Fighting for the Dead

by Nick Oldham

  He checked his rear-view mirror. The Mercedes was right behind now and he tried to see inside it, but all he could make out were two male figures, a driver and back-seat passenger. Alison, he realized, must be being held down in the space behind the front and rear passenger seat.

  ‘What’s the plan?’ Henry asked.

  ‘Wait and see.’

  ‘You know that the last person seen with a murder victim is usually the one who did the killing,’ Henry said. ‘If I turn up dead, which I presume is the plan, they’ll come a-knocking on your door, pal.’

  ‘That’s if there’s a body,’ Barlow said scarily, sending a tremor of fear through Henry which felt like all his blood had rushed out of his feet.

  Henry swallowed. ‘You know you have no chance with this, don’t you?’

  ‘I’ll control it,’ Barlow said.

  ‘Like you did Jennifer Sunderland?’ Henry sneered. ‘That went tits-up straight-off, dinnit?’

  Barlow snapped. He slashed the gun in his hand sideways into Henry’s face, into his broken cheekbone, then forced the muzzle into Henry’s groin, twisting it hard into his flesh.

  ‘A mistake I won’t make again.’

  Flynn, stationary, was still on the mobile phone to Rik Dean. ‘Sorry, pal, this traffic ain’t moving.’

  ‘Do your best to try and stay with him.’

  ‘If I can lay eyes on him, I will,’ Flynn said. He used the term ‘laying eyes’ when sighting a marlin out sport-fishing off the Canary Islands. ‘Hey, one thing, there’s the possibility of another car tagging on with him, a black Mercedes.’

  ‘A big black car was seen outside the murder victims’ house by one of the neighbours,’ Rik said. ‘No make, but it was described as fancy – why?’

  ‘There was one parked on Marton Street and I saw Barlow give it a thumbs-up when he and Henry came out of the nick, then it set off behind them.’

  ‘Could be . . . Look, I need to speak to some people. I’ll call you back.’

  ‘Ditto, when I’ve got something to tell you.’

  Flynn got through the lights and on to King Street at last, but was met by two solid lanes of cars stretching down through the city and in the distance he saw a ‘roadworks ahead’ sign and groaned with the injustice of it all. There was literally no way of making progress. He could possibly cut across the traffic at this point and then do a rat run around the western side of the city, but there was no guarantee it would be any quicker.

  But Flynn preferred to be on the move and it surely could not be any slower. He signalled left, nudged his way across the traffic and on to Aldcliffe Road that ran down by the Lancaster Canal and, hoping he could remember his way through the back streets and byways of the city, he threw the car quickly along these streets, over the railway line, down by the back of the castle, winding his way down on to St George’s Quay where he had spent a short morning of passion with a paramedic in her tiny flat overlooking the river. He knew he would have to rejoin the traffic at the bottom of the city at Cable Street.

  He did keep moving and probably it was quicker and as he waited to turn left onto Cable Street, he knew he had jumped the queue a little.

  But he could not see Henry’s car – and he also knew that he was making an assumption as to where he was headed. It was possible that he could have actually gone in a different direction and cut east across the city centre, but Flynn had the feeling he would still be heading north. Possibly heading towards Sunderland’s haulage depot.

  But he could have been wrong.

  He edged into the traffic which was moving more freely down here after bursting free from the city-centre bottleneck and Flynn motored along slowly, turning on to Greyhound Bridge to drive across the Lune. Traffic here had thinned out considerably and was moving quickly now across the one-way bridge.

  As he checked his mirrors and swung across the lanes to keep heading north, he thought he had lost Henry.

  But he suddenly found that he had actually beaten him through the traffic because as Flynn drifted across the three lanes, the pool car and the Mercedes came into view behind him.

  Even though his left eye was streaming, and the broken cheekbone was emitting shock waves of pain, Henry saw that somehow Steve Flynn had managed to get ahead of him. The problem was that there were three lanes of traffic over Greyhound Bridge and Flynn moved across to the right-hand lane and Henry was now expected to pass him using the middle lane, then filter across to travel north, as per Barlow’s instructions.

