Hidden Witness hc-15

by Nick Oldham

  Sounded like a plan. Or the last refuge of a scoundrel.

  Donaldson looked across at the enquiry desk. It was choc-a-bloc with members of the public. Normally, the constable on duty behind it would have buzzed him back through, but he was harassed, so Donaldson turned back to the door and tapped in the entry code himself. Any self-respecting FBI agent always sneaked a look and remembered keypad codes if at all possible whilst being escorted through buildings. The officer who had first shown him into this police station hadn’t been particularly security conscious, and Donaldson had seen and easily digested the four digit entry code — just in case.

  It opened, he stepped back in, made his way along the corridor and trotted down the steps leading to the underground cell complex, then through another secure door (keypad entry code remembered) into the prisoner reception area. There was a door leading to an outer yard off an underground car park that prisoners were brought in from. Then there was another door to the cells behind the charge office desk and two other doors, one into an office and another to a set of stairs leading to another part of the building.

  Donaldson smelled cordite as soon as he entered the prisoner reception area. He came alert, because of all the odours in such areas, that was one that should not be present. There was no one at the custody desk. Donaldson approached it and peered over, also noting that the barred gate to the cells was open. Usually it was kept locked. Maybe the sergeant was making his rounds. Donaldson knew there were about four other prisoners in custody besides Fazil. They were listed on the big whiteboard on the wall behind the desk. None were in for anything as serious as Fazil. He also noticed that Fazil’s name had been transferred from his original cell into the one on the female wing, which consisted of only two cells separated from the rest of the otherwise male dominated complex. Putting a male into a female cell was usually only done as a last resort, generally when cells were full to overflowing, although a man and a woman never shared a cell under any circumstances. Looking at the board, Donaldson was a little confused, though. He understood that it may be policy to keep murderers apart from other prisoners, but there was actually plenty of room on the male side and Fazil could easily have been separated from the others without shoving him into a female cell.

  Donaldson stepped behind the reception desk, which was a chest-high counter at which prisoners were presented on arrival at the station.

  He almost tripped over the man’s protruding legs.

  The body of the station sergeant was jammed up against the bottom edge of the counter, which explained why Donaldson hadn’t seen anything when he’d looked over a few seconds earlier.

  It also explained the whiff of cordite.

  ‘Shit.’ Donaldson twisted down to his haunches and saw that the man, who not many minutes earlier had given him a suspicious look, was now dead, two bullets having torn off the upper left quadrant of his skull. A puddle of bright blood was growing under the poor man’s head and shoulders.

  Following his next expletive, Donaldson rose quickly to his full height as everything slotted into place. He stepped through the barred gate into the cell corridor, his right hand automatically going to his left armpit to touch the gun that wasn’t there. He hadn’t carried a firearm as a matter of course for over ten years, but still missed it dreadfully. Especially when he needed it.

  Straight ahead was the male cell corridor. Through a door to the left was the female cell corridor. Donaldson pushed open this door, which was unlocked — and should not have been. Even though there were only two cells down here, it was still a long, dank passageway, angling downwards, poorly lit by flickering fluorescent tubes. The cracked concrete floor sloped unevenly away. The two cells faced each other at the far end.

  Both cell doors appeared to be open from what he could see.

  He swallowed. His throat dried up as a pulse of adrenaline gushed into his system. His heart thumped and the track of the bullet that had nearly killed him in Barcelona burned. He took four quick steps, tensing. He heard something from one the cell on the right — Fazil’s cell. A scuffling noise. A gasp. A thud. A groan.

  He flattened himself against the wall and edged down the corridor silently.

  There was a scraping noise.

  He was perhaps ten feet from the door now, teeth gritted, trying to keep his courage, wondering if the face-to-face confrontation he’d had with an armed terrorist had sapped him of it.

  Then a man appeared at the cell door, turning cautiously into the corridor, wearing a full face mask, a pistol fitted with a bulbous silencer in his hands, holding it up in front of his masked face.

