by Chris Simms
There was a half-smile on Pamela’s face as Valerie spoke again. ‘Punch had lost a lot of blood, Mr Spicer. He was – still is – in deep shock. His pack-cell volume was critically low. If Pamela wasn’t able to bring Bertie and Bruno straight in, we would have lost him.’
A blood transfusion, Jon realised. The significance of the two Boxers before him sank in and he crouched down. Keeping his hand on the nearest dog, he reached out to cup the side of the second dog’s face. Stumpy tails wagging wildly, they moved in to start licking at Jon’s cheeks. He could have licked them right back. ‘I don’t know what to say,’ he croaked, looking up at Pamela with tears in his eyes. ‘Really, I don’t know. Punch is like a member of…thank you so much.’
She smiled down at him, but he could still see a shadow of disquiet in her eyes. ‘It’s my pleasure. I can’t bear the thought of any dog suffering. Now, I’d better get going. These two are due for some food.’
Jon stood, wanting to offer the lady something. Treats for the dogs. Money. But they were already pulling her towards the front door. A moment later she had it open and they vanished outside.
‘Let’s take you to see Punch,’ Valerie said.
Jon followed her down the short corridor and through an open doorway. The far right-hand corner was taken up by a small inner room. Windows allowed him to see in. Its walls were lined with white tiles and a stainless-steel treatment table stood at its centre. The operating theatre.
He looked to his right and saw another treatment table. This one with a black plastic surface and a sink integrated into one end. It was covered with scraps of fur and droplets of blood.
‘Sorry – there’s been no time to tidy up,’ Valerie announced. ‘Punch is here.’
She pointed to Jon’s right. He saw a bank of cages, each one with a metal clipboard hanging from its stainless-steel bars. The lowermost doors were the smallest, the upper ones twice their size. ‘Punch is up here.’
Jon saw a drip-line going into one of the three cages forming the top row. Saliva suddenly filled his mouth. Swallowing it back, he stepped closer to look through the bars. A blue fluffy blanket lined the base of the cage. Punch was lying across it, eyes closed. The drip line was attached to the upper part of a foreleg. Large patches of fur around his throat and neck had been shaved off. Jon looked at the white flesh. Stitches lined the larger wounds. His dog’s breathing was ragged and shallow and very fast.
This could have been a hospital, Jon said to himself. Me looking down on a bed. Holly lying there, bandages covering her face and neck…
‘By the time I got him here, he’d gone into hypovolemic shock,’ the vet said. ‘As a result of inadequate blood volume. I’ve given him painkillers and antibiotics and all his wounds have been thoroughly flushed with saline.’
Jon wanted to open the cage door and rest his hand on Punch’s head. ‘What are all the little lumps?’
‘Around his throat?’
Jon nodded.
‘Puncture wounds. There’s no need to stitch them; the tissue swells and closes them naturally. I just made sure they were as clean as possible. He lost an ear, too.’
Jon realised it was in his pocket. ‘He’s breathing so fast. Is he in pain?’
Valerie shook her head. ‘No. He’s still in deep shock, Mr Spicer. When he starts to come out, we can think about sedating him, if necessary. I’ll need to look at his right front paw, too, at some point. There’s crush damage to the bone.’
Jon noticed the leg was bandaged.
‘Could I ask what sort of a dog carried out the attack?’
Jon peeled his eyes away from Punch. An image of the creature appeared in his head and he felt the corners of his mouth curl down. ‘I don’t know. I’ve never seen anything like it. I’ve been trying to think of a word and the best I can come up with is primitive.’
‘Primitive?’
He shrugged. ‘It had these markings like a tiger and there was a ferocity…it’s hard to describe.’
She frowned. ‘Was it a pit-bull type?’
‘Kind of. But big, you know?’ He held a hand to the top of his thigh. ‘This kind of height.’
‘A mastiff, then?’
‘No, it was too agile. Its body was more like a heavily built Doberman’s.’
‘But it’s head was brachycephalic?’
‘Brachy – ’
Her eyelids fluttered. ‘Bulldog type? Square, wide muzzle, eyes set far apart?’
‘Yes.’
She nodded. ‘To inflict the damage it did, it had to be. Punch’s foreleg looks like it’s been in a vice. I’m also concerned about damage to his trachea – where the animal had hold of him.’
Jon turned back to Punch and sucked air in. He didn’t dare look at the vet as he asked the question. ‘He’ll pull through this, won’t he?’
From the corner of his eye, he saw her arms cross. ‘I can’t promise you that.’
His eyes were on Punch’s partly open mouth. The gums – normally shiny and black – were a dry grey. ‘But with the blood transfusion and everything…’
‘He’ll need to be monitored through the night and we’ll assess him in the morning. If there are no further complications by then...’
‘You can do that? Monitor him through the night?’
‘A nurse sleeps over in the flat upstairs. She’ll check every two hours and call me if there’s a problem.’
Jon leaned close to the bars. ‘Hang in there, boy. You hang in there. I’ll be back soon.’ He looked for any movement behind his dog’s eyelids. There was none. ‘OK,’ he turned to Valerie. ‘We need to talk money.’
She inclined her head. ‘You have pet insurance?’
‘I did, but not now.’ He saw her face fall. Oh, shit. ‘What sort of bill are we talking about?’
She blinked a couple of times. ‘Treatment so far – including the transfusion – and monitoring for the next twenty-four hours? Well…it’s going to be over one thousand two hundred pounds.’
