Substantial Threat

by Nick Oldham

  ‘Murdered?’ said Henry. ‘Holy shite. Are the officers okay?’

  ‘Yeah, more’s the pity.’

  ‘And the second prisoner?’

  ‘Untouched. Separate room, separate ward – just as per your instructions.’

  ‘So what happened?’

  Roscoe relayed the facts succinctly to him. When she had finished, Henry asked, ‘They didn’t hear the name?’

  ‘Nope – deaf as well as stupid,’ she said.

  ‘Don’t be too harsh on them. Whoever did this are very dangerous people and I’d rather our people went home at night than not.’

  ‘Think it could be the two they had a shoot-out with in McDonald’s, out to play the Grim Reaper with them?’

  ‘Most likely.’

  ‘What do you want me to do?’ she asked.

  ‘Call out an SIO. I’m going to be busy all afternoon.’

  ‘You’re not coming?’ She sounded disappointed.

  ‘No, just crack on with it, Jane. I’ll speak soon. Bye.’ He ended the call.

  ‘Trouble?’ Donaldson asked.

  ‘I think the shit has just hit the paddles. C’mon, mate, let’s get moving. You can tell me your story, then I just need to hijack you for something, if you don’t mind?’

  There was complete silence as the news was digested at the other end of the phone. Crazy did not dare say anything, merely waited and looked at Miller, who mouthed, ‘What’s going on?’ Crazy shrugged. He put a finger on the ‘secret’ button and said, ‘I think he’s gone off on one.’

  ‘You are saying to me that Marty set the job up? To rob me?’ Ray Cragg eventually said.

  ‘I’m not saying anything, boss,’ Crazy corrected him. ‘I’m just telling you what the guy said before he got popped.’

  ‘What about the other one?’

  ‘Er, I’m sorry? Are you asking us to kill him too? I don’t think so,’ said Crazy. ‘We don’t get to do something like that twice. Miller asked him who set the job up and he said a name – Marty Cragg. And reluctantly I’ve passed it on to you, Ray. We’ll never get to the other one. The cops won’t let it happen. We were lucky this once, but we won’t be again – and the fact is we got a name for you, however unpalatable it happens to be. Sorry.’

  ‘Yeah, yeah, fuckin’ yeah. You sure he heard right?’

  ‘Positive.’

  ‘So the git got himself into debt with some Spanish bastard, doing what I don’t know, and he set up this heist to get the dosh to pay him back?’

  ‘Could be one scenario.’

  ‘And I chucked JJ out of a window because Marty told me he was skimming and all the time it was him. No wonder he was so jumpy when we were with JJ, no wonder he wanted him dealt with. JJ was telling me the truth, wasn’t he?’ Ray’s voice was rising in anger.

  ‘Could be,’ said Crazy without committing himself.

  ‘JJ skimmed a couple of hundred, tops. Marty skimmed thousands and it still wasn’t enough. What the fuck was he up to? You and Miller better find that out for me when you track down that Mendoza bloke. I want the full story.’

  ‘We’ll do our best.’

  ‘Anyway,’ Ray took a soothing breath, ‘you both did really well. Now, get my money back for me, will you? I want Dix topped and then I want that spik hunted down. Are you two up for it?’

  ‘Dix, sure. The Spaniard – he’s a different kettle of fish. He’ll take some doing, I reckon.’

  ‘Fuck,’ Ray said, not really listening to Crazy. ‘It’s all going wrong for me at the moment. Can anything else possibly go shit-shaped? I’ll tell you what it is, Crazy.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Greed. So don’t you get greedy, pal. I’ll pay you well, so don’t get greedy, you or Miller, understand?’

  ‘Yeah, boss, got that.’

  ‘Jeez, I do not deserve this shit, no way,’ said Ray.

  Henry and Donaldson headed west away from Manchester down the M56, towards the M6. Henry was stunned by what Donaldson had just told him.

  The American was still speaking. ‘Zeke was one of the best operatives we ever had. Undercover work was his life, particularly after his wife and kid died a few years ago.’

  ‘What happened there?’

  ‘Cancer. Both died within weeks of each other. Tragedy. He threw himself into work and he was good, very good, not reckless as you might have thought under the circumstances.’

