Ambush

by Nick Oldham

  ‘Presumably you took the same route as he did into Preston?’

  Tope shrugged. ‘It’s a presumption. I never actually saw which way he went.’

  ‘But, assuming you did take the same route, and I’m not saying you did, did you see anything suspicious?’

  Tope quickly spun the journey through his mind’s eye, then shook his head. ‘Nothing … do you think this is connected to Aquarius? We’ve locked up some very bad people today.’

  ‘Don’t know yet,’ Dean admitted. ‘We don’t know anything … other than Craig Alford drove home after work and he and his family were executed. Excuse us,’ he said to the CSI, who was still using his magnifying glass on the door frame. The man stood aside.

  Dean’s hands were in tight-fitting latex gloves, as were Tope’s. Dean pushed the door open with the knuckles of his right hand and stepped into the room.

  Tope took a breath to steady himself and followed tentatively.

  The room was the sort of lounge Tope would have expected that a reasonably high-ranking cop and his wife would have. Quite big, a comfortable three-piece suite, big screen TV in one corner with an expensive-looking DVD player and sound system; nice pictures on the walls – signed, limited editions of Lancashire landscapes by local painters; a display cabinet with mainly police-related medals and certificates in it. There was a small upright piano in another corner and, beyond, the whole thing opened out into a pleasant dining room and conservatory.

  Tope caught sight of a large, framed, professionally taken Alford family photo above the fireplace. Genuine, happy-looking people in it, spoiled for ever by the arc of blood splatter right across it.

  There was a gap between the coffee table and the hearth.

  This was where four bodies lay. In a pile, one on top of the other. A heap.

  The two teenage girls were laid side by side on the bottom of the pile, slightly overlapping each other; Carrie Alford lay at right angles across them, and at right angles across her, and on the top of the heap, was Alford himself.

  The floor underneath them was of genuine polished floorboards, and they were all lying in a huge pool of their own blood, thick and coagulating, becoming tar black as it congealed.

  More blood was splattered across the hearth and up the walls.

  Tope’s mouth went very dry and he had to click and roll his tongue to induce saliva. He could taste the leftover alcohol from the few mouthfuls of lager he’d had earlier.

  The two girls were lying face up.

  The wife was face down, as was Alford across her.

  The three females had all been shot through their faces. The entry wounds – two bullets each in the case of the daughters – were obvious, but because they were lying on their backs and had not yet been moved, the exit wounds were not visible.

  But there were definitely exit wounds; as Tope glanced up he saw blood and brain residue across the big TV screen.

  Alford’s wife had also been shot in the face, but because she was lying face down over her daughters, the horrible exit wound was visible.

  Tope ran his finger and thumb across his eyebrows.

  Alford, unlike his family, had been shot through the back of his head and the entry wounds through his short-cropped grey hair were clear to see, but not the exits through the front of his face.

  Tope swallowed, still drily, as his eyes came to rest on Alford’s back. His police warrant card was laid on it.

  ‘Have they been deliberately arranged like this?’ he asked Dean.

  ‘Don’t know yet, too early to tell.’

  ‘But it looks like it … and we do know they’ve been executed.’

  ‘Yeah, we know that,’ Dean confirmed.

  Tope thought back to earlier in the evening and Craig Alford’s jubilant face at the news of the success of Operation Aquarius, his dance of joy.

  ‘Boss?’ he said to Dean.

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘I think I’ve seen enough … I really need to—’ He gulped. ‘Y’know?’

  ‘Go for it.’

  With his mouth clamped tightly shut and now attempting to control his gagging reflex, Tope spun, ducked under the tape, barged past the magnifying-glass-wielding CSI and headed for the front door.

  He burst through the tape stretched across that opening like a runner, belted down the front steps (to the amazement of the cops in the area) and ran across the driveway, where he slumped on to his knees by the edge of the lawn and brought up what he had been keeping back.

  Flynn sipped his Black Russian cocktail. Five parts vodka, two parts Kahlúa, drop of Coke, shaved ice.

