by Nick Oldham
‘What?’ Dean said through the closed hatch in the cell door.
‘You the guy in charge?’
‘Depends what you mean.’
‘In charge of the thing that’s going on?’
Irritably, Dean said, ‘What thing?’
‘The prison thing.’
‘Yeah … and?’
‘Can you drop this hatch?’ The man’s mouth was at the air vent in the door, a circle of holes drilled into the metal, and Dean could see his lips moving.
‘Why? I’m pretty busy.’
‘I can help you.’
‘How, exactly?’
‘Drop the fucking hatch and I’ll tell you.’
Dean closed his eyes with frustration, took a breath and lowered the hatch. Digson pushed his face up to it. ‘What?’
‘C’mere,’ Digson whispered.
‘What, so you can spit in my face?’
‘No … c’mere, so only you can hear.’
Dean leaned forward slightly. ‘Close enough for me.’
And close enough to hear the words ‘I have some good information for you’ come from the man’s lips.
Dean was about to respond when the custody sergeant appeared at the top of the cell corridor and shouted, ‘Boss – urgent.’
TWENTY-THREE
‘How many bodies?’ Rik Dean asked.
‘Four. Two male, two female,’ PC Allen replied.
‘Are any known to you?’
‘The older male, yes … he used to be a detective: Jimmy Blue. He owns this farm … it’s a bit of a brew shop for one or two of the older PCs around here.’
Rik Dean sat back and rubbed his neck. ‘The other male?’
‘His son, Aaron … and the young lass is his daughter, Megan. The older woman is the wife, Ruby. I know who they are, but I don’t want to spoil the crime scene by clambering around.’
‘Yeah, sure. Anyone else?’
‘No, not that I can see, certainly not in the barn.’
‘Right, OK.’ Dean’s mind worked overtime. He was not liking being on the phone to Allen because, although the officer had described the scene well, to be there physically would be better – and he knew he had to get there sooner rather than later. ‘Have you had a look around the place?’
‘Again, yes, but I don’t want to disturb anything, just in case. Can’t see anything, though, or any other bodies.’
Dean was back in the inspector’s office at Preston, in contact with Allen thirty miles away in Rossendale. Allen was talking over his personal radio which, like all modern PRs, was equipped with the facility to call landline and other mobile numbers directly. The desk phone was on loudspeaker.
‘OK. And you say there’s a Fiat Punto in the yard?’
‘Yes.’
‘Have you looked through it?’
‘Do you want me to, boss?’
‘Just see if you can find anything of interest in it, such as an ID – but before you do that, have you got your own mobile phone with a camera?’ Allen said he had. ‘Take some shots of the scene and send them to me, will you … just to me. Nothing fancy, just so I can get a perspective.’ He gave Allen his mobile number.
‘Will do, boss … but if you don’t mind me giving my two penn’orth, it looks like a gangland execution.’
They hung up. Dean rocked back in the chair. He knew local supervision was on the way to the farm as well as two local detectives, but he had also got the ball rolling with other support, such as CSI and support unit … and once he heard back from PC Allen, he himself was going to set off across the county.
A couple of minutes later several photographs landed on his phone and he tabbed through them with a feeling of dread.
‘Shit,’ he breathed.
The desk phone rang again. It was PC Allen.
‘Boss … I’m with the Punto. There’s what looks like airplane hand luggage in the passenger footwell and some folded documents on the seat itself.’
‘Be careful, but have a look.’
‘I’ve got my latex gloves on.’
Dean heard some rustling over the line, then Allen came back on. ‘Printed flight tickets, Manchester to Ibiza tonight, midnight … and a UK passport in the name of Stephen Flynn … you think this guy could be involved?’
Dean said, ‘Yeah, he’s involved all right … I’m just surprised you haven’t found his body, which may yet turn up. OK, thanks for everything. Protect the scene and I’ll be across in about an hour.’ Dean hung up just as the custody officer poked his head around the door again.
