so pigheaded.
Now there was no chance.
She clung shaking to the car, tears pouring out of her eyes as a migraine dug cruel fingers into her skull, mercifully blocking out the scene.
Chapter Eleven
‘ I’m gasping for a drink and a fag,’ Danny said. It was noon and not too early for either by any means. ‘I need something to steady my nerves. I’m shaking like a leaf.’
‘ Right,’ said Henry, ‘let’s do it. We deserve it.’ He picked up his personal radio, turned it on and clicked the volume onto low — just in case.
They left his office and went to the lift. As the doors opened, the Police Constable who had taken the report of Claire Lilton missing from home again stepped out, almost barging into Danny.
‘ Been looking for you, Danny.’ He waved the completed MFH report in her face. ‘It’s that little cow you’ve been dealing with… she’s gone AWOL again. You know — that Claire Lilton.’
‘ When?’ Danny asked, a little knot of concern in her stomach.
‘ Sometime last night or early hours of this morning. What do you want me to do about it? Circulate it or what?’
Danny’s mind, which was really somewhere else, made a snap decision. ‘Just drop the report on my desk. I’ll see to it later — thanks.’ She stepped into the lift next to Henry who was holding the doors open. They closed; descent commenced.
‘ Claire Lilton: shoplifter and persistent misper?’
Danny glanced at Henry, quietly respectful that a busy DI should know this. Henry prided himself on knowing most things.
‘ Yeah, that’s the one,’ she nodded. ‘Been a real pain for a few weeks now, but I can’t get to the bottom of why she’s going. Something odd at home, I suspect.’ She looked away from Henry, suddenly realising she was slightly in awe of him. Not only did he know things that most DIs wouldn’t give a toss about, but there were not many police managers who would have had the bottle to do what he had just done on her behalf. Taking on Jack Sands — a tough, well-respected man’s man so admired by so many gullible people — and confronting him head on. No, not many people would have done that. No wonder his team worked their backsides off for Henry Christie.
They walked out of the police station towards Blackpool town centre. It was a clear, sunny day. Danny breathed the warm fresh air into her lungs, expanding them to their full capacity. Out of the corner of his eye, Henry, the perfect manager, saw Danny’s ample chest rise and fall.
Danny giggled. For a second he thought she had clocked him giving her the eye, but when he looked at her he saw he was mistaken. With her chin lifted high, she was staring dead ahead, a look of sheer happiness on her face.
‘ I don’t know if it’s done the trick, Henry, but I feel as if a great weight has been plucked off the top of my head — and it’s all down to you. The look on Jack’s face when you showed him the star and told him you’d found it taped under one of his desk drawers — and that you’d been accompanied at the time. He looked like he wanted to disappear down a plughole. It was a picture. Thanks, Henry.’
She grabbed his elbow, stopped him in his tracks and planted a kiss firmly on his cheek.
‘ Thanks,’ she said again, genuinely.
‘ All part of the service,’ he replied, colouring up slightly. He was very glad it was merely an innocent kiss of thanks. He knew that had there been anything more to it, he would probably have been daft enough to try and follow it up and get himself into lumber yet again.
They carried on walking and reached the corner of Bank Hey Street, one of Blackpool’s busiest shopping streets.
‘ What you got then?’ the weasel-faced man asked. His name was Benstead. ‘C’mon, I don’t have time to fuck around. I’m a busy man.’
A slightly breathless and ruffled Trent glanced cautiously around the smoke-filled taproom of the pub. Although there were only a few people in it, every one of them, Benstead included, had a cigarette on the go. The ceiling was a dark brown, nicotine-stained colour. ‘Here?’ Trent asked Benstead.
‘ Yeah,’ the little man nodded. ‘Here. But, y’know — be discreet. Don’t flash everything round for every Tom, Dick ‘n’ Arsehole to see. Show me under the table, out of sight. Right?’
Trent nodded and took a long draught from the pint of mild in front of him. He was very tense, hyped up. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, then took a small paper bag out of his pocket. He edged to one side and shuffled the contents out onto the space on the tatty benchseat between him and Benstead.
A driving licence and some credit cards.
‘ Is that all?’ Benstead sneered. ‘I thought you’d robbed fuckin’ Barclaycard headquarters from the way you were talking.’
‘ Yeah, that’s all,’ Trent said. All but the ambulance driver’s cash card.
‘ Where’d you get ‘em from?’
‘ Why?’
‘’ Cos I want to know. It’s all relevant to the price, innit? Things that’re really hot, I don’t spend much money on. You know — high-profile stuff. It’s the bog standard things that interest me.. things with a bit of a shelf-life.’
‘ Oh, right,’ Trent said, understanding. He wiped his face with his hand, momentarily holding his fingers under his nose, inhaling deeply.
Inwardly he gasped. God! He
could smell her! It was wonderful.
‘ Oh right,’ Trent said again. ‘These things are only lukewarm — almost cold, really. Come from a break-in down south yesterday.’
‘ Mmm.’ Benstead picked up one of the credit cards by its edge and tilted it to the light. Suspiciously his eyes rose to Trent. ‘You sure?’
Trent took another drink of beer. ‘Very sure.’
‘ Hmm,’ the dealer murmured dubiously. ‘Even warm stuff’ — he pronounced ‘warm’ as ‘worm’ — ‘don’t last long, a day, maybe two, in the right hands.’ He dropped the credit card back onto the seat and picked up the driving licence in the same careful way. ‘Now driving licences go on much further, and a driving licence and credit card in the same name…’ He pondered and regarded Trent. ‘How much?’
‘ I don’t fucking know. Name a price.’
Benstead clicked his tongue thoughtfully. He already had a buyer in mind for this little lot, a guy who had a nice line — nationally — of defrauding car-hire companies by renting good quality motors and selling them on to a ringer. He would love this combination. Probably worth fifteen hundred.
‘ Fifty quid.’
‘ Don’t take me for a fool. I may not have the sell-on contacts, but I know you do. These are worth good money to the right people. One-fifty.’
‘ Okay,’ Benstead relented easily. ‘One hundred.’
‘ One-two-five.’
‘ One-fifteen.’
Trent nodded. Benstead pulled a roll of banknotes out of his jeans pocket and peeled off the required number, handing them across under cover of the table. ‘Now fuck off,’ he said, concluding business.
Trent grabbed the money and stuffed it into a pocket. He stood up and left the place through the back door.
Benstead shuffled the purchase back into the paper bag and dropped it into his anorak pocket. He picked up a copy of the Daily Mail, unfolded it and relaxed… for about a second… until he read the headlines and saw Trent’s face staring dangerously at him from the front page.
A horribly nauseous feeling wrenched his guts. He placed the paper down on the table and reached for his drink. Christ! He’d just done business with the most wanted man in the country. His hand shook as he lifted the glass and missed his mouth. Then he groaned pathetically when the person he most detested and feared entered the taproom from the more salubrious snug next door.