  ‘Even the best make mistakes.’ Henry had worked undercover during his time on the Regional Crime Squad as it was then named, and occasionally since. He knew how difficult it was to maintain the deception. It ate away at your soul.

  ‘I agree,’ said Donaldson, ‘but not in this case. I just don’t see it.’

  ‘Or do you refuse to see it?’

  ‘No, I just don’t see it. Zeke was far too smart to get caught out like that. He lived the life. He was totally immersed in it.’

  ‘Perhaps he was dobbed on, as the Aussies say.’

  ‘Very few people knew of his existence.’

  ‘Maybe you need to start looking at who those people are,’ suggested Henry.

  Donaldson fell silent. ‘The thing of it is, Henry, he took over where someone else left off, and that “someone else” died doing the same job against the same people in much the same way. Two undercover agents murdered. I don’t believe it was a coincidence.’

  ‘What was the job?’

  ‘To infiltrate a gang run by a guy called Mendoza, a Spaniard operating off the Costa Blanca, mainly through the port of Torrevieja, south of Alicante. He’s one of Spain’s biggest operators, running all the illicit things you can think of: drugs, cigarettes, anything to avoid tax, and of course the biggie of the moment . . .’ He paused.

  Henry filled in the gap. ‘People.’

  ‘The biggest earner of them all.’

  They reached the M6 and Henry went north into four streams of very heavy traffic. He flitted from lane to lane before bearing off on to the M62 and heading back towards Manchester.

  ‘There must be an American link,’ Henry said.

  ‘There is,’ confirmed Donaldson. ‘Organized crime – the Mafia. Joint venture. Zeke was amassing piles of good intelligence against a mob family from Miami who’d been financing a lot of Mendoza’s operations concerning illegal immigrants. We were not very far from moving in and closing them down. I guess Zeke’s death will put us back twelve to eighteen months. There’s no chance of getting someone new in there now without causing suspicion. We’ll have to go for them by other means.’

  ‘What a waste.’

  At junction 11, Henry came off the motorway and drove south-west into Risley. He pulled into the security gate of the Remand Centre and flashed his ID together with a lovely smile.

  In Blackpool, Crazy had finished his conversation with Ray Cragg. Ray had started jabbering on again about his disbelief at Marty’s disloyalty and it had developed into a tirade lasting well over ten minutes which only ended when Crazy claimed, falsely, that the battery on his mobile was running low.

  Now I have a migraine,’ Crazy complained to Miller, who chuckled.

  ‘Fifty grand plus should ease it,’ Miller suggested.

  Crazy wiped his eyes. ‘Yep. What’s next?’

  ‘Besides some sleep? Cherchez la femme.’

  ‘Eh?’

  ‘Find the bitch, find the dog,’ Miller said enigmatically. ‘Flush her out and we’ve got him, cos a woman is always the weakest link – goodnight!’ he snapped and laid himself out on the camp bed. He closed his eyes and began to snore.

  ‘You cool bastard,’ Crazy said admiringly, but felt pretty laid back himself. He stretched out on the settee, reached for a pair of earphones and the remote control for the portable CD and pressed play. He lay back as the dulcet tones of Frank Sinatra soothed him into oblivion.

  The prisoner was led into the interview room where he was searched again, then allowed to sit across the table (which was screwed firmly to the floor) from Henry Christie. Karl
Donaldson leaned nonchalantly against the wall by a reinforced window and watched without comment.

  As a ‘not guilty’ remand prisoner, Joe Sherridan was permitted to wear his own clothing, but it was creased and grubby, as was the man himself. His short period of time on remand was obviously affecting him for the worse. He looked like he had not slept, eaten or relaxed. Good, Henry thought, it’s easier to get someone when they’re down.

  ‘Afternoon, Joe,’ Henry said.

  No response, just a glare of contempt.

  ‘Not going well, eh?’ Still nothing. ‘Well, what can you expect when you stick a knife into your girlfriend’s heart? The Ritz? Applause? Sympathy?’

  ‘I’m pleading not guilty.’

  Henry shrugged. He did not care.

  ‘All you’ve got is my confession – and a forced one at that. My brief says I’ll walk.’