‘Boss, I know you’re busy, but Digson is still after talking to you.’
‘Tell him to fuck off … politely. I’ll catch up with him when I can.’
Flynn was awake and had been propped upright in a chair, but was still in complete darkness with the pump bag still tied over his head and tape wrapped around his face. His hands were taped to the chair arm, his ankles to the legs. A nauseating, pulsating pain emanated from the gunshot wound to his thigh, and he had to swallow back so as not to vomit, knowing that if he did there was every chance of choking to death on it because there was no exit via his mouth.
And he was frightened. More terrified than he had ever been in his life. He had always thought himself a brave man – almost to the point of stupidity sometimes – and he would never back down from conflict if he thought that to strike back was the right thing to do.
But his ability to hit out had been taken away from him. He was injured and therefore weakened and his mobility and speed were compromised; he knew he was dealing with people who would put a bullet in his head without even thinking about it. And he had been drugged, making him woozy and slightly out of it.
He whimpered as pain flooded up from his leg and into his lower abdomen. The nauseating sensation returned and he swallowed everything back down, but realized it would not be long before he could not suppress it any longer. Vomit was designed to come out, not go back and forth in the throat.
He heard the scuff of a footstep and someone close by, breathing. He tensed and attempted to regulate his racing heartbeat by breathing slowly through his nose, but that was not great either because his nasal passages were getting blocked now. Soon, he thought, even if I don’t choke to death on my spew, I’ll suffocate anyway.
There was the scratch of something on the floor, maybe a chair being repositioned.
Something touched his chest. He flinched. Someone laughed.
And said, ‘Steve Flynn.’
Rik Dean tore across the county in his Mercedes estate, gripping the steering wheel, making himself concentrate on driving and nothing else. He knew he had to get there safely; to have his mind wandering and trying to work things out could have been hazardous.
He was at the scene in forty-five minutes, having activated a couple of speed cameras en route. Five minutes after that he was in a forensic suit, gloves, mask and elasticated shoes over his own, and talking to PC Allen. Dean always made a habit of chewing the fat with the first officer on the scene of a murder or other major incident and draining them dry of their observations and thoughts. Allen was good, precise and professional, and Dean thought that maybe he would go far in the job.
After this, he and Allen threaded their way through everyone else who had landed, and Allen talked him through his arrival and what he had found.
Inside the barn, Allen had ensured that everyone who had to have access to the crime scene stuck to the same route in and out and around the bodies in order to minimize the possibility of the destruction of evidence by size eleven police boots.
Two CSIs were at work recording still and video footage.
Dean walked around the prescribed route and spent a lot of time looking at each body. It was similar to the Alford family’s murder, but the MO was not quite the same. A complete family, the wife and children killed ahead of the father, who was then gunned down once he had witnessed their deaths. It didn’t seem as deliberately set up as that murder, though, so he was already thinking that the
killer or killers were different people.
Different people, same objective.
His heart rate had subsided slightly, his desire to be sick under control for the moment.
Flynn sat there, listening, trying to work out what was beyond the hood over his head.
It felt quite chilly, but he was sure he was indoors. Maybe a cellar or a warehouse.
He tried to test the strength of his bindings, moving his wrists and ankles. There was little stretch.
Suddenly he was instinctively aware of someone standing next to him, breathing close to his left ear.
Then the whisper again. ‘Steve Flynn.’
‘I know I’m being a pain, boss.’ The custody officer from Preston was on the phone to Rik Dean, who was sitting in his car, parked on Bacup Old Road – the full length of which had been cordoned off to all unauthorized vehicles and people – sipping a milky coffee from the urn he had ordered to be brought up to the scene of the murder. Strangely, it tasted wonderful, even out of a polystyrene cup that he could bite chunks out of and spit away.
‘It’s not a problem,’ Dean said generously, even though it was. ‘What is it?’
‘That prisoner, Lawrence Digson, the drug dealer guy.’
