by Nick Oldham
‘More a Metropolitan term, but it’ll do. So, what about these firearms?’
‘They’re part of a haul from a break and enter at a warehouse in Florida, just outside Miami. Two months ago. One heck of a haul too: machine guns, rifles, pistols, bazookas, SAM’s . . . you name it, plus the ammo to go. Several million dollars’ worth. Enough to equip a small army.’
‘From Florida?’ Henry said, astounded. ‘What the hell are they doing in Lancashire then?’
‘Who knows?’
‘You coming up here then, Karl?’
‘Naw, not for a while anyways, but I’ll do my best from down here to help you with information, as and when - or if - I get it. For the time being I’ll fax you all the details of the haul. Maybe you should have another word with your suspect? Then I’ll speak to the Miami Field Office to see what else they can tell me about it.’
They chatted on for a few more minutes before concluding the call. Henry, cheered by the news and the conversation, picked up the last piece of correspondence and found himself humming Starfucker. The tune stopped abruptly when he saw the post-it sticker slap bang in the middle of his blotter. He ripped it off and read it.
In the precise way Derek always operated, the note was timed - 10.15p.m. - and dated.
It read, H. Need to speak to you urgently. Found something well odd. It was signed Degsy. Then a P.S. I’ll be at home. Whatever time you get back, call me or come round, WHATEVER TIME!! It’s urgent. D.
Within seconds, Henry was hurtling down the stairs.
The line was very bad. Donaldson had to listen very intently through the static to hear the voice at the other end. It didn’t help that the person was speaking in a Portuguese accent and was calling from Madeira.
‘Special Agent Donaldson?’
‘Yeah. Sorry, you’ll have to speak up. I can hardly hear you.’
‘It is me, George Santana, speaking from Funchal.’
‘Oh, hello,’ said Donaldson slightly more formally. He rated the Maderain detective very low on the Richter Scale following his experiences in that country, but was obviously very interested in why he should be ringing. He was the last person Donaldson expected to hear from, and quite honestly had grave doubts about the man’s professional ability. He’d concluded, from very little evidence, that either the guy was not a ‘real’ detective, with no feel for a case, or he was on the take. Or both.
With a startlingly loud crackle which nearly burst his eardrum, the line cleared. Then they could have been conversing in adjacent rooms.
‘Ahh, that’s better.’
‘Yes, I can hear you well, also,’ said Santana. ‘I have some news for you about the person who was arrested for the assault upon you.’
‘Uh-hu, Romero,’ nodded Donaldson. His fingers automatically touched the chain-track across his cheek. He expected the worst: he’d escaped, or been released without charge, been given a pardon. Something along those lines.
The news stunned him.
‘He’s dead. He was found hanging in his cell in the prison where he was being held pending court. It was very suspicious.’
That’s handy, Donaldson thought cynically. Another possible witness found dead, unable to testify.
‘That is not all,’ Santana continued. He sounded out of breath. ‘The one we believed to be Romero’s partner in crime is dead also. He was found floating in the harbour near to the ferry. Throat cut from ear to ear. Of course we do not actually know if he worked with Romero when you were attacked-’
‘Yes we do, George,’ the American snarled.
‘OK, OK, we do,’ Santana submitted.
‘Why tell me all this, George?’
‘Because I have been obliged to think long and hard about this. I admit I was very unconvinced about Agent Dawber’s death being of a suspicious nature. However, following the other girl’s death, then the man in the harbour, then Romero - who we are not convinced hanged himself, I believe there is more to this than meets the eye.’
‘Hooray,’ Donaldson could not resist saying. He held back from blasting out that it had taken two more deaths for it all to be taken seriously.
‘There is also more,’ Santana said. From the tone of voice, Donaldson could visualise the sheepish look on his face. He waited for it.
‘The samples taken from under Agent Dawber’s fingernails?’
Donaldson’s gut wrenched. ‘Yes?’
‘Human tissue. It looks like she scratched somebody’s face.’