  ‘Just remember all those little things you told me on tape, Joe. All those little details which only someone who committed the murder could have known about. All those details that no one but you and me knew about. How you wiped the knife on her skirt. How you also wiped it on a kitchen towel. How you tried to lose it down a particular grate in a particular street, the one we found it in. All those sorts of details are the ones known only to the killer and to me. You dug yourself in deep there, Joe my boy, and you didn’t know you were doing it, and it’s all recorded on tape. Joe, I promise you, you’ll get convicted of murder.’

  ‘So why come here? To gloat?’ Sherridan ran a trembling hand across his unshaven chin.

  ‘For a conversation that could go one of two ways, Joe. I could either be here to help you or completely bury you. At the moment we are completely off the record, aren’t we, boss?’ Henry turned to Donaldson for confirmation. He nodded. Henry looked back at Sherridan and winked. ‘He’s my boss. A good man.’

  ‘Just get on with it,’ Sherridan said tiredly.

  ‘Okay,’ said Henry. ‘I’m thinking of charging you with another murder.’

  ‘What!’

  ‘You heard.’

  Sherridan shook his head. ‘Off the record – I did stab Jennifer, but she deserved it for playing around and rubbing it in, making me look like a fool, but I haven’t killed anyone else, not even in your wildest dreams, pal. Who are you talking about, anyway?’

  ‘I think you beat a girl to death in Blackpool, about a year ago.’

  ‘Yeah, right.’ He snorted.

  ‘I’m investigating a murder of a young girl who was a prostitute.’ Henry watched Sherridan’s reactions as he spoke. ‘She worked from a basement flat in North Shore. She was about fourteen years old, thin as a rake, and as yet we haven’t identified her.’

  Sherridan was doing a lot of swallowing. Henry knew his throat must be the driest place on the planet right now.

  ‘So what?’ the prisoner blustered.

  ‘It’s very likely that her last client was the one who beat her to death. It was a vicious assault and she died a terrible, traumatic death, poor kid.’

  ‘Goes with the territory,’ Sherridan said coldly.

  ‘Murder does not go with any territory,’ Henry came back. He did not really believe his words, because he knew murder went with many territories. ‘But that’s by the by, Joe, because whether you believe it goes with the territory or not, I believe you murdered her.’

  ‘No way, no effin’ way.’

  ‘Do you know why I believe that?’

  ‘Astound me.’

  ‘Well, to be blunt, we found your spunk inside her.’

  ‘No you didn’t.’

  ‘Yes we did. Shall we have a pantomime here? No you didn’t, yes I did?’

  ‘You’re talking bollocks.’

  ‘An unfortunate turn of phrase, because I’m talking about what came swimming out of your bollocks, Joe. Your semen, your come, your jizz, whatever pet name you have for it. We found it inside her. Yours, no one else’s.’ Which wasn’t strictly true, but Henry wasn’t going to admit that.

  ‘You’ll have to do better than that,’ Sherridan said.

  ‘Don’t need to, Joe. Remember when we took that swab from your mouth after you’d been charged with murder?’ Sherridan looked stonily at Henry. ‘Do you know what that was for?’

  He shrugged. ‘Not really.’

  ‘Advances in science. Genetic fingerprinting. DNA, Joe. Your DNA, that stuff which is in every one of your cells, totally exclusive to you, no one else, in every cell in every corner of your body, like a fingerprint, but better, that’s what the swab was for. And the result was checked on the national DNA database and was matched up to semen found in a murder victim – another murder victim. My, Joe, you’ve been a busy lad, a proper killing machine. Almost a serial killer now.’

  Sherridan shot to his feet, gripping the edge of the table, towering over Henry aggressively. Donaldson tensed, ready to step in and flatten Sherridan.

  Henry stayed seated and calm. He waved Donaldson down and said to Sherridan in a low voice, ‘Sit down, Joe, otherwise my boss will take very good care of you. Sit!’ Sherridan dropped slowly back into his chair.

  ‘I didn’t kill her.’

  ‘But you had sex with her and paid for it?’

  ‘I didn’t kill her’

  ‘Answer the question, Joe.’

  ‘Yes, I shagged her and paid for it, okay? But I never killed her.’

