Ambush

by Nick Oldham

  It was Tope’s turn to lean over. ‘What?’

  ‘Tasker doesn’t have a mother, does he?’

  ‘She died a few years back according to the intel on the Tasker clan. Breast cancer. She was the old matriarch of the family but had disowned cute little Brian when his murderous methods made even the Taskers blanch.’

  ‘OK, when did she die? What month was it?’

  Tope thought and gave Flynn the approximate date off the top of his head. Sometime in April, possibly four or five years ago.

  ‘So, even though Tasker was disowned by his family of criminal cretins, he may have felt something for his dear departed mum and maybe on the anniversary of her death he’d buy flowers for the grave … maybe?’

  ‘Who knows?’

  ‘Any idea of the month of her birth?’

  ‘Er … again, April, I think.’

  Flynn tapped the screen. ‘This entry refers to the purchase of flowers, online from Interflora, for a cost of fifty pounds.’

  ‘But that entry is from September last year.’ Tope frowned.

  ‘Exactly. It doesn’t correlate.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘Who were the flowers for? Himself?’

  ‘A girlfriend?’

  ‘Do we know of a girlfriend?’ Flynn asked. ‘We’ve tracked down a couple of exes and we’ve been leaning on them down in London but neither of them have seen or heard from Tasker in a long time.’

  ‘So why would a guy like Tasker buy flowers?’ Tope asked, going with the flow.

  ‘That’s exactly what I was wondering last night.’

  The two men looked at each other. Because Tope was still leaning over Flynn’s shoulder their faces were only inches apart, which was just a tad too proximate for them both. They reared away from each other.

  ‘Who would he buy flowers for, the old romantic devil? A girlfriend we don’t know about, I’d hazard.’

  ‘Worth following up,’ Tope said.

  Flynn read the bank statement entry again. ‘And not only that, this refers to a purchase from an Interflora shop in Blackpool.’

  Again their eyes met … this time from a suitable, male distance.

  ‘He’s got a girlfriend up north,’ Flynn declared.

  It was Tope’s turn to shove Flynn off the seat and retake his rightful position at the desk in front of the computer. He cleared the screen, began tapping away and after a few moments said, ‘It’s a flower shop in Blackpool North, an independent florist with an Interflora concession.’ He angled the screen so Flynn could see the internet home page of ‘Flower Girl’, based on Red Bank Road in Bispham. There was an Interflora logo at the top of the screen.

  ‘Well, the big old softie,’ Flynn muttered. ‘We’ve been looking in all the wrong places for this bastard. He’s right under our noses, I’ll bet.’

  Tope glanced at Flynn with something approaching veneration. ‘What made you think of this?’

  Flynn gave him a knowing, smug look. ‘Just a great detective’s mind,’ he said, but then could no longer retain his seriousness. He burst into a lion’s roar of laughter.

  THIRTEEN

  She lived on Shoreside estate. Her name was Ellie Davenport and she was twenty-three years old. She had a council flat and was the mother to a twelve-month-old baby boy called Callum. She lived exclusively on benefits and had never, officially, had a job, although as Flynn found out a little bit more about her he discovered she did a lot of bar work when she had time. A drug user and shoplifter, she was wafer thin and pretty in a wasted sort of way, he thought. Like a very hungry Twiggy.

  Flynn discovered all this relatively easily. His search for information began that Saturday morning. Two hours after he and Tope had been at the computer in the incident room he was sitting in his car outside Flower Girl waiting for the shop to open up for business.

  In those intervening hours Flynn had been to the police training centre gym and punished himself with half an hour on a rowing machine and twenty minutes on a cross trainer before showering and changing into the fresh jeans and T-shirt he had brought along.

  It had taken him twenty minutes to get back across from Preston to Bispham, just north of Blackpool, to be outside the florist at about ten minutes to eight.

  He saw a figure behind the shop door opening up for business, a young woman, early twenties, frizzy hair and a round, pretty face with wide eyes and no make-up. She was dressed in a blouse and jeans.

