Crunch Time

by Nick Oldham

  ‘No one did, except Makin and Anger.’

  ‘Listen, H’ – Donaldson leaned on the table, over his mineral water – ‘this is not a criticism of you, pal, but there’s every chance you could have been your own worst enemy here.’

  Henry balked inwardly.

  ‘Then again, let me be ruthless. How long is it since you worked under cover?’

  Henry shrugged irritably. ‘You know the answer to that.’

  ‘OK then, after being a pen-pushing asshole for a number of years, you get chance to dive back into it … man, are you gonna be one rusty son of a B.’

  Henry sunk lower.

  ‘How long do you think this guy’s been stalking you? Days, weeks, months, years?’

  ‘Dunno.’

  ‘Exactly, you don’t know. You do not know how closely your life has been watched by some mad freak, because you didn’t have to know. People do not expect to be watched and followed, unless they’re specifically in the game. And that includes cops. Unless you’re an undercover cop, you do not expect to be followed, do you? You don’t carry out anti-surveillance moves on your way to work, or back home again, do you?’

  ‘No.’ It was bitterly said.

  ‘And a few things have happened to you, assaults that were unexplained, yeah? I was there for one.’

  ‘There hasn’t been anything for a while, though.’

  ‘Maybe the guy was plotting, maybe he was in prison, maybe he was building up the courage … who knows? But what I’m saying is—’

  ‘That I got sloppy?’

  Donaldson breathed a sigh down his nose. ‘It’s possible this guy might have tailed you right to Ingram, or the apartment in Salford, and maybe he saw an opportunity to fuck you up, put your life in peril without putting himself at risk, and then going for the soft option – Kate, alone at home.’

  Henry sat back, thoughts brimming.

  ‘But whatever,’ Donaldson warned, ‘there’s one sicko out there and he needs to be caught before he comes back and succeeds where he failed. The way I see it is, this guy wants your family dead and he hasn’t succeeded yet.’

  He sat back, point made – but he couldn’t resist going on.

  ‘How long before he discovers where you live now?’

  ‘Probably not long … might even know now.’ Henry chewed the inside of his cheek, then downed the remainder of his lager.

  ‘I think you need to know what Ingram knows, get that out the way, then see how the land lies.’

  ‘But first I need to go home and protect my family.’ Henry was having bad feelings about things.

  ‘OK, I understand.’ Donaldson emptied his water down his throat. The two men left the pub and began the walk back home.

  ‘Trouble is,’ Henry postulated, ‘we can’t talk to Ingram, not yet. Doctors say he’s still too ill to be interviewed, arrested, et cetera.’

  ‘But he can talk?’

  ‘Apparently.’

  Donaldson exchanged a glance with Henry. ‘Look, pal, I know you disapprove of some of my methods, and we had a heated discussion about that earlier and cleared the air between us, I hope … but sometimes things have to be done for the greater good.’

  ‘We cannot speak to him, if that’s what you’re thinking.’

  ‘I know that.’

  ‘And he’s being guarded twenty-four–seven by two cops. And his solicitor is watching us like a hawk.’

  ‘I know that, too.’

  ‘And I couldn’t even contemplate an off-the-record interview. If that happened and it was discovered, it might jeopardize the whole case against him.’

  ‘I know that, too.’

  ‘So where does that leave me?’

  They crossed the main street in Kirkham.

  ‘You don’t have to be involved in anything.’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘Under the right, unofficial pressure, Ingram might tell you the name of the person who ratted on you, which could well lead to the arrest of your stalker, and save you and Kate and the girls a lot of grief.’ Donaldson liked the word, grief, used it often.

  Henry’s hands stuffed deep into his jeans’ pockets. His head was bowed low as he walked.

  ‘I’m good at this sort of thing,’ Donaldson said. ‘I have no moral qualms whatsoever, whether I’m dealing with a terrorist, gangster, whatever – especially when I could save a friend’s life.’

  To all intents and purposes the friendship between these two men had ended when Henry violently disagreed with the tactics used by Donaldson to extract a confession from a suspected terrorist. They were back on course now, but Donaldson was obviously now suggesting something which made Henry feel queasy again, something which went against his sense of decency … but for the sake of the safety of his family, Henry knew he would have to surmount it and fuck the ethics.