  Donaldson forgot all doubts about courage. He reacted as he’d been taught to.

  In spite of the man’s caution, he clearly hadn’t expected anyone to be in the corridor and Donaldson’s presence jarred him, but only briefly. However, that nanosecond of hesitation was the opportunity Donaldson needed. He launched himself low and hard into the man’s torso, driving him back with the force of an American footballer. He forced all the breath out of the guy as the two men smashed against the wall. Donaldson reared up and knocked the gun out of the man’s hand with his right forearm. It skittered across the floor.

  But whilst he might well have knocked the wind out of him, the gunman was not beaten that easily. He came at Donaldson with a raging ferocity and the contest became a primal fight for survival. He hit hard, accurately; Donaldson responded, instantly aware the man was hard, dangerous and knew how to fight.

  They rolled around the tight corridor.

  The man landed a vicious punch on the side of Donaldson’s head, sending a shockwave through his brain. He went blank and staggered away, but his senses returned almost immediately and he came back at the man with a growl of anger.

  There was nothing heroic or beautiful about this contest.

  Donaldson felt his nose go. Blood splashed. His fist connected with the man’s cheekbone. It crunched and broke.

  Then they were wrestling, rolling through the open cell door, chest to chest. Donaldson could smell the man’s hot garlic breath, felt the man’s knee jerking up, trying to connect with his balls and crush them. And suddenly the man was on top, straddling Donaldson’s chest. His powerful gloved hands took a vice-like grip around his neck and squeezed as Donaldson squirmed desperately under him. His eyes bulged, his windpipe was being crushed.

  Instead of trying to wrench his fingers free, Donaldson made a V-shape with his own arms and shot the point up between the man’s arms, broke the grip, then chopped down on the man’s neck with the hard sides of both hands. It was a powerful, double-edged karate-style chop that knocked the man to one side, giving Donaldson the chance to roll sideways — straight up against Fazil’s dead body that lay along the cell floor behind the door. Like the desk sergeant, he’d been killed by a double-tap to the head and for an instant his and Donaldson’s faces were inches apart, almost nose to nose, but the FBI agent didn’t have time to be shocked.

  The attacker was off him. Now he had to somehow regain the advantage by getting to his feet. He did this in a fluid, well-practised motion, rising before the other man could regain his senses.

  He kicked him hard in the side of his head, knocking his face out of shape.

  It was going to be over now.

  Donaldson towered over him, a position from which he had never lost a fight.

  Unless someone came up behind him and crashed a baton across the back of his head, sending him into brain-spin land. A searing pain shot across his head, fired down his spine, his legs went weak, he staggered, attempted to turn, but another blow to the head came from his new attacker. He slumped stupidly against the wall, trying to hold himself up, but he slithered down to on to his backside. His head lolled and his fuzzy vision looked at Fazil’s dead eyes. Then his own eyes rolled upwards in their sockets and everything went black.

  EIGHT

  Henry had been in Blackpool public mortuary when he got the call from Karl Donaldson that afternoon.


  ‘Who was that?’

  He folded away his mobile phone, a thoughtful expression on his face, hidden when he replaced the surgical mask that covered his nose and mouth. He positioned himself behind the figure of Keira O’Connell who was standing by the body of the old man on the mortuary slab. The delayed PM had begun, the incision from neck to groin made and the body cavity opened out, the skin having been pared delicately away from the crushed ribcage.

  The pathologist looked over her shoulder at Henry.

  ‘A guy I know in the FBI, works down in London,’ Henry said.

  ‘Ooh, very sexy.’

  ‘Mm, he really is a good-looking so and so.’

  ‘From what I overheard, he was calling about this chap… does he think he knows who he is?’

  ‘Yeah, I sent him a circulation and some dead body photos… he does think he knows who he is,’ Henry said tantalizingly.