Dean faintly recalled the man’s earlier insistence. ‘Oh, yeah … what does he want?’
‘To speak to you – urgently, he says. Well, he would, wouldn’t he, because he’s been charged with some serious trafficking offences now and he’ll be put before a court tomorrow.’
‘Is he specific?’
‘No.’
‘Then, if you don’t mind, go and ask him to be, then get back to me.’
‘OK, boss.’
Dean got out of his car still sipping the coffee and walked across the farmyard, a hive of activity now even as evening began to approach. Emergency generators had been brought in and set up, flooding the farmyard with bright, unnatural light. He walked over to the Fiat Punto, the hire car Flynn had been using and in which Flynn’s mobile phone had been found underneath the driver’s seat. The last call recorded on it was from Rik Dean himself.
He closed his eyes and said to no one, ‘Where are you, Flynnie? What have they done to you? They’ve taken you, haven’t they?’
Dean’s phone rang and he answered.
‘Me again, boss … custody sergeant. I’ve spoken to matey in the traps—’
‘And?’
‘Still not all that specific, but he says I have to say “BT” to you: Bravo Tango.’
‘What?’ Dean placed his coffee cup on the roof of the Punto and clamped his spare hand over his spare ear.
‘He said I have to tell you “BT”, and that you’d understand.’
It took a few blinks to register, then Dean was running back to his car.
TWENTY-FOUR
Flynn began to retch. He swallowed, but this time there was no chance of holding it down; it had been there and back too many times. His whole abdomen convulsed and he brought it all into his mouth – from which there was no escape – and through his nostrils. He fought with maniacal strength, bucking against his bindings, gagging and heaving desperately, unable to keep his cool and knowing that he was going to die a horrific death … so much for the heart attack he had promised himself at the age of eighty-five, catching a thousand-pound black marlin off the coast of Australia the morning after the night before, when he’d made love to six or more women and got royally drunk.
This was going to be a squalid death, but maybe over soon at any rate.
Suddenly the pump bag was ripped off and someone grabbed his head in a lock to steady it while another person tore off the strip of duct tape over his mouth, leaving him still blind with the tape over his eyes. Like a volcano the sick erupted in a crazy burst from his mouth and nose.
He gagged continually for a further half-minute, spitting out down his chest, clearing his nose by blowing down it, clearing all the passageways. His stomach muscles contracted and screamed in protest. Eventually it all subsided and he could suck in clean air and begin to recover – until the tape was put back in place, the pump bag went back over his head and the drawstring was pulled even more tightly around his neck, like a noose.
And the voice at his ear: ‘Steve Flynn.’
Flynn gathered all his strength and attempted to smash his head into the face of whoever it was, but connected with nothing but air.
‘Steve Flynn.’
Dean rushed into the custody office to be met by the sergeant he had been in contact with, who led him straight away to Digson’s cell.
The sarge opened the door to find Digson stretched out on the bed/bench reading an old paperback book, a Jack Higgins thriller. He glanced sideways at the two men at the door, reminding Dean of the big bad wolf.
‘What’s so urgent?’ Dean demanded.
Digson closed the book and rose slowly into a sitting position, a smile playing on his lips.
‘Not here,’ he said.
‘Don’t piss me about, Mr Digson,’ Dean warned him. ‘I have a short fuse and will not be arsed about with.’
‘But I have something you need. I know I have,’ he said confidently.
‘What is it?’
‘Not here … interview room with proper coffee and a KFC Boneless Banquet, please … then we talk.’
‘Up yours.’
Digson tilted his head and shrugged before starting to lie back down and open the book again. ‘A coffee and a KFC is not a great price to pay.’ He found his page again and said, ‘BT.’
The jet of freezing cold water hit Flynn’s head, jerking it back. It took him by surprise, although he had been listening intently to some movement in front of him, unable to work out what was going on – until the water struck him.
He tried to avoid it, to duck and shift the chair, but he had already discovered the chair was fastened to the floor and was immovable.