  This was a problem because they would drive within feet of Alison’s car and if Barlow looked across, he might easily recognize Flynn at the wheel, something Henry wanted to avoid, so he leaned forward to restrict Barlow’s view and also to distract him with more jolly conversation.

  ‘What do you think of the Millennium Footbridge?’ Henry asked and pointed left across at the pedestrian bridge that had been built to span the Lune at the turn of the century.

  ‘What the fuck are you on about?’ Barlow snarled.

  ‘Just chatting.’

  ‘Well fucking shut up.’

  They were almost level with Flynn now. Henry did not even dare glance sideways.

  ‘It’s beautiful, yet modern,’ Henry said stupidly, a remark that unfortunately made Barlow look sharply at him – just as the two cars drew level. Henry put his foot down on the accelerator, but the expected increase in speed did not happen. Instead, a huge cloud of smoke billowed out of the exhaust, almost causing a smoke screen around the Mercedes, which was too close behind. A very unpleasant scraping noise came from the engine block followed by a loud ‘clank’ that sounded as if a very important piece of machinery had come loose in the pistons.

  ‘What the fuck have you done?’ Barlow bawled.

  ‘Sorry.’ Henry dabbed the accelerator, but there was no response and the car started to slow dramatically with a huge crunching, grating noise coming from the engine like the pistons were pounding pebbles. ‘I think the engine’s seized.’

  ‘Shit.’

  The speed decreased, and suddenly there was no power in the steering.

  And without having to use the braking system, the car suddenly came to a bone-jarring stop, throwing Henry against the steering wheel and Barlow against the front windscreen.

  And the Mercedes ploughed into the back of them.

  Flynn watched the approach of Henry’s car through the passenger-side wing mirror, and realized he was going to underpass him, which was a necessity for traffic on the bridge. It was the only way to cross it.

  He slid low in his seat as the car came directly alongside, not daring to glance sideways – even though he did, seeing Henry point across towards the river and say something to Barlow in the passenger seat. Henry’s attempt at distraction.

  Barlow then looked sharply at Henry and as he did Flynn jerked his head to the front, presenting a low profile to Barlow just in case he glanced across from car to car and spotted him.

  Flynn braced himself, hoping he hadn’t been recognized, and Henry’s car edged ahead.

  Then came the huge cloud of noxious smoke from the exhaust, enveloping the Mercedes, followed by a huge and horrible metallic crash that Flynn heard clearly and pinpointed it as, basically, the engine in the pool car decided that enough was enough, it needed oil now because there was none left, not a single drop, and engines don’t run all that well without it.

  What surprised Flynn was exactly how instantly the car stopped. One moment it was going OK, then it seemed to slow just a little – then it stopped as though it had hit an invisible brick wall.

  And the Mercedes slammed right into it.

  Flynn drove on and veered in front of the car, stopping at a jaunty angle across two lanes, and leapt out of the car.

  Then the pile-up started.

  Another car hit the Mercedes, and bounced off into the left-hand lane. Another car hit that one. A car stopped in the right-hand lane – why, Flynn didn’t quite get – but the one behind it hit that one and then
they started to stack up within seconds.

  The passenger door of the pool car opened and Barlow rolled out, and staggered, blood on his head.

  Flynn saw the gun in his hand.

  Then Henry was out. He too loped drunkenly sideways, but gripped the roof of the car and turned to Flynn who was at the bonnet which had smoke and steam hissing out of the gaps and the front radiator grille.

  Barlow ran across the left hand lane towards the side of the bridge, holding his side and also limping like an injured wolf.

  Henry pointed urgently at him and screamed to Flynn, ‘Get him, get him . . .’ He yelled something else, but the sound of his voice was drowned out as, way further back, a truck hit a car with an almighty crunch.

  As Barlow got to the footpath, he turned and fired the gun twice.

  Flynn ducked instinctively, but the shooting seemed more like warning shots than anything. Running and keeping low he knew he would soon catch this man.

  Henry hit the steering wheel hard with his chest, the pay-off for not wearing a seat belt. It drove everything out of him, every atom of his breath, and something snapped. Then the Mercedes impacted from behind and jerked him backwards, flicking his head against the head rest.