  ‘And anyway,’ Donaldson wittered on, ‘all I want to do is have a chat with the guy and also, as I’m not a British cop, I’m not actually bound by your police procedural stuff, am I?’

  ‘You probably are,’ Henry said.

  ‘Does that mean yes?’

  Henry nodded glumly.

  ‘Hey, don’t worry, pal.’ Donaldson slapped him hard on the back, causing Henry to hiss with pain. ‘I’ll just squeeze a few of his tubes, that’s all.’

  Nineteen

  Henry considered making a phone call, but as it was his wont to turn up unexpectedly and catch people on the back foot, he jumped into the Rover next day and headed out of Kirkham to the M55. Donaldson had been up early, having crashed for the night in a sleeping bag in the spare bedroom, and his Jeep was conspicuous in its absence. Henry shivered when he speculated what Karl might be up to.

  But Henry was on his own mission, which might or might not help ID the man who attempted to murder Kate.

  The journey had been prompted by the thought he’d had on yesterday’s stroll with Andrea Makin, something he knew he needed to follow up.

  He went east on the motorway, M55 – M6 – M61 – M60, then off on the A56 and towards Manchester through Prestwich until about two miles short of the city centre he drew on to the forecourt of the car sales dealership specializing in MGs and Rovers. He slotted into a space on the customer parking lot and entered the plush showroom. He couldn’t see Ken, the boozy-breathed salesman with whom he had previously dealt. He approached the counter, behind which sat an extremely pretty young lady, unnecessarily layered in make-up.

  ‘Hello, sir, may I help?’

  ‘I’m looking for Ken, salesman Ken. I don’t recall his surname.’

  The young lady’s name badge said she was called Sandy. ‘Ken Connolly?’

  ‘That’d be the one,’ Henry guessed. ‘Many Kens here?’

  ‘There have been a few – a lot of our salesmen seem to be called Ken’ – she giggled – ‘but he was the most recent.’

  ‘Be him, then.’

  ‘I’m afraid he’s left.’

  ‘For the day, for breakfast?’

  ‘For ever … he resigned. One minute here, next gone.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘Can anyone else help?’

  ‘Why did he leave?’

  ‘I don’t know. It was very sudden, unexpected.’

  ‘Could I see the manager, then?’ Henry fished out and flashed his warrant card. ‘Cop,’ he said, smiling.

  ‘I’ll give Mr Lennox a ring.’ Sandy picked up the phone with a finely manicured hand and dialled a short number. Henry glanced towards a glass-fronted office at the back of the showroom where a desk-bound individual in short sleeves picked up a phone.

  ‘Mr Lennox? It’s Sandy on reception.’ Henry saw the man look out towards her. ‘There’s a policeman here would like a word with you.’ Henry gave Lennox a little wave. He saw the man’s mouth move. ‘No, I don’t know what it’s about.’ Sandy pressed the silent button and asked Henry, ‘Can I say what it’s about?’ by which time Henry had had enough.

  ‘I’ll tell him myself.’

  He s
et off towards Mr Lennox in his glass-fronted office.

  Lennox was a fat, sweaty man with pools of damp under his arms and another across his chest underneath his large man-boobs. He didn’t smell, which was a bonus, and was quite helpful – two things which endeared him to Henry.

  ‘Ahh,’ Lennox said, after Henry had explained why he wanted to see Ken Connolly. ‘One of many, I suspect – well, several.’

  ‘Several what?’

  ‘Shady deals done by Ken Connolly.’

  ‘What sort of shady deals?’

  ‘We suspect Ken of skimming from the trade-in values of bangers against new vehicles. Unfortunately it’s not something we could prove, so the management had a word in his lughole, told him we were on to him, and he decided to quit whilst the going was good.’

  ‘What was he up to?’

  ‘Falsifying trade-ins, getting cash from customers for a better on-paper deal … something I suspect he’s been doing for years at various places. He’s worked all over the place.’

