by Nick Oldham
Vehicle (ARV) - which was double-manned - each officer armed to the back teeth with a variety of weapons.
Another helicopter appeared in the sky, the one belonging to Greater Manchester Police.
Dundaven saw everything converging on him. He fought to keep the speed up, but could not halt the decline. Having picked up spikes in both front tyres, the Range Rover was proving impossible to control. It seemed to have had enough of him and wanted to stop the whole crazy business. He was powerless, like the rider of a horse which had a mind of its own. He slowed and stopped in the centre lane.
The helicopters hovered above, lights blazing down on him.
There were no other cars about other than cop cars, because three miles back Control Room had activated the overhead matrix signs and brought the motorway to a standstill.
Dundaven fondled the shotgun for a few moments. Deep in thought he tossed it out of the window, sat there and bowed his head.
It was over.
Henry talked Dundaven out, giving him precise instructions through a loud-hailer.
Slowly. No sudden movements.
There are armed officers. Their guns are pointing at you. If you make any sudden movement, or do anything other than what I say, you will be shot. Be in no doubt about that.
Open the door with your right hand. Push it fully open.
Put your hands on your head. Interlock your fingers.
Get out very, very slowly.
Right leg, left leg. Slowly. Get out. Stand up. Face me.
Walk very slowly towards me.
Keep looking at me.
Slowly or you will be shot ... that’s it ... another two steps.
Stop there.
Keep facing me ... keep looking at me ... do as I say.
Keeping your hands on your head, go down onto your right knee.
Now stretch out your arms at shoulder height. Pretend to be Jesus.
Keep your left arm stretched out. Lean forwards and place your right hand on the road. Now your left. Lower yourself to the ground, keep your nose flat to the road, lie face down on the road.
Put your arms out again.
Stay exactly where you are.
An officer will now approach you. He is armed and if you move, he will shoot you in the back.
You must do what this officer tells you ... otherwise you’ll be shot.
He was expertly searched. His wrists were secured up his back in rigid handcuffs. He was placed in the rear of a police van which had been called to the scene. Two burly cops climbed inside with him. The back door was locked. Henry instructed them to take him directly to Blackpool.
Henry picked up the shotgun and placed it carefully on the back seat of his car.
He and Seymour looked into the Range Rover, baulking at the sight of the blood and bits of skull and brain splattered all over the passenger side.
Henry opened the back door.
When he lifted the blanket he realised why Dundaven had been so anxious not to get caught.
‘Looks like we’ve bagged a gun-seller,’ said Seymour.
Chapter Eight
It is claimed that the best job in the FBI is to be stationed at the London office, situated on the fourth floor of the American Embassy in Grosvenor Square.
Karl Donaldson agreed wholeheartedly with the proposition.
He had been appointed as an assistant to the legal attaché some twelve months previously, having fought off fierce competition for the post. Since then he had never been happier in his professional as well as his personal life.
In the last year he had acted as FBI liaison with many British police forces, MI5 and MI6. Thanks to cooperation between himself at the FBI, Scotland Yard and the Spanish police in Madrid, a Colombian-backed money-laundering scam handling billions of dollars of drug-trafficking money between the US, Channel Islands and Isle of Man and a crooked Egyptian finance house, had been smashed and literally dismantled.
Donaldson had recovered and seized over two billion dollars and destroyed a service to the cartels which had probably seen twenty times that amount pass through it in four years. He had also been involved in the investigation of many other international conspiracies, several of which were ongoing, some of which had come to nothing.
The work, he found, was demanding, exciting and fulfilling.
Just as his personal life had proved to be.
Previously having been a resident in Miami, he had moved to England and married Karen Wilde, cop, formerly a Chief Inspector in Lancashire. They had met and fallen in love whilst Donaldson - then a special agent had been investigating mafia connections in the north of England. Karen had transferred to the Metropolitan Police and was presently seconded to Bramshill Police College, where she held the rank of Temporary Superintendent.
Without having tried particularly hard, they were expecting their first child.
Life was being very good to them both.
But occasionally there was a downside - which Donaldson was experiencing now.
He was sitting at a window seat on the direct GB Airways flight from London to Madeira. In spite of his destination, that lush green Portuguese island in the Atlantic, Donaldson’s face was set hard, as it had been for the whole of the three-and-a-half-hour journey.
The plane was on its final descent into Santa Catarina Airport on the east coast of the island.
He gazed out across the wing. He could not be said to be taking in the steep banking of the plane, nor the expert manoeuvring, the twisting and dipping, in order to line up with the runway; his aesthetic sense did not appreciate the clear blue sea below, shimmering in the sunshine, nor the tantalising glimpses of the island itself.
Neither did it particularly concern him that the runway is one of the shortest in Europe, the end of which drops literally into the sea.
Normally he would have revelled in everything.
He readjusted his seat belt and braced himself for the landing which he knew would be characterised by extra reverse thrust and sharp braking. It was surprisingly smooth and lurch-free.