  It was his second one of the night and he knew that was probably enough for him because last time he’d drunk more than two he’d ended up dancing wildly to the song ‘YMCA’ and doing all the arm actions to it, always a few steps behind the beat.

  A Black Russian certainly eliminated his natural shyness.

  But he had acquired a bit of a taste for it, having been introduced to the drink by the bad influence that was Maria Santiago. Normally he was a lager man but since he had been in Ibiza, a couple of late night Black Russians had become a habit. And at five euros each, they were a bargain in this part of the world.

  He was sitting on a very comfortable cane sofa in the ‘Every cocktail 5 euros’ bar squeezed amongst the many other bars and restaurants lining the Santa Eulalia marina, sipping the now favoured cocktail, drawing it into his mouth through a short stubby straw and watching the world go by.

  He had eaten alone – not the plan – at the restaurant next to the cocktail bar, the Black Pirate, where he’d consumed a lovely seafood spaghetti; now he was idling before heading to bed, hoping Santiago would be able to catch up with him before his head hit the pillow.

  It was a warm night, as ever in late July in Ibiza, and as much as he missed Gran Canaria – where he actually lived – he could not say that his life was awful.

  Flynn was the owner/skipper of a sportfishing boat operating out of Puerto Rico on Gran Canaria – normally – but at the behest of an old friend he had relocated lock, stock and boat to Ibiza for the summer.

  His friend had just started a boat charter business, hiring out skippers and boats, usually on a daily basis, to take out small groups of holiday makers from Santa Eulalia to spend lazy days exploring sea caves and secluded beaches around the island, swimming and snorkelling in the warm sea, and to provide customers with all the food and drink required for a great day out. The problem – a nice one – had been that Flynn’s friend had overbooked for the season and suddenly, desperately, he had needed another boat and skipper for ten weeks. He had called Flynn.

  Flynn had just bought a pre-owned but gorgeous forty-five-foot sportfisher he had named Maria, after Santiago, and berthed in Puerto Rico. Because of the fate of his previous boat he had only just started to pick up the pieces of the fishing business, and the lure of a guaranteed 1,000 euros each week for ten weeks, no matter what, including free servicing and fuel, had been too much to resist so he had upped sticks and decamped from the Atlantic to the Med. He had been forced to leave Santiago behind. At least in the short term, but she had now joined him for an extended period of leave from her job as a detective with the cops in the Canary Islands, based on Gran Canaria, although her boss was now screaming for her return.

  Flynn raised the second Black Russian of the night but paused with it halfway to his lips and reflected, for just a moment, on Santiago.

  Things could have been very different.

  He stared blankly as these thoughts crashed through his mind – the idea that Santiago could have been blown to pieces in a car bomb set by an Albanian gangster called Bashkim, intent on vengeance. It had only been the intervention of a crack FBI team led by a man called Karl Donaldson, a man Flynn half-knew from some previous encounters—

  ‘Hola!’

  Flynn shook himself out of his contemplation as Santiago waved a hand in front of his eyes, interrupting his thoughts.

  ‘You look l
ike your motor has run down,’ she said, flopping next to him on the sofa.

  ‘Just thinking,’ he said, making light of his dark ‘what-if’ musings.

  ‘About me?’ she cooed, leaning into him, angling her face up and fluttering her brown eyes at him.

  ‘Actually, yes,’ he admitted, then took a pull of his Black Russian up the straw.

  ‘I’ll have one of those,’ she said. She beckoned a waiter and ordered two more.

  Flynn said, ‘I’m OK, I’ve had enough.’

  ‘Who said they were for you?’

  ‘Oh,’ he said warily. ‘“YMCA” time?’

  In order to maximize the income over that summer period in Ibiza, Flynn had decided to live on board his boat berthed in Santa Eulalia. It was a windfall he wasn’t expecting, but to rent a decent apartment for ten weeks would have been a big chunk out of the gross. When the contract was over, he wanted to be able to return to Gran Canaria with as much cash in his back pocket as possible to give him a cushion up to the end of the year while he got the deep sea fishing business up and running again.