  Flynn gave her time to set up the display outside the shop – bouquets in buckets and other floral displays – before climbing out of the car and following her inside, where it was very chilly and smelled of water and fresh flowers.

  She turned at the counter and watched him walk in, appraising and coming to a pleasant conclusion.

  ‘Can I help?’

  Flynn liked the look of her, too. Fresh and innocent. He knew both characteristics could just be a front for something more sinister, but he doubted it.

  He flipped out his warrant card and county badge, although the latter, while looking good, had no legal standing. The warrant card carried the weight. He introduced himself, then said, ‘Are you the Flower Girl?’

  ‘Oh, yeah.’ Her voice sounded husky and breathless.

  ‘I wonder if you could help me?’ His voice, unaccountably, sounded the same.

  She proved to be of great assistance and though clearly busy – she had two weddings that day and her assistant was off sick – she took the time to help.

  In a couple of minutes she had the Interflora orders that interested Flynn up on her computer screen and, more importantly, the name and address of the recipient of the flowers.

  Ellie Davenport, Flat 9, 6 Fairview Road, Shoreside, Blackpool.

  Flynn thanked the Flower Girl profusely and ten minutes later he was on Shoreside in his own car, fifty metres along the road from Ellie Davenport’s flat.

  Sitting there he recontacted Jerry Tope, who had grudgingly decided to remain at work for the duration, and asked him to delve into Davenport’s antecedents, if there were any.

  There were. The details were not particularly spectacular or interesting, although when Tope told him she did bar work, Flynn asked Tope if he could find out any of the names of the places she’d worked in.

  Tope came up with Fat Billy’s, a town centre pub in Blackpool – the very one where his informant Janie Miller had overheard the conversation in the men’s toilets that had set this whole ball rolling. A name which was cropping up with some regularity.

  Flynn asked Tope to call Craig Alford to bring him up to speed with the current situation and let him know Flynn was sitting on an address that could, just might be, that of Tasker’s girlfriend; maybe even the man himself was shacked up there. Flynn said he wanted some back-up to keep tabs on anything that might happen and maybe get a search warrant sworn out so they could enter the flat and look for Tasker or anything connected to him.

  Flynn realized the Ambush team had the best lead they’d had in weeks and he didn’t want to mess things up.

  Plus, he knew that he did not have long before his cover was blown on Shoreside. Cops, whether in uniform or plain clothes, were easily identified by the residents. He gave himself an hour, tops, before a crowd gathered and overturned his car with him inside it.

  He had heard nothing back from Tope or Alford when a door opened on the landing on which Davenport’s flat was situated. From his position he could not be sure if it actually was her flat but when a young woman emerged and came down the steps with a child in a buggy ahead of her, Flynn was reasonably certain it was her. She fitted the description given by the Flower Girl and also the one relayed to him by Tope from the descriptive forms and mug shot.

  She was on the move but fortunately walked in the opposite direction to Flynn.

  It was only a short walk through Shoreside to cross Clifton Road and enter the huge car park at the front of the Tesco supermarket, then go into the store.

  Flynn managed to keep her in sight, happy she
had not seen him creeping along behind her like some sort of kerb crawler. He parked up and dived into the store, grabbing a shopping trolley on the way.

  It was still quite early and the shop was relatively quiet.

  Flynn soon spotted her pushing a large shopping trolley with the youngster sitting in the baby seat, facing her. He assumed she must have stowed the buggy somewhere near the entrance. He passed quite close to her once, got a good look at the child and was astonished to see the unfortunate little mite had Brian Tasker’s face on it.

  He kept her in view easily, putting a few things in his trolley which he had no intention of buying, pretending to be a customer. As he moved around he called Tope, still waiting to hear back from Alford, who was proving elusive. Flynn seemed to think the DI had the weekend off and was possibly away for a few days.

  He hoped he was wrong.

  ‘What’s she doing?’ Tope asked.

  ‘Shopping.’

  ‘Exciting.’

  ‘Actually it could be,’ Flynn said.

  The weekly shop looked to be going into the trolley, a shop that included a lot of canned food and soup, packets of pasta and pot noodles; bread, crisps and a lot of booze. All very simple ‘heat up and consume’ food.