Within minutes the plane had taxied to the small terminal building.
Donaldson reached up and opened the overhead locker, lifting out his only piece of luggage, a small overnight bag. His stay was to be short, but not sweet.
The heat of the day hit him whilst walking from the plane to the terminal.
Even though it was January, Madeira was much warmer than London. He experienced a very brief reminder that, since being posted to London from Florida, he had seen little sun.
He went straight to Customs, showed his American passport and sailed through.
A dark-faced man with a black moustache and brown, intelligent eyes, approached him.
‘You are Mr Donaldson, I believe, from the FBI in London,’ the man said. ‘Muito prazer.’
Donaldson nodded. ‘Muito bem, obrigado,’ he replied. It was one of the few Portuguese phrases he knew. He was not familiar with the language, but spoke Spanish well and German fluently. With his knowledge of the former he expected to be able to read menus and road signs, but nothing more complicated.
The two men shook hands formally, no smiles.
‘I am Detective George Santana. May I welcome you to Madeira on behalf of the police service. Please accept my deep regret that the circumstance of your visit is not more pleasurable.’
Donaldson nodded. They had walked out of the airport. A car drew up to the kerb, driven by a policeman in uniform.
‘I’d like to see the body as soon as possible.’
Donaldson touched down at one o’clock on Monday afternoon. By that time, Acting Detective Inspector Henry Christie had been at work for seven hours and was beginning to flag. He had only finished Sunday’s tour of duty at 2 a.m. and with less than four hours’ sleep under his belt, his eyes felt like a bucket of grit had been thrown into them.
He rubbed them once more with his knuckles, blinked a few times and ran a hand around his tired face. He stifled a big yawn,
but only just.
The evening before, Hughie Dundaven had been booked into the custody system at Blackpool by about eight. He remained compliant in terms of his behaviour but said little and refused to divulge his name and address. He demanded to see a solicitor, which was one of his legal rights.
He had been strip-searched and all his clothing was seized for forensic. He was given a white paper suit - a ‘zoot suit’ as they are fondly called and a pair of slippers to protect his modesty. Nothing in his property gave any indication as to his identity. All he had in his wallet was cash. Six hundred pounds of it.
Non-intimate swabs were taken from his hands. Hair was plucked from his head for DNA sampling - the norm for all prisoners arrested for serious offences.
He refused to sign a consent form to allow his fingerprints to be taken.
By the time this had all been done it was ten o’clock. Dundaven had not yet been interviewed about anything.
The duty solicitor rolled in shortly after this and had a confidential chat.
Henry had appointed a DS and a DC to carry out the initial interview, but the solicitor said his client was not prepared to be interviewed at that time of day. He should be allowed to rest - all prisoners were entitled to a period of uninterrupted rest for eight hours in any twenty-four.
Henry hit the roof. He demanded an interview and got it.
It turned out to be a short one, just to establish why Dundaven had been locked up and to give him an opportunity to give his side of the story. He refused to say a word.
By the time that farce had ended it was midnight.
Dundaven got his wish then. He was led to a cell, where under a rough blanket he slept like a baby.
Henry and his detectives convened in the CID office where, over coffee, they planned next morning’s strategy.
Then he went to the property store where Dave Seymour and the ARV crew had unloaded and listed all the property from the Range Rover.
Henry raised his eyebrows. ‘That’s an awful lot of firepower,’ he said appreciatively, looking at the guns and ammunition which had been laid out and labelled.
‘Enough for an army,’ agreed Seymour.
Henry helped to list the last few weapons, noting their make and serial numbers, careful to handle them so as not to leave or disturb any fingerprints. The guns all looked new and unused.
The logging of the weapons was completed at 2 a.m.
Just before going home Henry phoned the hospital and asked about the condition of the policewoman, Nina. He was told, ‘Critical.’
He hung up with a tear in his eye. He did not know the girl, but it was the principle of the matter. He’d been involved in other investigations where police officers had been killed. These days the mere thought of it happening could move him to tears. He realised that as he grew older - he would be forty later in the year - he was getting less and less detached. In days gone by, nothing seemed to affect him. For some reason, everything did now.
‘Turning soft,’ he said, wiping the back of a hand across his nose. He got up and went home.
When his head hit the pillow he could not sleep. He tossed and turned uncomfortably, drifting off occasionally, sweated, and disturbed Kate who, in her sleep, told him to ‘Pack it in.’ Whatever that meant.
Frustrated and knackered he gave up trying to sleep and was back in the office by six, getting his head around how he could cover everything that was happening with the few staff he had.
Two dead bodies: one in the mortuary in Blackpool, one in Preston. Both unidentified.
A cop in ICU, probably going to join them.
And a gorilla with a bullet in his shoulder.
A weekend in the north’s premier holiday resort. Come to Blackpool and get your head blown off or a knife in your guts ... or, he went on to think shamefacedly, get kneed in the groin and lose a testicle.