Donaldson closed his eyes and fist in celebration. Thank: God he made the pathologist take the samples!
‘We are unable to match with DNA from here, regrettably.’
‘Send me the sample. I’ll get it done.’
‘We’ve yet to find any hard evidence against anyone at this stage. The result of the analysis of Agent Dawber’s blood shows a high alcohol content - which doesn’t help you, I’m afraid.’
‘Take a good long look at Scott Hamilton at the Jacaranda. He’s the connection.’
‘Exactly what we are doing. He is now under twenty-four-hour surveillance.’
Annie was deeply distressed. It manifested itself in different ways. She moved from almost violent hysteria to a silent, trance-like state in a flash. Tears flowed, dried up, burst again. One moment she was on her feet, the next sat down, head buried in a cushion, trying to deal with the enormity of the situation.
She had returned to the house, in spite of others urging her to stay out. She wanted to remain in situ, in the home she and Derek had created in the six months of their wonderful marriage. To stay with memories which, with the exception of the final one, were good ones. She wanted to touch the things they had owned, bought and paid for together with their hard earned cash.
The hallway was being inspected by a forensic team. Two scientists clad in white plastic suits were crawling about, lifting fibres, scraping up blood; a scenes of crime officer was daubing excessive amounts of grey fingerprint powder all over shiny surfaces, leaving dirty marks that would be hell to clean later. They were finding little. It had been a very clean kill.
The house would never be the same again, physically or spiritually.
Annie was in the lounge with her mother and a male police officer who had replaced the policewoman. Both seemed to have no clue what to say or how to deal with her.
She was in the middle of one of her trance-like states. Her eyes stared unseeingly at the gas-fire from her position on the settee. Heavy rain lashed against the window. Snow doesn’t last long in Blackpool. Henry sat next to her.
‘Annie? I need to ask you some questions. Important questions. Things we need to know quickly. Annie?’ He found it hard to tell if he was getting through to her. ‘Annie, do you hear what I’m saying?’
No response.
He laid a hand softly on her shoulder. She shivered and came back from wherever she’d been, blinked at him for the first time in the half-hour he’d been there. He kept her gaze locked into his. ‘Annie, we need to talk.’
She swallowed, nodded and ran the back of her hand across her nostrils and sniffed up.
‘What did Derek say when he got home from work last night?’
She screwed up her pretty face and tried to concentrate. Her brain was making this difficult. She put a hand on his and squeezed it, then collapsed against him. Deep sobs shook her whole being, like a monster struggling to free itself from inside her. Henry put his arms around her. She crushed her face into his chest and cried.
In twenty minutes she’d cried herself out.
For the moment.
Henry’s shirt and tie were soaking wet, a mix of tears, snot and saliva.
Annie sat upright. Henry handed her a paper handkerchief. She wiped her face with it and blew her nose.
‘Questions,’ she stated. In answer to his look, she said, ‘Ask them now, Henry, while you’ve got the chance. I’m in control of myself at the moment. Not sure how long it’ll last.’
‘What did he say when he got
home last night?’
‘Very little.’
‘Did he seem his normal self?’
‘No ... odd, distracted.’
‘He must have said something, Annie.’
‘Kept muttering about a statement, how he couldn’t believe it. He’d been there, yet it was different, changed ... something like that, anyway. He was waiting for you to call. He was sure you would. I didn’t know what he was on about.’
‘He’d left a note on my desk, but I went straight home last night. I didn’t go into the office.’ Like maybe I should have done, Henry thought agonised. Then: Fuck that for a thought. What’s done is done. ‘And what happened after that?’
‘We went to bed round about midnight. He read for a while, then he was tossing and turning, going to the loo. I was aware of it, but I was asleep. D’you know what I mean, Henry?’
He nodded.
Annie stopped talking. He hoped she wasn’t about to weep again.
‘I don’t remember anything else,’ she said faintly.
‘Think, Annie,’ he encouraged her softly. ‘It could be important.’