  Previously he had part-owned a boat with a business partner. When the partner had become embroiled with some seriously shady men Flynn had ultimately lost that boat in spectacular fashion but had acquired enough money to buy another and start again. The purchase had cost him virtually every penny of that cash, which was one of the reasons why living frugally in Ibiza for two and a half months was not to be sneered at.

  He and Santiago had strolled back to his boat moored at one of the jetties and they sat on the rear deck, tired, but not yet wanting to go to bed.

  They were sipping cheap whisky and Santiago was telling Flynn about the two armed robbers from the Spar shop.

  Being a cop, albeit in Gran Canaria, she had felt it appropriate to spend some time with the local force while the two villains were processed. One was still under armed guard at the casualty unit being treated for the facial injury he had acquired courtesy of Flynn’s fist; it was actually causing Flynn some pain too. It was amazing how hard another man’s face could be.

  ‘Both chancers,’ Santiago was telling him. ‘From the north of England.’ Though Spanish, Santiago had spent her early years in the UK, where her father had worked in the nuclear industry in Lancashire, and she was completely bilingual. Occasionally Flynn could hear a Lancashire twang, which amused him. ‘Your neck of the woods,’ she said. ‘Blackpool.’

  ‘What are they doing here?’

  ‘Dealing and robbing. Apparently two Spar shops, one in Ibiza Town and one in San Antonio, have been robbed in a similar fashion: closing time, just one or two members of staff in the shop, cash and goods stolen, mainly cigarettes and spirits. They’ve made about seven thousand euros and if they’d been successful tonight would have had two thousand more. Obviously they’re favourites for the other jobs. The local cops are just trying to locate their apartment or wherever they’re crashing out. They think it’s in San Antonio.’

  She was referring to the resort on the other side of the island which was very much the centre of the club culture for which Ibiza was famed.

  ‘The one I chased said he knew me,’ Flynn said. ‘Not sure I know him … and the name you gave – Assheton – didn’t ring a bell.’

  Santiago frowned. ‘He kept asking your name. Maybe you came across him when you were a cop?’

  Flynn shook his head. ‘That was over ten years ago and he would only just have been out of nappies. If I’d met him, I think I would remember.’

  Santiago sat back on the sofa and exhaled happily.

  The boat was quite luxurious and despite being a sportfisher it was not out of place amongst the luxury boats in the harbour. It made a great day boat as well as an excellent place in which to sleep; the huge bed in the stateroom was ideal for two, even if one was as large as Flynn, who often slept splayed out like a starfish.

  He glanced at Santiago and grinned. She had initially come into his life thinking she might arrest him for murder but had ended up in his arms, and he was very happy about that. For some horrific moments he had thought he had lost her, but she had survived and he was in no mood to let her go, ever.

  Steve Flynn, he almost hated to admit, was in love … again.

  ‘Bed time,’ he announced. ‘Charter tomorrow, ten until four.’

  ‘And unfortunately I need to phone my boss in Las Palmas. He’s sent me too many texts to ignore … wants me back on something.’

  ‘That’s a shame.’

  They knocked back their drinks, then, with their arms draped around each other, they headed for the stateroom.

  Somewhere in the distance, Flynn could hear music playing.

  Village People. ‘YMCA’.

  He gave Santiago a meaningful look and cocked his head.

  ‘No. No, don’t you dare.’

  ‘But I love this tune,’ he whined.

  ‘Sometimes I wish I’d never introduced you to a Black Russian.’

  It was at that moment that Flynn’s mobile phone rang.

  Flynn scowled at the caller display. As he pressed the ‘answer’ button – he was using an old Nokia – and gave a gruff ‘Yeah?’, Santiago’s phone also rang.

  They disengaged from each other’s arms and concentrated on their individual calls.

  ‘Steve, it’s Jerry Tope.’

  ‘What have I done to deserve this phone call? It’s usually me harassing you, old mate,’ Flynn jibed, but at the same time he had noticed an urgent tone in Tope’s voice even in the few words spoken. It was very unusual, almost unknown, for Tope to call Flynn, since the former tried to avoid all contact if possible, their past history being a delicate one.

