One Dead Witness hc-3

by Nick Oldham

  ‘ It’s very easy to get forged passports,’ Henry said patiently. ‘Your Honour, I know for a fact that the defendant Gilbert has connections with the underworld in the United States. He was recently arrested for indecent acts with a child whilst in Miami, but was released without charge. The person he was arrested with is an active member of the Florida underworld — a gangster in other words. The forgery of passports is common to such people. I believe we would never see either defendant again.’

  ‘ Is it true you have little evidence against them for the murder charge?’ the Judge asked.

  Henry wondered how to flower it up. He decided to go straight for the jugular — and sod it. ‘It’s true our evidence, at this moment, relies substantially on a statement taken from a witness who is now dead. I do not believe it is a coincidence that this young girl was murdered as a result of giving the police a statement. I firmly believe Gilbert ordered her murder.’

  It was the first time Henry had openly voiced such an opinion. He watched Stanway’s non-verbals and thought he saw the whole of his body wobble.

  ‘ This is an outlandish suggestion,’ Stanway retorted. His face was red. ‘My client has absolutely no connection whatsoever with this incident and to suggest it is so is preposterous and, were we not in a court of law, scandalous.’

  ‘ Quiet!’ Mrs Ellison snapped.

  Stanway drew in his neck, like a tortoise into a shell.

  ‘ We believe,’ Henry went on, ‘that if released, Gilbert will continue, in whatever way he can, to pervert the course of justice. He’s a powerful man who rides roughshod over people to get what he wants. I am also sure he is involved in a paedophile network which may be international in its scope. Several items the police have seized point to this as being much more than supposition. There is no doubt he is heavily involved in child sex-abuse and his release will only allow him to continue his activities.

  ‘ Finally, there is the murder of another young girl. Her body was discovered recently in a shallow grave near Darwen. We suspect Gilbert to be involved in this.’

  ‘ Evidence?’ Mrs Ellison asked.

  Henry coughed. He glanced at Stanway, then back at the Judge. ‘Could I speak to you privately, Your Honour?’

  ‘ This had better be good, Mr Christie. The fortunate thing for me is that I have the power to administer appeals as I see fit. Mr Stanway is not impressed at being ejected from the chamber.’

  ‘ I understand — but it is good.’ Henry went on to detail the story of the disappearing witness in America and the fact that if this witness could be found, Gilbert would definitely be facing another murder charge. Henry concluded the story by saying, ‘I have just received a phone call to say the witness has turned up again and is willing to give evidence.’

  ‘ So what are you saying?’

  ‘ I’m saying that if Gilbert gets bail, we have a good chance of never seeing him again. If he stays in custody — on remand — and we bring this witness back from America, we can arrest him and deal with him without any problems. From what I can gather, this witness is very jittery indeed. We need to act with due speed.’

  Mrs Ellison nodded thoughtfully. ‘I’ll give you until Thursday to get this witness back into Britain and accordingly I shall remand both defendants until that day… then it’s back to the Magistrates’ Court. If you haven’t got a witness by then, you will have to appeal to the lower court again… and there is a very good case for releasing Gilbert on bail.’

  ‘ That doesn’t give us much time,’ Danny observed bleakly. ‘Two days. How are we going to manage it?’

  ‘ It’s better than nothing.’

  They were on the M6, Henry driving south towards Preston. The CID Mondeo was touching a hundred and beginning to reek of burning oil.

  ‘ You’re such a pessimist, aren’t you?’ he said.

  ‘ Just answer me this — how the hell are we going to manage it? A reluctant witness, one who’ll only speak to me… come on, how?’ Danny’s hands made a gripping gesture.

  ‘ That’s what we’re going to sort out now when we see FB at Headquarters. I’m going to put to him that we send you on a plane to Miami today and you can bring her back and at the same time take a statement off her in mid-Atlantic. We’ll get her into protective custody as soon as she lands and then slap Gilbert with a-’

  ‘ Hang on, hang on!’ The implications of what Henry had just said struck her. ‘So you want me to go to America? Drop everything — just like that! Henry… hold your horses!’

  He swerved into the fast lane to avoid a lorry which pulled out unexpectedly.

