One Dead Witness

by Nick Oldham

He read the piece of paper in front of him, notes taken during the autopsies. ‘She was sexually assaulted, as we expected, anally and vaginally,’ he told Danny. ‘The pathologist has taken samples of semen, so when we get Trent all we need do is match up the DNA and bingo! She actually died of a stab-wound to the heart, an organ which was horrendously damaged, as was the PC’s. Trent gets the knife in and really rives it round.’

  ‘Poor souls.’

  Danny had been at the house of Mr and Mrs Tomlinson, the parents of the dead girl, for the last three hours since they had identified their daughter at the mortuary. It had been a difficult and testing time for her. ‘I’ll tell the girl’s mum and dad tomorrow about the results of the PM. That’s when they’re expecting to be told. They’ve had enough pain and misery for today. Christ! All she’d done was pop out to play for a while. She’d just been recovering from flu. She was due to go back to school tomorrow.’

  Henry said, ‘Just for your information there’s now twenty pairs of officers working through the hotels and guest-houses physically, another ten on phones. I’ve told them to crack on until midnight, then pack it in. All my available detectives are pubbing and clubbing it to see what they can turn up. There’s a briefing at eight tomorrow and I hope to double those numbers at least for a couple of days.’

  ‘How are the people from the estate agents?’

  ‘The woman he stabbed has been sent home, no massive damage. The guy with the neck-wound is still in surgery - but he’ll live.’ Henry stretched. ‘I’m going to call it a day. Fancy a quick jar on the way home? And it will be quick. I need to be back here by six-thirty to get everything ready for eight.’

  ‘I’d like that, Henry. I’ve just got a couple of things to do.’

  They made an arrangement to meet in a pub and Danny went to her office.

  Henry headed straight out. He did not see the lurking figure in the doorway of an office nearby, a figure who had overheard their conversation.

  Jack Sands stepped out of the shadow. ‘Bitch and bastard,’ he whispered.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Charlie Gilbert waddled through customs at Manchester Airport, having collected his hefty baggage and large Mickey Mouse from the carousel. He went down the green channel - nothing to declare, other than being overweight. In the arrivals hall he was greeted by a man called Ollie Spencer who looked and acted something like a wartime spiv: quick, sharp features, trimmed moustache and a look which said he could get anything, any time. He worked for Gilbert in the capacity of manager of some leisure facilities, and acted in close liaison with him in many spheres.

  ‘Good trip?’

  ‘Very good, Ollie. As a result of my little visit, our amusement arcades will soon be kitted out with the latest video technology from the States and beyond. We’ll be streets ahead of the others. And not only that, for a very little effort, I’ll be able to make another hundred grand - but I’ll explain that one to you later.’

  ‘Sounds good. Did you manage to have some fun as well?’

  ‘Ollie - of course I did. Nice young fun.’

  Spencer led Gilbert out through the sliding doors to where he had illegally parked the car - the vehicle in question being a stretch Rolls-Royce with darkened windows, hired for the occasion of Gilbert’s return home. Spencer positioned the luggage trolley near to the rear of the car and opened the back door. Gilbert forced himself through the not-inconsiderable gap and plopped through onto the front-facing back seat.

  The Rolls had been stretched to accommodate a rear-facing seat too, making it similar to one of those long limos often seen in America, but pretty unusual in Britain. There seemed to be acres of room.

  Sitting coyly on the rear-facing seat was a girl.

  Gilbert’s face widened into a big smile of pleasure on seeing her. ‘Honey Pot!’ he beamed.

  Spencer poked his angular face in. ‘I hope you approve, boss. Bit of a coming-home pressie.’ He handed Mickey Mouse to Gilbert who presented it to the girl; she took it with a giggle.

  ‘I approve.’ He slapped his thighs delightedly. ‘Come to Daddy.’

  The girl squeaked with peals of merriment. She rushed towards him and immediately fumbled for his flies.

  She was eleven and a half years old.

  Danny did not really feel like going for a drink, but she thought it would be churlish to refuse. After all, Henry had done a lot for her in a very short space of time and a quick drink wasn’t too much of an inconvenience.