  ‘Don’t keep me in suspense.’

  ‘Could be a Mafia godfather.’

  O’Connell had an electric saw with an oscillating safety blade in her hand, the type used for cutting through bone.

  ‘In Lancashire?’

  ‘In the backwoods, you mean, where the natives have lazy eyes and play the banjo really well?’

  ‘Exactly.’ She flicked the switch on the saw and the blade vibrated.

  ‘Not as ridiculous as you might think,’ Henry said.

  He didn’t expand on the remark there and then, but it wasn’t so long ago that two men with strong Mafia connections and suspected of murders had been arrested in Lancashire on behalf of the police in Naples. He’d had no involvement in the arrests, but knew that the Constabulary had some concerns about Mafia linked individuals lying low in this corner of the world.

  Henry had mixed feelings about Donaldson’s call, though. If the ID was correct, it meant, as Henry suspected anyway, this was a professional execution and would be a far reaching investigation. That was an exciting prospect and he’d already had his customary bum-twitch.

  The flip side of the coin was that the chances of a successful resolution in terms of arrests and prosecution would be more difficult. Professional killers didn’t usually hang around to get caught, although this lot had hung around long enough to kill a potential witness… so maybe they were still around, especially if they thought there was another witness out there who remained a threat. And if that was the case, Henry could not allow anything to slow down the flow of the inquiry.

  He stood back to allow a CSI videographer to get into a better position to record the post-mortem as O’Connell busied herself with the complexity of removing the old man’s crushed ribcage. It was a bit like removing pieces from a Roman mosaic.

  Henry checked his watch: three p.m. Would that make it five in Malta? he thought fleetingly, wondering what his old mate Donaldson was up to in the Med. Concentrate. It was more than likely he would be tied up in the mortuary for about the next five or six hours, because it was planned to do Rory Costain’s examination immediately after the old man and both would be fairly long drawn-out tasks. As lead SIO, Henry had a responsibility to be present, even if it tied him up for a considerable period of time. Had the case been less complex he might have delegated the job over to a deputy, but he realized he needed to know absolutely everything about these deaths. So while it went against his natural instinct — he would have preferred to be out and about — it was something that had to be done.

  He settled down for a bit of a marathon, but that didn’t mean he was unable to direct ops from the mortuary. He fished out his phone again and dialled directly to a number in the Intelligence Unit at HQ.

  ‘Ullo,’ came the sullen voice at the other end of the phone.

  ‘Jerry, it’s Henry Christie.’

  ‘I know,’ the detective constable replied. He could obviously see Henry’s number on his phone display.

  ‘Aren’t you happy to hear from me?’

  ‘Ecstatic.’

  Henry chuckled, allowing Jerry Tope his moodiness, even though he was a mere DC and wasn’t showing Henry any respect. He let him get away with it because Tope was a whizz at his job of intelligence analysis — and, unbeknown to many, also a super-duper computer hacker. The latter was a skill that had almost got him into hot water a few times, but it was something Henry was happy to use for the benefit of law and order.

  ‘What can I do for you?’

  ‘Firstly, as of this moment, you have been co-opted on to my murder squad. I want you to run the intelligence cell… I assume you know what I’m on about?’

  ‘Yep.’ Jerry knew all about the double murder in Blackpool. He was expecting a call from Henry and was only surprised it had taken him so long.

  ‘First job… I want to give you a name and I want you to do some research on it. Then I’d like you to get across to Blackpool for seven tonight, ready to debrief the squad at eight thirty with what you’ve got.’

  ‘Unph… fire away then.’

  That done, Henry then called Alex Bent for any updates. Henry had appointed the DS as the Major Incident Room Manager so that nothing happened without Bent knowing. Henry had briefed the quickly assembled murder team at one that afternoon, and all the deployments of staff — controlled by Bent — had been based on the fast track actions that needed to be taken within the first twenty-four hours of an investigation. There was a wide range of headings for these enquiries, such as — identify suspects, exploit intelligence, scene forensics, witness search, victim enquiries, possible motives and others. Each had a pair of detectives working on them.