  Hoping he wasn’t making an assumption, Flynn thought, ‘Ideal fodder for a man on the run, holing up somewhere.’

  When she joined a queue for the till, Flynn took his trolley to the book and magazine aisle and flicked through a few fishing magazines, keeping an eye on the exit.

  Davenport appeared ten minutes later, having made her purchases. Still pushing the trolley, she grabbed the baby buggy from beside the front door, pushed the trolley and dragged the buggy out behind her and went directly to a private taxi parked in the pick-up bay, obviously pre-booked.

  The driver knew her. He smiled, patted the baby, heaved her shopping into the car boot and parked the trolley for her. Davenport eased herself and baby Tasker into the back seat of the taxi, which moved away as Flynn, leaving his trolley blocking an aisle, ran low, threading his way between parked cars, and leapt into his. By the time he reached the car park exit, the taxi, with its passengers, was driving east along Clifton Road to the junction with Preston New Road which was controlled by lights currently on red, allowing Flynn to catch up and sit behind with two cars between him and the taxi.

  The taxi went right towards Junction 4 of the M55, just a couple of hundred metres away, but then it was driven straight across the traffic island known as Marton Circle on to the A583 towards Preston.

  Flynn called Tope, wedging his mobile phone between his left shoulder and cheek.

  ‘She’s on the move, Jerry, Preston bound, A583, in a taxi with a lot of shopping, and my phone battery’s running low. Have we any news from Craig?’

  ‘Not yet, still trying. Get off the phone and save your power as much as you can.’

  The taxi kept going and Flynn stuck with it at a discreet distance.

  The area they were travelling through, between Blackpool and Kirkham, the town halfway between the resort and Preston, was wild, flat and open either side of the road, mainly farmland, a few cottages scattered around, a few caravan parks and little else.

  If Davenport was on her way to see Tasker and he was hiding out in a property around here, it would be hard to approach without being spotted and it would also be impossible to follow the taxi along any of the country lanes without being blown.

  Flynn’s face twitched; he was annoyed with himself for being so ill-equipped, even though he could not have foreseen these events – if, in fact, they were ‘events’. This could be an innocuous journey and she could simply be taking supplies to her dear old grandma.

  Flynn did not believe that for one moment.

  She was on her way to see Brian Tasker.

  Cop sense, common sense, told him that.

  He held back, allowing other cars to overtake on the wide road and slot in to mask him from the taxi. He did wonder if the taxi driver was in on this, watching for a tail. If so, that could be another problem.

  A one-car tail was almost impossible to pull off if the target vehicle was being driven by a surveillance conscious crim. It had been bad enough, Flynn thought wryly, following someone with three cars … what could have gone wrong with that? he questioned himself bitterly.

  Everything, as it happened.

  He forced those terrible memories out of his mind and concentrated on the task in hand, sticking behind the taxi and not being made.

  They bypassed Kirkham on their left, still on the A583, which widened into a dual carriageway at that point, went past the turn-off for Kirkham Open Prison, still heading towards Preston on quite long, fairly straight stretches of road on which it became more difficult to remain invisible.

  Flynn was perhaps 200 metres behind the taxi when it signalled, then turned left off the main road on to a narrow, rural road called Vicarage Lane and, just thirty metres into it, stopped dead. Flynn could just see the roof of the taxi above the hedge line.

  An anti-surveillance tactic, simple, but good.

  Turn into a side road, stop, see who followed you in. Not hard.

  Flynn swore.

  He knew he had to keep going, which he did, zipping across the junction and resisting the urge to rubberneck, although he did angle his head slightly to look. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Davenport and the taxi driver looking back over their shoulders.

  Had he turned in, it would have been game over and the young lady would simply have said, ‘Home, James.’

  Things would then have got ugly because Flynn would have confronted her.

  Fortunately he knew the geography of this area well. Vicarage Lane ran into Church Lane, which ran almost parallel with the A583. It came out at a junction close to the nuclear fuel and uranium manufacturing plant called Springfields. There was the possibility that the taxi might loop back on Vicarage Lane, but Flynn had now committed himself to cutting through the village of Clifton and coming at the nuclear plant at right angles to the route the taxi was taking.