  ‘Were the police ever contacted to investigate him?’

  Lennox shook his head. ‘It was only a suspicion.’

  ‘And he never got challenged, either?’

  ‘Not as such, just got told he was being scrutinized.’ Lennox picked up an envelope on his desk. ‘His P45’s in here. I was going to send it to him today, if he’s still there. He’s a bit of a nomad, old Ken.’

  Henry took the envelope, saw the address was in Rawtenstall, which was back on his home turf of Lancashire. Henry commented on the address.

  ‘A lot of people commute into Manchester from there.’

  ‘What exactly was Ken doing?’

  ‘Basically getting a backhander from likely customers in order to get a better trade-in deal on their vehicles. Or, for cash buyers, getting a wodge of cash – by asking people to go and come back with cash-in-hand – from which he’d take a percentage, falsify the paperwork and get a whole load of drinking and gambling money. Happens all the time in the car trade, especially for sort of mid-sized concerns like ours with a pretty big turnover. There’s a million scams going on.’

  ‘Bloody hell,’ Henry said, ‘if you can’t trust a car salesman, who the hell can you trust these days?’

  ‘Is that ironic or facetious?’

  ‘Bit of both, I imagine.’ Henry smiled. ‘So could that have happened to the Mondeo I traded in?’

  Lennox shrugged. ‘It’s possible – and you turning up and asking about it maybe spooked him, too, made him decide to pack his bags a bit sooner.’

  ‘I was after the name and address of the guy who bought it, though Ken did say it went for auction. He looked at some paperwork … could you recheck it for me?’

  ‘I could … like, when?’

  ‘Round about now, would be good.’

  ‘Why is it so urgent?’

  ‘Because the guy who bought the Mondeo is wanted for attempted murder and arson.’

  Lennox gave an appreciative whistle.

  ‘Also, Ken did mention that you had good surveillance cameras. Digital recordings, he said.’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘I wondered if there was any chance of seeing if anyone, a customer, showed an interest in the Mondeo? Ken said he’d do that for me, but he seems to have welched on his word.’

  Lennox looked extremely pained. ‘There is a chance of looking at the tapes, but the part-exes are usually put right at the back of the lot and they’re not covered by the cameras. We could see, I suppose.’

  ‘If you show me how to do it, I’ll do the legwork, if that’s what’s bothering you.’

  Lennox raised himself Titanically from his seat, which seemed to breathe a sigh of relief. He led Henry into another office off the service area in which there was a bank of four, four-by-four TV monitors on a desk, each giving a different view of the forecourt. Also on the desk was a personal computer. Lennox sat at the desk and pulled the keyboard up to his large gut and adjusted the computer screen so he could see it better.

  ‘They’re all linked up to this computer,’ he explained. ‘Very state of the art, but worth it.’ He tapped a few keys, logged in and asked Henry what dates Henry was interested in. He searched for the first date, and the screen split into four. ‘This is oh-six-hundred on the day you brought the car in … can you recall what time you came in?’

  ‘Ten-ish.’

  Lennox fast-forwarded the day in question and stopped at ten, then clicked from screen to screen. One of them showed the entrance/exit of the forecourt, two others the stock on display and one cutting back and forth to the showroom itself.

  There was a lot of coming and going and then a Ford Mondeo drew on to the forecourt, driven by Henry.

  ‘My poor car,’ he said.

  Lennox looked over his shoulder. ‘Right, sometime between then and when the car was sold, the guy who bought it must have come into the garage, unless it went for auction, as Ken says. If I show you how to scan through the images, can I leave it with you?’

  ‘That would be good.’

  ‘And I’ll have a look at the paperwork for you.’

  Thus trained, Henry began his task, part of his mind wondering what Karl Donaldson was up to.

  ‘Why did you want to meet me here?’ Andrea Makin asked. She and Donaldson were standing in the car park at Preston Royal Infirmary. ‘Sounded mysterious.’

  ‘I want to do a favour for a friend. I might need some help.’

  ‘Riiight,’ she said, drawing out the syllable suspiciously.

  ‘And maybe do one for you.’