  She tidied her desk, picked up Claire Lilton’s Missing from Home forms and went into the Comms room. She ensured the circulation message would be sent that night. Danny knew how busy the following day would be and didn’t want to forget Claire in the melee.

  That task completed, she was ready to leave.

  She hated the fact that the walk to her car had become such a big issue for her. Something she had done for years without a second thought had, in the last few days, become a nightmare journey. Although she was certain Jack Sands had got the message loud and clear from Henry, the walk down the dimly lit car park made her jumpy as hell. All the while checking the shadows, looking round over her shoulder ... it was crap.

  She pressed the remote and her car responded. Seconds later she was in the driving seat, trying to get the key into the ignition ... when the passenger door opened and a figure dropped into the seat.

  Danny didn’t even look for a moment. She closed her eyes tightly and said through gritted teeth, ‘Jack, don’t you ever fucking learn?’

  ‘Jack? Who’s this Jack?’

  God, that voice! Danny’s eyes shot open.

  ‘I’m not Jack. My name’s Louis Trent, but you know that, Danny, don’t you?’ He jammed the point of his knife into the side of her neck. ‘Let’s go for a drive.’

  Henry Christie rarely drank alcohol before driving. For cops the drinking and driving game was far too dangerous to play. Too many had lost their jobs that way, and Henry wasn’t about to join them. However, that evening, he was parched. He needed something long and cold to wash away the grit. He chose Foster’s lager - a pint - and downed about half in one sustained slurp. It tasted wonderful and partly did the trick. He decided he would drink this, have one more with Danny, then head off home.

  He edged away from the bar and sat in an empty alcove from where he could survey the pub. He spotted a couple of crims - low-level drug dealers - who didn’t want to look at him, snorted a short laugh, sat back and waited for Danny.

  Danny could hardly breathe. Like she was being suffocated. Like a pillow was being pressed on her face.

  ‘Seat belt, Danny,’ Trent said calmly. He pushed the knife further into her neck. Any deeper and blood would be drawn.

  She drew the belt across her chest and clunked it in.

  ‘Now reverse out of here and drive out of the car park. If you try anything, I’ll skewer you and run. I’ll stick this right into your heart and you’ll fucking die here and now. Got that?’

  She nodded.

  ‘Good.’ He lowered the blade so it rested against her left breast. He prodded and she jumped like a fork of static had jolted her. Trent laughed. Cruelly he said, ‘I’ll bet you’ve got nice tits, Danny. I’m going to carve them like Christmas turkey. Now drive!’ He prodded her again.

  She was unable to stop her right foot from trembling on the pedals. In consequence the car lurched backwards out of the parking space. She slammed the brake on, too hard, unintentionally, and the vehicle screeched to a swaying halt.

  Trent reacted angrily. He whacked her across the face with the open palm of his left hand. He struck hard, making Danny’s neck snap round. She glared at him. He held the knife up to her nose and inserted it half an inch into a nostril. ‘Don’t fuck about, Danny,’ he warned her, ‘or you’re dead.’

  ‘I can’t stop my legs from shaking,’ she explained, voice quivering.

  ‘You’d better get in control of yourself,’ he breathed, staring at her - and she could smell his body odour. It mad
e her want to retch. ‘Now drive away, nice and gently, and in control. Pretend I’m not here. Pretend I’m Jack.’

  From one horror to another, she thought, taking a firm grip on the wheel when Trent removed the knife. She took a deep, steadying breath, exhaled shudderingly, slid the gear-stick into Drive and pressed the gas pedal with even strength.

  ‘That’s it, Danny,’ he encouraged her. ‘Nice ... nice car, too.’ He opened his legs and drove the knife into the seat between his thighs. ‘Be a real mess when we’ve finished with it . . . sadly.’ He made the opening in the fabric big and ragged by using the knife like a garden trowel. ‘Let’s got for a drive,’ he laughed.

  It was the cheapest Casio watch he could find - £4.95 at the time of purchase - but it had served him well over the years. The cost of replacement straps far outweighed the original cost of the watch. He looked at it and did not feel too happy. Almost eleven.