She stood up and crossed to the window, staring at the rain. There were two police cars and a van outside. The whole of the garden had been taped off. Officers from the Support Unit were on their hands and knees, searching for evidence in what was quickly becoming a quagmire.
‘There is something,’ she said eventually. ‘He got up. I mean, obviously he got up or he wouldn’t be dead now. Hang on, hang on, let me get a grip.’ She put her head into her hands and pummelled her forehead with the base of her hands, wracking her brain, shimmering with frustration. She turned to Henry again. ‘Yes, that’s it. He got up. Someone was knocking on the door. He went to the window. He said it was two o’clock. Then he went downstairs. I turned over and went back to sleep.’ Her eyes rested accusingly on Henry. ‘He thought it was you at the door. He thought you’d come to see him ... only it wasn’t.’
Her face creased like a screwed-up ball of paper.
‘Did he bring anything home with him?’ Henry asked quickly.
‘I don’t know.’ Her bottom lip, her whole chin quivered. She was trying vainly to keep control, but was slowly losing the struggle.
‘Annie, we need to have a look through his things. There could be something to help us. May we?’
‘Yes, sure, but someone’s already done that.’
‘What?’ said Henry, perplexed. ‘Who?’
Annie didn’t know.
Henry turned to the policeman. ‘Who?’ he demanded.
‘Two detectives from that lot in Blackburn.’
‘The Organised Crime Squad?’
‘Yeah, them.’
‘We couldn’t find anything, boss,’ Siobhan Robson said to her Detective Chief Superintendent.
‘What sort of a search did you do?’
She sighed with frustration verging on anger. ‘Cursory - that’s all we could do. We couldn’t very well tear the place apart, could we? It would have looked a bit too suspicious.’
‘Maybe he didn’t have anything with him.’ This was a suggestion made by a Detective Inspector called Gallagher, who had been with her during the search.
‘Oh he did, I’m sure of it. Copies of the original statements at least. That’s what the little bastard did - made copies, as we have seen from his locker. So where the hell are they? We need to find them - soon. And my bet is that they’re in his house - somewhere.’
Henry stormed into the murder incident room. Two policewomen were inputting details into the HOLMES terminals. DC Robson and DI Gallagher were in deep, muted conversation with Tony Morton. As Henry closed in on them, they looked up and stopped talking. A smile appeared on Morton’s face.
‘Henry, good to see you. I’ve been looking for you.’
Henry liked and admired Morton. He thought he was a good cop who got results. But at that moment in time, Henry was enraged and when something annoyed him, his mouth had a nasty habit of speaking quicker than his instincts for self-preservation.
Without courtesy, he launched into a tirade of invective which stopped all activity at the HOLMES terminals. ‘What the fuck right do you have to go rummaging about in Derek Luton’s belongings for? Not only have you been heavy-handed about it and upset his widow, you could easily have tainted valuable evidence. You had no right, no fucking right.’
Morton’s false smile fell from his face instantaneously. His expression hardened.
‘And you, DS Christie, have no right, no fucking right whatsoever, to talk to a senior officer like that. I’ve a good mind to slap you on paper, but from what I gather, discipline enquiries are not unknown to you.’
‘I personally don’t give a flying fuck what you do, Mr Morton. You and your elite squad of wankers are bang out of order. We’ll probably never know what damage you’ve done. What the hell were you looking for that was so important anyway?’
Gallagher, the DI, who had silently witnessed the exchange, cut in. ‘I can answer that, boss. After all, it was me who went to the house with DC Robson here. We thought he’d gone home with some important documents that we needed for this investigation. Some house-to-house logs he’d been doing.’
‘House-to-house logs?’ said Henry incredulously. ‘What the hell was he doing on house-to-house? That’s for numpties!’