  ‘ Henry, all I plan to do this week is crash out. I am absolutely knackered and the last thing I want to do is fly to Miami and back in a day. It’s an eight-hour flight each way!’

  ‘ Would you rather see Gilbert walk?’

  ‘ You know I wouldn’t. That’s not the point.’

  ‘ I’ll arrange first-class seats. You can stretch out and sleep all the way over. You might even get to do some sightseeing. It won’t be that bad.’

  She shook her head, unimpressed. ‘I’m not going. Why don’t you just get her dumped on a plane at that end and we’ll meet her over here. That would make more sense and it would be cheaper.’

  Henry fell silent. ‘You’ve got a point, I suppose,’ he said eventually. ‘We can’t make you go.’

  ‘ But I want to go.’

  ‘ What?’

  ‘ I really, really want to go and bring her back and charge Gilbert with another murder… part of me, a big part of me wants to do that. But I’m just exhausted. I’m probably on the edge of a nervous breakdown too and I don’t want to have it three thousand miles from home.’

  ‘ Tell you what,’ Henry began persuasively, ‘you go, bring her back, then leave her with me. Then take a few weeks’ leave from Friday. Go away — out of the country for a while. Crash out in Spain or the Bahamas.’

  ‘ But you’re short-staffed. Other people are on leave.’

  ‘ We’ll manage. Just do this last thing for me. I know you’re completely shell-shocked and I know you’ll be even more knackered with two long flights under your belt in quick succession, but do it and then take as much time off as you need. I’ll square it with FB. I would really appreciate it.’

  ‘ Shit! You could talk the knickers off a nun. I’ll do it.’

  ‘ Brilliant! Now all I have to do is convince FB to send you. As you said, it won’t be cheap.’

  ‘ You mean this conversation could have been for nothing? You don’t even know if he’ll pay for me to go?’

  ‘ Well, I certainly don’t have the authority to spend probably well over five grand in air fares, do I?’

  ‘ Henry, you are a real bastard.’ She punched him on the arm. Hard.

  He came off the M6 at junction 29, and cut across south of Preston to Police Headquarters at Hutton.

  He did not notice the grey Jaguar which shot past him, motoring south, driven by Maurice Stanway who was carefully rehearsing the words he would be saying to his clients down at Risley Remand Centre, near Warrington. He knew Charlie Gilbert would not be a happy man.

  ‘ That is one hell of a lot of money.’ FB read the figures again and again and did some calculations in his brain, subtracting the amount from some budget or other. ‘Anything cheaper?’

  ‘ Yeah.’ Henry’s lips were pursed like a cat’s bottom, his annoyance beginning to show with FB’s penny-pinching ways. ‘There’s no doubt a three-hundred-quid return on a charter flight, cramped up like a sardine, no legroom, no space to sleep, shit food, swollen ankles.’

  ‘ And there’s something wrong with that?’

  ‘ With respect, sir — yes, there is. This is, after all, a business trip, not a holiday flight.’

  ‘ But the price! We could buy another helicopter for this.’

  Henry shook his head impatiently. ‘It’s either that — Business Class — or she won’t go. Will you, Danny?’ He turned unexpectedly to her, bringing her int
o the conversation.

  Up to that point Danny had simply been a spectator. She was thrown for a few seconds. ‘No,’ she said finally.

  FB glowered at her. Then his lips pursed into the shape of a cat’s arse. He knew he was being railroaded. With dignity, he conceded defeat. ‘What must be, must be,’ he shrugged.

  ‘ If nothing else she deserves a bit of pampering after what she’s been through,’ Henry said patronisingly, wishing his words unspoken when he saw Danny’s angry face.

  ‘ When can we get her on a flight?’ FB asked, a note of resignation in his voice.

  Henry consulted his notes, taken during a conversation with a travel agent with whom the Force often dealt. ‘There’s one tonight, arriving four a.m. our time, eleven p.m. theirs.’

  Danny quickly worked that one out. ‘I don’t fancy that,’ she said disgustedly. ‘That means leaving here at eight tonight. No, thanks. I want a decent night’s sleep before I go.’