  He had been in the pub twenty minutes. There was about a half-inch of lager remaining in the glass.

  Where the hell was Danny?

  He emptied the beer down his throat and made a return journey to the bar.

  ‘Fosters,’ he told the barman.

  ‘Nasty cut, that,’ the barman observed, nodding at Henry’s temple.

  They had been driving ten minutes, mainly in silence other than for Trent to give her directions. He told her to drive north up the Promenade, towards Fleetwood.

  ‘Pussy got your tongue?’ Trent sneered. ‘You did enough talking when you interviewed me, didn’t you? Do you remember what I said, all those years ago? That time we were alone together? Do you?’

  ‘Yes,’ she squeaked.

  ‘Tell me.’

  ‘You ... you said you’d kill me.’

  ‘No.’ He jabbed her with the knife. ‘The exact words, Danny. The exact words.’

  She knew them. They were branded into her mind.

  She spoke softly. ‘ “Guilty or not guilty, Danny, one fine day - or night”,’ - a tear of fear rolled out of her eye as the words came haltingly out - ‘ “I’m going to come back and kill you for this”.’

  ‘Yeah. Brilliant. Well done!’ he shouted. He leaned across and spoke into her ear, his lips brushing her lobe. ‘And now I’m here,’ he said in a voice which sounded like the devil’s. He sat back and drew the knife across the dashboard, slashing a line in the wooden veneer.

  ‘Right, I’ve had enough of this journey. Turn round, head back to Blackpool.’

  Henry found the second pint went down almost as easily as the first - and far quicker. Without much thought he had drunk it in five minutes. He must have been thirstier than he first imagined.

  Still no sign of Danny.

  ‘Ah well,’ he said to himself. With a show of great reluctance for no one but himself, he pushed himself from his seat and plodded back to the bar. This was definitely going to be the last.

  He presented the empty glass to the barman. ‘Fosters.’

  ‘It really is a nasty cut, that,’ the man said, indicating Henry’s temple.

  They drove all the way back down the Promenade. All the way down the Golden Mile, past the amusement arcades, the Tower, Tussauds Waxworks, the Sea Life Centre, all still teeming with thousands of people. There was much laughter. Lots of rowdiness. They drove through South Shore, past the hotel where Claire Lilton lived, past the Pleasure Beach and the Pepsi Max Big One.

  When the Promenade cut slightly inland and became Clifton Drive North and they drove through the Local Authority boundary into Lytham St Annes, Trent said, ‘Pull in here.’ He pointed across the road.

  Danny veered across and stopped the car, facing oncoming traffic. She doused the headlights.

  Only feet away to Danny’s right, was Star Hill Dunes, an area of grass and sand dunes. On the opposite side of the road was a holiday camp. The dunes were popular with dog-owners, courting couples and, occasionally, murderers.

  ‘Nah - too fucking busy here," Trent blurted after consideration. ‘Drive on.’

  With relief, Danny accelerated away. ‘I was going to kill you there.’

  ‘I know,’ Danny said - but to herself.

  There was no reply from Danny’s office phone, nor her home. Henry was perplexed. He hung up the payphone, drummed his fingers on the side of the wall-mounted, bubble-like kiosk which surrounded him. He picked up the phone again, dialled Blackpool comms and asked them. They knew nothing; Danny had not been deployed by them, but she had dropped a misper file off to be circulated about half an hour before. She’d said she was going for a drink.

  He hung up and heard his ten-pence piece clatter away down the shute. He picked up his drink from the thoughtfully installed shelf next to the payphone and stepped back into the toilet corridor in which the phone was located. He took a sip from his third pint - almost gone - and walked back into the bar.

  He was experiencing that old twinge of the sphincter. It told him, rather like an old woman’s corns forecasting the weather, that something was a little off the beam here. . . and the towering spectre of Jack Sands loomed into Henry’s thoughts. A man with a bagful of resentment. Someone who had already shown he was capable of violence.

  Maybe he was being over-dramatic.