‘He was assigned to my murder squad, and how I use my officers is my business, not yours,’ Morton said stiffly. ‘Now, Henry,’ he went on placatingly, ‘if we’ve trodden on your toes, we apologise, but we needed to find what he had. We did it carefully and with consideration and compassion for Mrs Luton’s feelings. There’s no chance we spoiled any evidence and if you feel Craig and Siobhan here were heavy-handed, I’ll go round and see Mrs Luton and apologise. How’s that?’
Shut up Henry, he told himself. Take a breath. Count to ten. This man’s a Chief Super. He can knee-cap you if he wants.
‘All right,’ Henry accepted. ‘Did you find the logs?’
‘No,’ said Gallagher. ‘We’ll simply have to revisit all those homes again.’
‘Unlucky,’ Henry could not resist saying.
There was a moment of strained silence. Gallagher’s eyes narrowed slightly as he weighed Henry up.
The smile that was originally on Morton’s face reappeared. To his two officers he said, ‘Leave us,’ and flicked them away with a wave of his hand. Gallagher nodded. He picked up a pile of papers, his eyes never leaving Henry’s. Siobhan smiled nicely at him. Then they both went.
The two HOLMES operators resumed their tasks.
‘Now then Henry,’ said Morton. ‘Come and sit over here.’
He guided Henry to two chairs next to a table on which was a coffee filtering machine. Henry smelled the rich aroma of a newly brewed pot and his body demanded a cup. Fortunately Morton poured one for him. He handed him the cup and both men sat down.
‘I’ll come straight to the point, lad. As you know, life goes on in this job of ours. When a vacancy arises, it gets filled, however it occurred. And sadly we now have a vacancy on this squad.’
‘You mean Geoff Driffield - your guy in the newsagents?’
Morton nodded. ‘We need people of a high calibre, as you well know. We have an enviable reputation of crime-busting to maintain and only the best will do for us.’
He regarded Henry with meaning.
‘You mean me?’
Morton nodded. ‘You fit the bill. I want you on the squad.’
Chapter Thirteen
A certain club in Manchester city centre on the periphery of China Town played host to John Rider that evening. He arrived shortly after eleven and established himself in a position at the bar which gave him an unobstructed view of everyone entering and leaving. He ordered a pint of Boddington’s bitter as a gesture to Manchester, and after a long satisfying swig, began to sip it slowly.
The whole place was a dive. An unprepossessing doorway at street level, which could easily be missed, led down a tight se
t of steps into the foyer. The cashier was in a booth protected by armoured glass and two bouncers stood nearby - dinner-jacketed, bow-tied, black-shoed, fingers interlocked at groin level, thumbs circling.
The admission was five pounds - cheap for Manchester - the facilities limited and the drinks expensive. They were served from a three-sided bar. The dance floor was minute, or intimate depending on your point of view, and music pounded down from speakers suspended precariously from the ceiling. The disco lights ensured it was difficult to see the fixtures and fittings, which were in poor condition. Carpets were tatty, walls peeling.
Just like Rider’s own club, money needed to be spent.
But unlike Rider’s, the place was packed with punters.
Rider saw her arrive. Toni Thomas.
She was stunning. Long blonde hair, beautifully made-up face, off-the-shoulder strapless dress in glistening blue which stopped just below decency to reveal long shapely legs in silver stockings. The front of the dress plunged into a cleavage to be proud of.
She came in and drifted around the place like a goddess. All eyes followed her progress. She waved with soft gestures, acknowledged looks with pert smiles, some flirting, dainty laughter.
She was beautiful.
Rider almost fell for her there and then.
Toni Thomas, the person who in the last fifteen years had been Munrow’s accountant and who Rider believed had kept some of his businesses going for him whilst he was inside. The legitimate ones, that is the off-licence and the two launderettes. The person who might know where Munrow was to be found.
Because Rider wanted to pay him a visit.
He watched her smooch onto the dance floor with a man. The music had turned slow and sensuous. She unashamedly rubbed her genital area up and down the man’s thigh, kissed him, touched his backside and squeezed his balls. His face was a picture of ecstasy.
When the music went up-tempo they came off the floor hand in hand, then parted company.