Then it was over and he was drenched and soon began to shiver, while at the same time the wound in his leg burned fiercely and a weakness came to his head.
‘Steve Flynn.’
He looked calm, comfortable and smart. Clearly someone had been allowed to bring him a change of clothing. There was a filter coffee in front of him, and the remnants of the Boneless Banquet acquired for him from the KFC on Preston Docks. He wiped his mouth with a dry serviette, and then his hands with the fragranced wet wipe. He sat back and sipped the coffee.
‘Maybe you should look into providing all prisoners with KFCs; you’d certainly get more confessions.’
Rik Dean eyed him. ‘What do you want?’
‘Freedom? Liberty?’ Digson chuckled. ‘Not much chance of either of those for a while, now.’
‘You shouldn’t traffic drugs.’ Dean raised an eyebrow pointedly.
‘I’ve learned my lesson … at least that’s what I’ll tell the parole board when I reach that point. In reality …’ He winked.
‘I really, really do not need a sideshow, Mr Digson.’
‘Trust me, detective superintendent, I am just the sort of sideshow you do need.’
‘Steve Flynn.’
The blow knocked Flynn’s head sideways. A flat of the hand smack, but delivered with enough ferocity to set his brain on fire and burst his eardrum.
He screamed behind the tape at the new pain lancing through the side of his head, but as he moved he also shifted his wounded leg, which he had made almost comfortable, and fresh pain arced up into his belly again.
Digson leaned forward and put his elbows on the table, steepling his fingers, the gesture of someone who believed they had power.
‘Now then, I know how the wheels of justice turn, Mr Dean; wheels within wheels, deals within deals. I want to make a deal.’
‘In exchange for what?’ Dean sneered cynically, not even remotely warming to this man.
‘Information, of course.’
‘What sort of deal?’
‘A sentencing deal, a prison deal … guaranteed. I know it can be done. I li
ve in the real world.’
‘You were found in possession of several million pounds’ worth of cocaine and several million pounds in cash from the cocaine business. Looking on the bright side, you’re looking at, at best, twelve years. That’s the real world. For you, anyway.’
‘And that is the maximum. I’ll be out in six years … but I want to be out in three, or less for good behaviour – and I will behave. I want a guarantee of a maximum sentence of six years so I’ll be back out in three. I’ll plead guilty but I won’t drop anyone in it who was arrested along with me. If no deal, then not guilty, and a very long, protracted trial will ensue which will probably end up as a retrial – because, believe me, witnesses and juries will be intimidated – and will all cost more money than I had in drugs.’
‘Law is about principles,’ Dean said. ‘It doesn’t matter how much a trial will cost.’
‘You know it does, but if you deal, not only will I plead guilty, but so will all the people you arrested with me … that’s a promise. You can sentence them to whatever the court sees fit, but for me, maximum of six years. Deal?’
‘You’re doing my head in. You’ve offered nothing yet except a couple of initials, BT.’
‘OK … I’ll give you Brian Tasker on a plate … and I know how much you want him.’
‘Welcome, Steve Flynn.’
The pump bag was eased off his head, the duct tape slowly and painfully unwound.
He blinked as he gasped for air and his eyes adjusted themselves to the semi-darkness. He glanced around to see he was in the cellar of a pub, with beer barrels stacked up alongside wine and spirits and boxes containing crisps and confectionery. And, bizarrely, four large screen TVs in a row, all at the same height and facing him. Then his gaze settled on the man sitting on a chair about a metre or so in front of him.
‘Welcome to Fat Billy’s, the pub I’ve owned in Blackpool for many years now. Bet you didn’t know that, did you?’ Brian Tasker said. There was a gun in his hand, one with those attachments Flynn had previously thought were telescopic sights on the barrel. He rested it on his lap, pointed in the general direction of Flynn’s body. ‘How is the wound? Sore?’
‘Just a tad.’