  ‘Steve …’ Tope’s voice cracked.

  Flynn walked to the stern. ‘What’s the matter?’

  He glanced at Santiago, who also seemed to be having a serious conversation. As Flynn knew, no good ever came from phone calls in the middle of the night.

  ‘It’s Craig Alford … I thought you would want to know …’

  ‘Know what?’ Flynn asked, immediately thinking, Heart attack. Alford liked food and booze, but it was just an assumption on Flynn’s part. He hadn’t seen or heard from Alford in over ten years. For all he knew he could be slimmer of the year and running marathons now.

  ‘Dead,’ Tope blurted.

  ‘Oh, God, sorry to hear that, mate.’ The news did not really hit Flynn hard. ‘What? Did he keel over, have a thromb?’

  ‘No,’ Tope gasped. ‘Murdered. His whole family murdered, executed … looks like a gangland hit … excuse me.’

  Flynn heard a rustling noise, the sound of footsteps, then a retching sound he guessed was Tope honking up his stomach contents. The connection went dead.

  Flynn glowered at his phone, then looked up at Santiago, who had just finished her call. She was looking at the screen of her mobile, a smart phone, much more advanced than Flynn’s little block of antiquated electronics. He recognized the sound of a text landing and saw her reaction to whatever it was: a sudden look of horror as her lips popped open and she pivoted her head to look at him.

  ‘Uh, yeah?’ he said.

  Carrying the phone as if it was a block of gold, she came up to Flynn.

  ‘That was the detective investigating the robbery at the shop. He found the apartment rented by the lads in San Antonio.’

  ‘OK.’

  ‘He sent me a photo of one of the items found.’ She turned the phone around and showed him the full screen.

  It was a photograph of a photograph.

  And that photograph was of Steve Flynn.

  About the same time as Flynn squinted, puzzled, at his picture on Santiago’s phone, a series of photographs and a short video landed on another phone.

  The recipient smiled grimly and with satisfaction at the images of four dead bodies, ruthlessly dispatched, then piled on top of each other like trash – exactly as the man had ordered, because that was what he believed. DCI Craig Alford and his family were gar
bage and needed to be put down like the dogs they were, but Alford himself had to witness the deaths of his family members first, before he himself was executed.

  That was how true justice worked, the man thought.

  And it had been a long time coming. Even so, it still felt fresh and tangy.

  But it was just the beginning. More had yet to die.

  The message underneath one of the photographs read, ‘Instructions complied with. Continue?’

  The man thumbed his response. ‘Continue.’

  FIVE

  ‘Who was he to you?’ Santiago asked Flynn.

  They had decided to forgo bed for a little longer and were sitting on the rear deck of the boat, the night still warm enough for T-shirts and shorts, accompanied by a measure of decent whisky this time, watered down ever so slightly to bring out the flavour of the malt.

  Flynn considered the question, screwed up his face, shook his head.

  ‘To be fair, not a lot,’ he admitted. ‘He was a DI – detective inspector – when I was back in the job. I knew him reasonably well, we got on all right, but I wouldn’t call him a friend as such. We worked on a special task force, two thousand two, three, for about six months. I was a drugs branch DS and he headed a small unit.’ Flynn shrugged his shoulders. ‘Beyond that, nothing … I suppose Jerry just wanted to tell me … he was part of that unit too. Even though Alford and I weren’t close, it’s still a big thing when a colleague dies, especially in such circumstances, as you know.’

  Santiago nodded and delicately sipped her spirit. The effect of the Black Russians seemed to have worn off and both were now stone cold sober, not feeling the need for sleep.

  The boat bobbed gently on the water. The resort of Santa Eulalia was shutting down for the night now. It was nothing like its vibrant, drug-fuelled sister, San Antonio. Santa Eulalia was aimed at young families and middle-aged people and did its job very well, but it also meant it was a much more subtle, gentle place, with a pace to match.

  ‘Jerry isn’t good at real life crime.’ Flynn grinned. ‘I can imagine the effect it would have had on him. He’s got a queasy tum at the best of times.’