  Yet Danny had clearly said she would come for a drink.

  Henry knew if she changed her mind she would have let him know, not just stood him up. She wasn’t that kind of person.

  His lager now tasted harsh on his tongue.

  He threw the last of it down, wiped his mouth with the back of his hands. A quick visit to the toilet, then he was going to put his mind to rest one way or the other.

  Danny knew she had to look for any chance of survival. When it came, however slight, she had to go for it whether it meant physical confrontation with Trent or running away. Whichever, she would give it her best shot.

  For the time being, she reasoned her best way forwards would be to talk and keep him talking.

  ‘This is madness,’ were the three ill-judged words which constituted her opening gambit.

  Trent exploded.

  ‘How dare you fucking-well say that, you stinking bitch!’ he screamed. He plunged the knife towards her face. Danny braced herself. It slowed as it neared her and he stuck it against her cheek, on the stitches from her other bad night. With a quick nick, he drew first blood, reopening the wound. She almost cried out, but held back to a whimper. The warm blood trickled down her cheek. He removed the knife, then held it an angle across her neck. ‘If I slice this now, you’ll bleed to death and I’ll just fucking watch you, like that ambulance-driver.’ He breathed all over her. ‘This, Danny, is not madness. It’s revenge, a perfectly normal thing to do. People do it, governments do it, so how can it be wrong or mad? Yeah, revenge - for all that’s been done to me over the years.’

  ‘Yeah, yeah, I’m sorry. I was wrong to say what I did. I didn’t mean it to sound that way. . . I just wanted to know why you were doing all this, Louis.’

  ‘Now you know. I was betrayed by everyone, particularly those little angels who I cared for. They’re the ones who must suffer - as well as people like you. People in the system who don’t understand men like me.’

  ‘But what about Meg Tomlinson?’ she asked. That was the name of the murdered girl whose parents Danny had just spent several hours counselling. Danny needed to know if Trent had killed her. ‘You didn’t even know her, did you?’ She asked the questions gently, so as not to antagonise him.

  ‘Knowing is not the point.’ Trent relaxed, removed the knife. He sat back and Danny breathed out. The cold line where the blade had been pressed throbbed. ‘It’s the principle of the matter. She was like them, one of them, really. I’m simply making a statement.’

  ‘Why kill her, though?’ She still needed a definite answer. ‘I’m assuming you did kill her.’

  ‘You assume right.’

  Danny cast a quick glance at him. He stared ahead, eyes unblinking. She could hear his teeth grinding, a noise which made her cringe. />
  ‘I treated her with kindness and compassion, actually. But she didn’t like it. She would have betrayed me like all the others - if she’d lived. She was going to die anyway, but she chose to do it without dignity. She could have been a willing martyr for me, but no. Instead of a dignified death, she struggled after we had finished making love ... she was foolish, very foolish.’

  He had said all this as if in a trance.

  Danny shook as his words poured out. She had to blank her mind to how Meg Tomlinson must have suffered at Trent’s hands. Making love! Jesus, Danny thought. Making love was not what the post mortem revealed, but a brutal, perverted assault.

  It dawned on Danny, if it hadn’t done before, that she had been kidnapped by a seriously deranged man who, for his own good and the safety of the general public, needed to be killed.

  Danny knew she probably would not be the one to do the deed, though.

  She fully expected to be his next victim.

  Henry stood at the urinal. His water seemed to be passing for ever. He willed his bladder to empty quicker.

  The toilet door opened behind him and someone came in.

  Ahhh . . . finished. Henry looked down and shook off the drops and the image of his limp penis was the last thing he saw as his head exploded in a firework display Guy Fawkes would have been proud of. His legs buckled and he crashed down, catching his chin against the bowl of the urinal before he hit the floor. A further broadside pummelled him into blackness.

  The assault stopped abruptly.

  Henry veered through that sickening twilight zone somewhere between conscious and not, fading in and out, whilst his mind blared like a siren, loud, then quiet, then louder.

  Finally everything went quiet.

  Henry lay there very still as the urinals flushed.