  If the taxi had turned, he could have lost it.

  He veered left, sped too recklessly through the tightly packed village, then left again towards Springfields and glimpsed the taxi zipping across the junction on to Deepdale Lane, which ran along the edge of the nuclear facility.

  Still heading towards open country on quiet roads.

  Flynn turned into Deepdale Lane, the taxi some 400 metres ahead now.

  He called Tope, updated him quickly.

  ‘I’ve managed to get hold of Craig and some others are on their way … and me, too … where should we meet?’

  ‘Tell ’em to make towards the old windmill at Clifton … I’m just going to have to see how this goes,’ Flynn blabbed. ‘It’s just a bit fluid.’

  ‘You don’t have your PR, do you?’

  ‘No, I don’t, and my phone, as I said—’

  ‘Is running low,’ Tope finished for him.

  Flynn ended the call and lobbed the phone on to the passenger seat.

  The road dipped, there was a sharp left and then it all straightened out again with two hump-backed bridges ahead, one after the other, the first over the Preston to Blackpool rail line, the other over the Lancaster Canal. Beyond the second bridge Flynn knew the road carried on for another quarter of a mile to a T junction.

  As the taxi went over the first and less steep railway bridge Flynn was well behind, and as it bobbed over the tighter but more ‘humpy’ canal bridge he lost sight of it for a moment, then saw brake lights come on. The taxi slowed and turned tight left on to a farm track which ran parallel with the canal into an area of flat farmland with many farmhouses dotted across the landscape. Flynn again realized that if he followed, the job would be over.

  But he had a shiver of gut-led excitement because he was certain that finding Brian Tasker was now a distinct possibility.

  He stopped in the dip between the two bridges, jumped out and ran at a crouch to the
canal bridge, hiding behind the roadside wall and attempting to watch the progress of the taxi without revealing his bobbing head.

  It moved slowly and the lane angled away from the canal.

  Flynn appraised the surrounding landscape through narrowed eyes, seeing farmhouses and several slightly elevated wooded copses.

  The taxi went out of sight and Flynn’s shoulders dropped in frustration.

  He jogged back to his car, gave Tope another update and suggested another location for a rendezvous. He knew these lanes and farm tracks criss-crossed the countryside, but without a map he could not be certain if there was another exit for the taxi and realized he would simply have to wait somewhere inconspicuous until further cops arrived and then all the other exits could be plugged.

  As he spoke to Tope he was still parked between the two bridges and his eyes widened in horror when he saw the taxi trundling back down the farm track towards the road.

  He hung up without explanation and watched as the car reached the junction.

  He expected it to turn back towards him, but it drove away in the opposite direction. Flynn slammed his car into gear, went cautiously over the bridge and accelerated up behind the taxi – which now had no visible passengers on board.

  Davenport had been dropped off.

  Flynn’s adrenalin surge made him gasp.

  The road ahead was straight and within seconds Flynn’s car was up behind the taxi. He saw the driver’s eyes glance in the rear-view mirror, then do a double-take.

  ‘Yeah, right, mate,’ Flynn growled. ‘I’m right up your chuffer.’

  He flashed his headlights and gestured for the driver to pull over.

  The man’s shoulders seemed to set with determination and he slammed his foot down on the accelerator. The exhaust coughed plumes of purple-grey smoke which enshrouded Flynn’s car, and at the same time the taxi accelerated away.

  Flynn kept up.

  As they reached the T junction, the taxi swerved sharp left, powered down a dip in the road and dinked around a sharp bend, then sped past a pub called the Sitting Goose, which Flynn knew was one of Tope’s haunts. The premises flashed by, Flynn making certain his car stuck with the taxi. He steered with one hand and reached across to try and get his fingertips on the mobile phone, which had slithered tantalizingly out of reach on the passenger seat. Then he had to get both hands on the wheel to correct the steering and prevent himself from ploughing into a hedge.