  ‘ Shit,’ Henry said under his breath. ‘That starts cutting things a bit fine then. There is an eight a.m. flight tomorrow, landing in Miami at 4 p.m. our time, eleven a.m. their time. That means you’d have to pick the girl up and do a quick turn around, catch a six p.m. flight back from Miami, which would land back in Manchester at seven a.m. our time on Thursday morning.’

  ‘ Jesus,’ Danny said. She closed her eyes and sighed. Sixteen hours, two eight-hour flights almost back to back. Not recommended for anyone in any condition. However, Henry’s promises about the days following made her decision. ‘I’ll do it. Just make sure that when I land back in Manchester on Thursday morning, you are waiting for me, probably with a hearse, because I’ll be all but dead.’

  They both looked at FB whose face wore the mask of pain of a man who was having to fork out money from his own wallet. ‘Okay, get it booked.’

  Henry reached for the phone.

  ‘ Oi! What do you think you’re doing?’

  ‘ I was going to use your tele-’

  FB was shaking his head. He jerked his thumb towards the door. ‘Find another.’

  Out in the corridor Danny remarked, ‘You don’t let FB walk all over you, do you? He usually flattens people.’

  ‘ He’s done that in the past, but since he pulled a particularly dirty trick on me a while ago, which nearly got me shot to pieces, I don’t take any shit from him, ACC or not. And that’s not meant to sound like bragging. He owes me a lot… now, where can I find a phone? I know, let’s go out to the Divers’ hut. We can get a brew there as well.’

  ‘ The Divers’ hut?’

  ‘ Yeah. I used to be a police diver donkey’s years ago. Did a couple of years on the branch when it was a part-time thing; there’s people on it I know well.’

  Ten minutes later Henry had booked Danny on the flight to Miami and, over a cup of tea, was showing her the intricacies of some diving equipment, boring her to death in the process.

  ‘ I’m sorry to say bail was refused.’ Stanway’s voice was weak.

  ‘ On what grounds?’

  ‘ Likely to abscond, interfere with witnesses, but the Judge said the case must be reviewed on Thursday and every week thereafter if necessary.’

  ‘ What exactly does that mean, Maurice?’

  ‘ It means, Charles, that if the police have found no further evidence against you, you will be released, probably with bail conditions.’

  ‘ I sense a “but” at the end of that sentence.’

  ‘ I think they will have evidence, but not concerning Claire Lilton. It’ll be evidence about the body of the girl they found in Darwen. I did some checking on the way down, via the mobile in the car, with a friend I have in the CPS. They’re sending an officer to the United States to bring a vital witness back who will give evidence against you.’

  Gilbert’s head dropped into his hands.

  They were in yet another consulting room, this time at Risley Remand Centre. Gilbert’s big, round, football of a head rose. He stuffed a little finger up his nose, rooted around and extracted a ball of snot which he wiped underneath the table.

  ‘ Who is it?’

  ‘ Some girl or other. I don’t have details.’

  ‘ Fuck! I know who she is. It can only be one person.’

  He gazed at the ceiling for inspiration. ‘This puts me right back to square one, because if she turns up, I’ll face a murder charge… and I don’t want that to happen, Maurice.’

  ‘ We’ll defend it,’ Stanway declared resolutely.

  ‘ No, Maurice. I said I didn’t want it to happen at all.’

  ‘ What are you going to do then? Have another witness murdered?’ Stanway’s voice rose. ‘I mean, she’s in America. It’s not as though we can send that dumb gorilla round we paid the other night, can we?’

  ‘ No, that’s true — and keep your voice down, Maurice. Walls have ears.’

  ‘ What do you intend doing, then?’ Stanway re-enquired. ‘I think we should defend it.’

  ‘ I will not appear in court on another murder charge.’

  ‘ Charles,’ Stanway breathed with exasperation, ‘she’s in America, presumably in police hands. She’ll be handed over to the Lancashire officer and brought straight back — in police hands. There is no way you could pull a stunt of any sort.’

  ‘ Maurice,’ Gilbert began in a tone of voice which was losing patience, ‘I want you to do something for me.’ He wiggled a forefinger to bring Stanway’s face closer and he whispered in the solicitor’s ear.