  Barlow’s head smacked the windscreen and because he had been sitting sideways-on to Henry, the side of his ribcage connected with the dashboard. He too was then thrown backwards a second later as the Mercedes connected.

  Wheezing painfully, Henry exited the car as quickly as he could, noting that Flynn had angled Alison’s car across the front of the pool car and was already out on the road.

  Barlow got out of the car and started to leg it across the road. Henry shouted for Flynn to go after him, but to be careful, the guy was armed. He didn’t know if Flynn heard him.

  Ignoring the pain and possible new injuries, Henry ran to the Mercedes, realizing that the poor condition of the pool car had changed matters completely. He tore open the rear passenger door, ignoring the driver, and instantly there was no pain in him, just an all-consuming anger as he saw Alison lying curled up in a foetal ball in the footwell behind the front passenger seat, unmoving.

  Henry roared, ‘You bastards!’

  The youngish, good-looking man in the back seat went for Henry. This was the man who had held Alison’s head up to the window, taunting Henry, then smashing her face against the glass, smearing it with her blood. Henry did not know who he was, nor what part he was playing in this whole scenario. He did not care.

  Henry sidestepped, grabbed him and hauled him out of the car with a primeval strength he did not know he had. Powered by the red-mist rage, he started to pound his fists into the man’s face, punching him so his features were twisted and distorted, again and again, and then he stomped on him, with the man screaming, ‘No, no.’ Words Henry ignored.

  The driver of the Mercedes, stunned for a moment by the accident, got out. Henry turned on him, now a terrible monster. Henry made for him, but he ducked and ran.

  Barlow might have been running like an injured wolf, but Flynn simply jogged after him like a hunting dog, keeping a safe distance away, no way he was going to lose the guy, just run him into the ground. Easy.

  Barlow reached the Millennium Bridge and started to run across towards St George’s Quay on the opposite side of the river. There was a lot of people on the bridge, many of whom had turned and were coming back against him to see what was happening on Greyhound Bridge, where there had obviously been a serious accident involving a number of vehicles, and was still stacking up.

  By the time Flynn stepped onto the bridge, Barlow was about halfway across and Flynn thought this was as good a place as any to bring him down because there was nowhere else he could go, other than over the side.

  Flynn upped his pace, as, noticeably, Barlow began to slow down and stagger, the effect of the accident now hitting him hard.

  Flynn was ten feet behind him when Barlow did a quite spectacular pirouette, probably more by accident than design, at the same time bringing the gun around. Flynn dropped sideways, the gun discharged somewhere across the river, and Barlow fell to his knees, clutching his chest, breathing heavily and obviously painfully. The gun was still in his right hand, swinging to and fro.

  Members of the public began to gather.

  Someone shouted, ‘He’s got a gun.’

  Flynn circled him and Barlow’s watchful eyes stayed with him all the way. The gun came up, but dithered, then he dropped it as he coughed up a mouthful of bright red blood from the internal wound in his chest.

  TWENTY

  It was two days before Ralph Barlow was released from hospital, where he had spent his time under police guard. He had punctured a lung in the pile-up, but it had been saved by the quick actions of the doctors in A&E at the Royal Lancaster Hospital.

  It was also two days before the whiplash injury Henry had sustained when the Mercedes crashed into him kicked in bad. And although he moved as stiff as a kid’s robot, and was in agony when he moved at all, Henry could not be kept away from work. With Rik Dean, he waited for Barlow’s imminent arrival at Preston custody office, where it had been decided it would be best to lodge him under the circumstances, well away from any friends in high places.

  He was back to being represented by a duty solicitor. Henry almost wished his fancy-pants brief was sitting by his side, but it was not to be.

  Henry and Rik carried out the interview. After he had been cautioned and the introductions done for the tape, and he had been informed that the interview was being videotaped, Henry – sitting bolt upright, hardly able to move his neck without agonizing pain – said, ‘Ralph, one way or the other, I don’t expect this interview is going to be an easy one, but you have the choice to make it straightforward if you want to. Myself and DI Dean have seen the recording on the mobile phone and if you wish, we will project it up onto a screen and go through it second by second, pausing it and asking you questions about it as we go through it.