He tried to delete the last one from his list and crossed his fingers mentally. Perhaps it would go away.
The identification of two bodies would only be a matter of being patient and waiting. He would be surprised if they didn’t come back on fingerprints.
He looked at the paltry list of detectives available to him. Not many. Most snaffled for the newsagents job. He shook his head, his brain like cotton wool. The management of resources really does your head in.
‘Right, get on with it,’ he ordered himself He picked up his pen and began to decide who would do what.
The same DS and DC who had initially interviewed the prisoner could carry on with that investigation, together with Dave Seymour. It was well within the scope of any competent detective: interviews, exhibits, paperwork. All Henry needed to do was guide them, and keep an eye on the wider picture. At least there was a body in the cells, which made it a whole lot easier, even if Chummy was being uncooperative.
Whereas it was less straightforward with the dead girl. They still had to find out who’d done that one.
Henry’s remaining staff consisted of two DCs. Simply not enough to deal with the job. The thought of prostrating himself in front of FB was not appealing - but he was sure that if he pushed, FB would wilt.
He had to.
Blackpool police station was going to be extremely crowded.
The gorilla, Henry decided sadly, would have to wait.
And so would every other minor crime for the foreseeable future. The uniform branch would have to investigate everything that came in.
And that was how he spent his morning.
Administration. Deploying personnel. Wheeling and dealing for extra staff. Ensuring paperwork was done and the necessary circulations made. Pacifying the media, which had descended on Blackpool en masse. What really bugged him was that they were more interested in a wounded gorilla than a policewoman on her deathbed, or a young female on a mortuary slab. He didn’t allow his annoyance to show.
Basically he did all the things that went along with being a police manager - a million miles away from a car chase with crashes, flying bodies, helicopters, Stingers and shotguns.
He would rather have had his head down, getting into the ribs of that bastard down in the cells, making him talk by using his interview skills. But that was not his job any more. His was to manage, to delegate, to empower. Perhaps he was safer sitting behind a desk. At least it stopped him from getting into trouble.
The ride into Funchal, Madeira’s capital, took thirty minutes. At his request, Donaldson was driven directly to the morgue so he could get the worst part over with soonest: identifying the body of a friend and colleague.
The morgue was bare and functional, but clean. Donaldson was glad about that. It could have been much worse.
The body was on a drawer in the huge fridge.
Santana pulled it out and drew back the harsh white sheet.
Donaldson suppressed a gasp. Not because of any marks of violence or because it had been mashed to a pulp. Neither of those things applied to this body. Rather because he was looking at the face of someone who had been young, vibrant, very much alive not many days before. Someone he and his wife had grown very close to over the last few months.
He sighed, nodded, looked up at Santana. ‘Yes. That’s her.’
It was like a violation of sorts but it had to be done.
Donaldson took hold of the sheet, drew it back and exposed the naked corpse, closing his eyes for a moment to halt the sensation of dizziness.
He had never seen her without clothes before. He never thought he would. He could not deny that, even though she had been a good friend and work colleague, he had occasionally allowed his eyes to drift across her breasts, or down her long slim legs - and speculate. Special Agent Sam Dawber had been beautiful; she also had the personality and brains to go with it. But Donaldson’s admiring looks were only sporadic. He was deeply in love with his wife and other women did not enter the equation.
‘Sorry, Sam,’ he said softly to her now. ‘Please forgive me.’
He folded the sheet at her ankles.
‘You say she was found dead in her bath in the hotel room?’ he said to Santana. For some reason the act of speaking made him feel better able to examine her, detaching him from the task. He peered closely at both sides of her neck.
‘Yes, apparently drowned. She may have been drinking heavily and fallen asleep in a stupor. There were many bottles of spirits in the room. Much of it drunk. Maybe she took her own life?’
Donaldson stopped himself from giving Santana a withering look. At the same time alarm bells sounded in his head.
He nodded and continued the minute examination. He picked up her left hand, opened it out and looked at her nails.
‘Who found her?’
‘A chambermaid.’
‘I want to speak to her.’
He was now peering at a cut and bruise on the hairline on Sam’s left temple, which was only visible when her hair was pulled back.
Santana said, ‘Sure, can be arranged today. Why?’
‘Routine,’ Donaldson answered with a shrug. ‘All sudden deaths of FBI agents are fully investigated.’
‘But there are no suspicious circumstances,’ Santana said defensively.
‘To you, maybe not.’
‘To any detective.’
‘Look, George, I don’t mean this as a slur to your professionalism, but I know - knew - this woman: Donaldson bent down and inspected her inner thighs. ‘For a start, she didn’t drink,’ he said, standing up again. ‘When will the autopsy be carried out?’
‘This afternoon, four o’clock.’
Initially Donaldson had had no intention of staying for it. He changed his mind. ‘I want to be here.’
‘Why, do you not trust our doctors now?’
‘She was a friend and colleague, George. I owe her that much, don’t you think?’ He was extremely puzzled and worried by Santana’s frosty reaction.