  ‘Anything new?’

  ‘Not as yet. How’s the PM going?’

  ‘Only just begun… but I have had an interesting phone call

  …’ Henry related Karl Donaldson’s news to him and he could hear the scratch of Bent’s pen as he jotted down the details, then added that Jerry Tope was now doing some background. ‘If this is the guy,’ Henry said, ‘we’re probably looking for a basic flat somewhere near to where he was hit. What do they call it when Mafia members go to ground? Going to the blanket, or something? Can you get more uniforms into that area, if possible?’

  ‘Will do.’

  ‘Anything further on the missing witness?’

  ‘No. I spoke to Billy Costain again, but he hasn’t got anywhere as yet.’

  ‘Right.’ Henry sighed. ‘Forensic links? Footwear? Dog shit? Hair and blood?’

  ‘Nothing back yet… but if the information about the ID is correct, that gives us a tremendous boost, doesn’t it? Will you just repeat the name again, so I’ve got it right?’

  Henry did. ‘Rosario Petrone. Got that?’

  Mark Carter spent the day being chased by shadows. Everywhere he went he was followed. Suspicious, accusing eyes tracked his every move. No one was who they seemed. Everyone was a killer. Car drivers only stopped at zebras to watch him cross, so they could mow him down. Anyone with a collar turned up was a gun-toting assassin.

  He moved through his usual haunts in the resort. The huge, impersonal amusement arcades, the cheap cafes, shops where he’d shoplifted on many occasions. He never stopped anywhere long, afraid if he did, they would move in on him.

  He had never been more afraid in his life, at least for his own safety. It had been a different kind of terror when he’d found his sister dead from a drug OD on the kitchen floor. A different kind of horror when his brother came home bleeding after being shot by rival drug dealers.

  He did not know what to do. Part of him wanted to go to the police. It was an option he spat out vehemently. The past had taught him to steer clear of the manipulative, self-serving bastards who cared only for arrests and fuck everyone else. They use you, they discard you and there is no way they can protect you.

  He had to look after himself.

  It took a full day of mulling over, but in the end he decided he would simply drop off the end and disappear. In Blackpool that would be easy enough. Thousands did it every year. He’d just be another statistic.
r />   ‘I want to talk to you.’

  Mark was in a cafe, sipping strong, sweet tea, making his mind up. And he’d committed the first cardinal sin of a fugitive. He’d lost focus, been consumed by his own thoughts and forgotten that he was a target. He looked up slowly at the young man in jeans and a sweatshirt.

  Mark made to move, but the guy gripped his shoulder and sat him back down with firmness. Mark stared at the face. Was this the killer he’d seen? It wasn’t. That man’s face was imprinted on the hard drive of his mind, never to be erased.

  But who was this?

  ‘Who, me?’ Mark sneered.

  ‘Yeah.’ The man flicked open an ID card quickly. There was a passport-sized photo on it and it all looked official. There could have been a Lancashire County Council logo on it. ‘Truant patrol… I want your name, age, date of birth and name of school — and I want to know why you’re not there, sonny.’

  ‘I’m off sick.’

  ‘You don’t look ill to me… you need to come with me. My car’s out back.’

  Mark rose cautiously. Maybe the guy was who he said he was, maybe he was the killer’s wheelman, the one who drove the Volvo that ran the old man down and had also tried to flatten Mark in the foot chase after Rory had been killed. Or maybe he was just a pervert preying on vulnerable kids. God knew there were loads in this town — pervs and kids.

  As he stood, his fingers were still wrapped around his mug of tea. Without hesitation, Mark flung the tea into his face, almost a mugful of burning hot liquid that Mark had been tentatively sipping and blowing on. It went into the guy’s face with a searing splash.