  When he had finished, Stanway stood up and paced the room. ‘No, no, I will not do it — you cannot make me do it! First I meet and pay some bloody lowlife to commit a murder and now you ask me to do this. I am just digging myself in deeper and deeper… I will not do it. Ethically, morally, legally, it is against all my principles. The answer is no, Charles. A definite no.’

  Gilbert listened to the tirade, almost expecting Stanway to stamp his feet.

  ‘ Finished, Maurice?’

  Stanway nodded and licked his dry lips.

  ‘ You don’t have a fucking choice.’

  Hyperventilation: breathing at an abnormally rapid rate, resulting in increased loss of carbon dioxide.

  Maurice Stanway put the dictionary down with dithering hands. That was exactly what he was suffering from. His breathing was out of control; his heart rate astounding. His was light-headed; grey flecks were whizzing in front of his eyes. In fact, it was a miracle he had made it from Risley Remand Centre back to his office in the car. It was only sheer willpower which had prevented him from blacking out on the motorway.

  The office was deserted. All the staff had gone home.

  It was 7 p.m.

  Stanway tried to control everything by sitting at his desk and getting a firm grip on his bodily functions. Without success. In the end he yanked open his bottom drawer and reached for the quarter bottle of scotch he kept there. Normally it languished unopened from Christmas to Christmas. He unscrewed the cap and put the bottle to his lips, gurgling down the fiery liquid. Almost half the bottle went down within seconds. He almost choked.

  ‘ Christ, Christ, Christ.’ His current predicament was beyond his comprehension, but he knew it was solely down to one thing — his weakness. From his experience as a solicitor he knew that weakness was the usual downfall of most people, whether it be a fondness for drink, drugs, money or power, or, as in his case, young boys. Preferably around the ages of seven or eight.

  For the millionth time he asked himself why. Why did he like it? Something he knew was completely unnatural, immoral and illegal. But he did. He loved the texture of their soft flesh; he loved causing pain and loved holding them down whilst he completed the act. That too, was a power thing.

  But why?

  A married man, kids of his own who he would have defended with his life from the advances of someone like himself. A good, moderately successful career. Nice house, two decent cars, money not a problem.

  Perhaps his longstanding friendship with Gilbert was one rea
son. They had known each other since Grammar School, where the brutish Gilbert had led him astray then… and the relationship had continued in the same vein for thirty odd years.

  Maurice Stanway, the man who was so easily led.

  Now he was trapped in a cage of his own making.

  Gilbert had such power and personal influence over him it was impossible to resist. For his own survival he had to help Gilbert again.

  He pulled his briefcase onto the desk and snapped it open. In his notebook he turned to the page where he had jotted down the number Gilbert had dictated to him. The very private number of a very dangerous man.

  Stanway squeezed his face in the palm of his hand, breathed in, held it and exhaled slowly. Then he picked up the phone and dialled quickly so he would not stop halfway through.

  Despite the long distance, connection was made immediately.

  On the second ring, the phone was answered by a woman.

  Stanway quickly explained who he was and asked to speak to that man.

  After the rain, Miami was boiling hot again.

  However, Felicity Bussola, previously known as Felicity Kruger and before that, Jane Creek, was sitting in the shade of a large umbrella, laid out full-length on a sun lounger by the pool.

  She answered the cell-tel as soon as it rang. It had been left on the drinks table next to her. After listening for a few moments, she pressed the ‘secret’ button and shouted across the pool.

  ‘ It’s for you, darling, she called. She held the phone out between her first finger and thumb.

  Mario Bussola was sitting at a table in the full sunshine, working on a laptop. There was a fax machine by his side, a small copier, a shredder and two other phones, all within reach. He was stripped down to his boxer shorts and the heat of the sun was making his rippling fat glisten and perspire.

  Bussola sat up. He frowned. Few people ever called him on this number because it was only divulged to selected and thoroughly vetted individuals. ‘Bring the fucking thing here,’ he said. There was no way he was going to get up.

  ‘ Okay, babe.’ She rose to her feet stiffly because the broken ribs had not really begun to heal, and shuffled around the edge of the pool. Not only did the ribs still hurt, but also the base of her spine which was sore and bruised. This particular injury meant she walked like an eighty-year-old.