  ‘I never thought you did, Joe,’ Henry said and Sherridan glowered. ‘But I had to put it to you. Your sperm was found inside her, so what am I expected to think?’

  ‘Yeah, suppose so.’

  ‘But I want to know who did kill her.’

  ‘I haven’t a clue,’ he said, with relief in his voice.

  ‘I’ll tell you the deal,’ Henry said. ‘The deal is this: you tell me everything about your dealings with that prostitute, and I mean everything. How you met her, or were introduced to her, how you screwed her, what condition you left her in, who ran her, who was behind her and, of course, what her name is.’

  ‘Why should I do all that?’

  It forced a laugh out of Henry that should have acted as a warning beacon to Sherridan. ‘Because if you don’t,’ the detective said in a measured tone, ‘I’ll charge you with her murder and I’ll go out of my way to make it stick, whether I believe it or not. You might get off, but I doubt it, not with your sperm inside her. It’s pretty compelling evidence. But, whatever, I’ll make you suffer the indignity of a double trial, because I’m a twat like that. I mean, no one else’s sperm was found inside her. Five million little swimmers all with your ugly face on them, all ready to tell their sordid tale. And another reason you’ll tell me what I want to know is that I can help you on the original murder charge.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘If you get convicted of Jennifer’s murder, which you will, you’ll go down for life. I’ll make sure the prosecution lay it on thick and you won’t even need to think about seeing the light of day for at least fifteen years. How old are you now? Thirty-eight? Let’s see, that’s . . .’ Henry started to count on his fingers.

  ‘Fifty-three,’ Sherridan said glumly.

  ‘Fifty-three, yes. Not too old, I suppose, but fifteen years behind bars – hell! I can help you, but you have to give me everything in return.’

  ‘How can you help me?’

  ‘I can get the murder charge reduced to manslaughter like that!’ He clicked his fingers. ‘You could be walking in five years, or less if you’re a really good lad. I could really lay it on thick for the judge, about how she drove you to pig-sticking her, how she sent you mental, how she deserved what she got – though it is a bit ironic that you stiffed her because of her infidelity when you were being entertained by hookers. That’s how I can help you, Joe. Fifteen years down to five. But I want everything in return and if I don’t think you’ve given me everything, I won’t help you. I want names, addresses, dates, times, everything about your use of prostitutes. If you don’t give, you’ll be very old and gnarled when y
ou walk out of prison.’

  Sherridan stood up. Donaldson tensed again, but this time the prisoner walked slowly round the interview room, hands deep in trouser pockets, dragging his feet along the tiled floor.

  ‘It’s your life you’re talking about here,’ Henry tossed across to him.

  He stopped in one corner of the room and rested his head against the wall, speaking down to his toes. ‘There’s some bad people involved here.’

  ‘And fifteen years of your life is a long time to spend banged up. Okay, you can start again at fifty-three, but it’s a lot easier at forty-three. People have mid-life crises at that age and start all over again, I should know,’ he muttered to himself.

  Sherridan came back to his seat. Where before his eyes had been dead and lifeless, now they sparkled with hope. Henry knew he had seen the possibilities.

  ‘If you tell me all I want to know, I’ll get the charge reduced to manslaughter.’

  ‘When do I need to decide?’

  ‘Now. And the first thing I want to know is the girl’s name.’

  ‘Julie, they called her Julie, but she couldn’t understand most of what I said to her. Foreign, she was. Albanian, I think he said.’

  ‘Julie from Albania,’ Henry mused. He looked at Donaldson and repeated, ‘Albania.’

  ‘Sorry it took so long, Karl. I’ll come back and speak to him again tomorrow, by myself. I know you’re up here for a specific reason and I’m delaying you.’ It was almost two hours later and Henry and Donaldson were just leaving Risley Remand Centre.

  ‘It’s okay, pal. What he said was very interesting to me.’

  ‘Oh, good,’ Henry said dubiously.

  ‘One thing I would like clearing up, though. Is it true that only his sperm was found inside her?’

  Henry blanched with discomfort. ‘Not necessarily, but he didn’t need to know that, did he?’

  Donaldson laughed. ‘You are a twat, then.’

  ‘Goes with the territory.’