  ‘Just for the record, I am referring to a video recording on a mobile phone that was probably the property of Harry Sunderland, the other suspect in this case. It shows a murder being committed by three men clearly identifiable as you, Ralph Barlow, Harry Sunderland and a man we believe to be called Oscar Malinowski. The phone is passed round the three men who film each other as they kick and beat to death a young woman, who has yet to be identified.’

  Henry stopped, let the words sink in, then said, ‘The choice is yours, Ralph.’

  ‘It’s all down to Harry Sunderland. It just got a bit out of hand . . .’

  ‘Bad, bad people,’ Henry said. ‘You get involved with them and you pay the price.’

  He looked at his mini-team – and to do so, he had to move his whole torso in order to keep the pain in his neck manageable. There was Jerry Tope, Bill Robbins, Rik Dean, and, of course, the team leader, Robert Fanshaw-Bayley. Slouched at the back of the office was the unofficial member, Steve Flynn. On the floor next to him was a holdall – hand luggage for his flight back to Gran Canaria later that day.

  They were assembled in Henry’s office to update progress so far on what was proving to be a challenging investigation.

  They all knew various bits of the story – other than Flynn, who knew what he knew, because, over the last six days, he had been doing what he came to the UK to do – help an injured friend and run a shop.

  ‘Where to begin,’ Henry said, shuffling various papers. He was sitting at his desk. To his right was a projector screen on the back wall. A laptop had been set up, connected to the data projector that was fitted to the ceiling.

  A chorus of muted voices came, ‘Why not at the beginning?’

  ‘Ho ho,’ he said.

  ‘But keep it brief – I’m at the Police Authority in half an hour,’ FB said.

  ‘OK – still have a long way to go with this, but this is where we’re at now.’ He cleared his throat. ‘Background is that Harry Sunderland, leading businessman and Lancaster socialite, gets involved with
a Russian crim in Cyprus dealing with cheap property and other criminal activity. Sunderland is a friend of Ralph Barlow, soon to be ex-DI of our parish, through golf and stuff like that. Sunderland was also matey with Joe Speakman, whose own son Tom was/is also friends with Sunderland, so much so that Sunderland set him up in business in Cyprus as an estate agent to sell on the property being built by the Russian crim, name of Oscar Malinowski. Barlow is a boozer and a gambler and a ladies’ man, always short of money, and Malinowski, a guy with an eye for the main chance, puts a deal to him: pinpoint new Range Rovers for him using PNC and get paid, in cash and in kind. And he would do the rest – i.e., send his lackeys over to steal the Range Rovers and get Sunderland to ship them across Europe in sealed containers for selling cut price to Range-Rover-mad Russkies. Good money for Barlow – two grand a car – and sex.’

  ‘How sex?’ Bill Robbins asked.

  ‘Range Rovers went one way, prostitutes and money came back another – and the girl on the camera phone was one of them. Barlow told us over a dozen girls were sent over, he and Sunderland used them and they were then sent on to brothels in Manchester and London run by Maltese gangsters, affiliates of Malinowski.’

  ‘The ebb and flow of capitalism,’ Jerry Tope noted.

  ‘Something like that,’ Henry said. ‘He and Sunderland got a kick out of beating up the girls, as it were, and videoing themselves doing it. Malinowski liked it too, and during one of his brief visits – accompanied by one of his girls – they start knocking her around but it went too far. They killed her. And this was above a premises that Sunderland owned in Glasson Dock at which the girls were housed for the short time during their transit, when they were used by Barlow and Sunderland, then sent on to the brothels.’

  Bill Robbins frowned. ‘Didn’t they stand out in a place like Glasson? Not exactly Manchester city centre, is it?’

  ‘They were only there for a short time, two days at most, then they were gone – right under the radar. Then Sunderland sold the empty shop to Flynn’s friend, an ex-cop, who turned the place into a chandlery. It was only Flynn’s sharp eyes that saw the tooth and uncovered the actual crime scene – though what the hell his eyes were doing at skirting-board level, no one will ever know.’