  Inappropriately, she thought there was only one favour Donaldson could do for her. It had nothing to do with crime, but there might be some punishment involved. She cleared her mind of such meanderings. ‘Go ahead.’

  Donaldson’s face darkened. ‘I want to do something that you, the cops, can’t do at this moment in time.’ Andrea waited. ‘You don’t have to know I’m doing it and you can deny all knowledge if the brown stuff gets flung everywhere. However, I do need assistance from you in facilitating this thing.’

  ‘It’s not like you to beat about the bush, but I take it it’s about Ingram?’

  The American nodded. ‘I want an off-the-record discussion with him.’

  ‘He’s not fit to be interviewed just yet.’

  ‘This won’t be an interview.’

  ‘What will it be?’

  ‘An exploration of his inner knowledge and self,’ he suggested.

  ‘You mean a baring of the soul? An opportunity to get something off his chest? An unburdening?’

  ‘These are all nice, appropriate terms.’

  ‘But highly unethical and illegal to boot.’

  ‘There’s always a downside,’ he said, and pouted. He gave her a naughty smile which sent a shiver to a certain part of her body. ‘But sometimes that’s the way of the world and the way I see it is this – if he can unload something valuable to me, it may prevent something very nasty from happening to someone else. And if there’s nothing to confess, then so be it.’

  Andrea looked at the hospital. Ingram had initially been airlifted to Rochdale Infirmary, but with a bit of connivance between the police and the medical world, once the patient had been stabilized he had been transferred to Preston under guard. Here it was easier for Lancashire police to keep track of him and provide the manpower needed to watch him. He was presently under twenty-four-hour armed guard.

  Her mouth moved thoughtfully.

  ‘In case you hadn’t worked it out, I need to get access to his room … sneak in, actually.’

  ‘I think I’d worked that out, all right. Does Henry know you’re doing this?’

  ‘Absolutely not.’

  ‘Then neither do I, is that understood?’

  ‘Absolutely.’

  Henry knew how difficult it was to look through CCTV footage and stay awake at the same time, even though the digital set-up he was scanning through was as fast as skimming through a DVD – or in this case, four
DVDs.

  With it he tracked his arrival in the Mondeo, some discussion with Ken at the car; Ken checking it over and then a handshake as the deal was done – Henry even now feeling he had been ripped off by the salesman. He found the footage of the car being driven away by someone else and then couldn’t find any other images of the Mondeo, which had probably been tucked away amongst the bangers at the back of the lot.

  The next day’s footage was more interesting.

  The Mondeo was driven back into shot and Ken got into it, together with a second man. Henry sat bolt upright: Ken taking a customer for a test drive. The man wasn’t clearly seen, but could have been one and the same as the guy in the photos taken by old Mr Jackson, the nosy neighbour.

  Twenty minutes later the car and its two occupants drove back on to the forecourt. They parked up, in shot, and there was a discussion as they sat in the car, money issues perhaps. After a couple of minutes both men got out, had further discussion and then went their separate ways … but not before the customer glanced up towards the lens of the camera recording the interaction. He looked only quickly, fleetingly, then jerked his head away as though he knew he’d been caught. Henry jammed his finger on the stop button, rewound slightly and then clicked the image forwards one frame at a time.

  ‘Got you, you bastard.’

  ‘Shush … no need to say anything just yet.’

  Karl Donaldson sat quietly on the edge of Ryan Ingram’s hospital bed. Ingram’s eyes were closed. His face was contorted with pain, pale and ill-looking. The mechanics of the bed and a couple of pillows propped him up at a slight angle under his neck. His chest was bare and heavy dressings covered the two bullet holes in his body, two drain tubes running out of the wounds into a receptacle on the floor, rather like a siphon.

  Various other tubes ran into and out of his body. His heart rate and breathing were being monitored and a clear solution of some sort ran from a drip bag held on a crane-like contraption by his side, down the tube and into his arm via a needle.

  He was very lucky to have survived. Donaldson smirked when he thought that this was only due to Henry’s poor shooting. Had it been him holding the weapon, Donaldson knew that there would have been a funeral by now, or at least an inquest, or maybe a cover-up.