Jon tried to keep the dismay from his face. The holiday in France wasn’t happening. ‘Fine. Do whatever you need.’ He reached into his jacket. ‘Is a cheque OK?’
She raised a hand. ‘Let’s settle up at the end. But Mr Spicer, you need to consider the possibility that Punch’s condition might not improve. It could get worse. I’ve no idea if the damage to his trachea extends to his spine. You understand what I’m saying? We could reach the point where the fairest thing for Punch is…is to...’
Jon felt his head shaking. ‘It won’t come to that. It won’t.’
She stared back at him with something like sorrow.
Chapter 9
Most officers in the incident room at Grey Mare Lane were doing paperwork or chatting as they waited for the next call to come in. In the centre of the room, three detectives were gathered round a desk with a newspaper in its middle.
‘Makes you sick,’ one announced, shaking his head.
‘Where was he found?’
‘Dumped in a supermarket car park. They reckon his body had been rolled out of a vehicle during the night. He’d been tortured.’
‘What is it with Northern Ireland?’ the third one demanded. ‘We should just completely pull out. Let the Paddys rip each other to shreds – who gives a toss?’
Jon continued towards his desk. He’d rung Alice from outside the vet’s and explained the situation with Punch. She didn’t even bother to say that their holiday in France would need to be cancelled. Holly seemed fine, she’d replied to his question. Still watching telly.
Nodding hello to any fellow members of the Major Incident Team who caught his eye, Jon made his way across the room. The syndicate he was part of wasn’t back on shift until the next morning, so the desks in his corner of the room were empty. He glanced at the side office belonging to his boss, DCI Christine Parks. There she was, typing away on her computer. He took in the black ringlets of hair dangling just above her collar. Thirty-nine years old and a DCI for the past three. Not bad going,
he thought, especially considering she had managed it alongside starting a family.
As if sensing she was being watched, Parks glanced to her side. Hazel eyes immediately settled on Jon. He gestured to his desk, adopting an exasperated expression. With a knowing nod, she turned back to her own work.
As his computer booted up, Jon crossed to the brew table in the corner and flicked the kettle on. The lid to his syndicate’s tin of coffee was off and he peered inside. Empty. Bollocks. He glanced about, wondering if the last of it had been thieved. Probably. He reached for the half-full jar of another syndicate and quickly spooned some into a clean cup before screwing the cap back on. As soon as the boiling water splashed in, he began to stir briskly, as if to remove the evidence of his pilfering.
Back at his terminal, he was about to access the Police National Computer when his fingers paused above the keyboard. From this point on, he knew all his activity on the system would leave a trail. And because it wasn’t part of official police business, he was placing his career in serious jeopardy. He looked up at his screen, just able to make out the faint reflection of his face on its surface. Sod it. I have no other choice.
He went on to the vehicle database and, knowing the details of any officer who’d carried out a recent search on his own vehicle would be listed, typed in the registration of his Mondeo. The computer considered his request for a flash of the cursor then produced its result. No search had been carried out in the last six months. So, he thought, that all but eliminates them tracing me through my vehicle.
Tilting the back of his hand, he used his right forefinger to enter the van’s registration. 93 G 48561. The result pinged up an instant later: no vehicle with that registration existed on the database.
‘Maybe not on our system’, Jon murmured to himself. He opened up Google, went into maps and entered his postcode. The road he lived on came up. Once he’d zoomed out a bit in order to reveal the nearby motorway system, he lifted the phone and called the intelligence bureau. The department served as a conduit for all information coming in and out of Greater Manchester Police. As the phone rang, he pictured Chester House, the massive headquarters building out near Old Trafford where the bureau was based. A man answered.
‘Intelligence. Clive Knott speaking.’
Civilian member of staff, Jon thought. Will hopefully work in my favour. He opted for the informal approach. ‘Hello there, Clive. DI Jon Spicer here.’
‘Afternoon…Detective.’
‘You guys busy today?’
‘So so.’
‘I’ve got an urgent one, here, I’m afraid. I need an ANPR search.’
‘Nationwide?’
‘No – here in Manchester.’
‘That speeds things up.’
‘Good.’ Jon thought about the van. It had roared off in the direction of Kingsway. From there it would have accessed the M60 at junction 4. Automated Number Plate Recognition cameras, now mounted on gantries spanning the entire UK motorway network, would have first recorded the vehicle’s presence there. Let’s assume, he said to himself, they were fleeing back to Ireland. ‘M60 at junction 4, then on to the M56 and into north Wales. After that, the A55 to the port at Holyhead.’
‘Registration?’
Jon read it out.
‘Irish?’
‘Correct. Any idea how long the search will take?’ He waited for the answer with eyes shut, listening to the sound of the other man typing.
‘I had one the other day that only took fifteen minutes.’
Jon crossed his fingers. ‘Cheers.’ He looked at the phone on his desk. ‘Can I give you my mobile, in case I’m in the field?’
‘Yup. Have we got a FWIN for this?’
Force Wide Incident Number, Jon thought. Official justification for the search. Jesus, I hope this doesn’t come back to bite me on the arse. He took a breath in. ‘Being allocated now. As I said, this one is urgent.’
‘OK. I’ve just put the request in. Let me know the FWIN when you’ve got it.’
‘Will do.’ After giving his mobile number, he hung up, wondering how he could access the Irish Police Force’s vehicle database. Not easily, he concluded, going back to Google’s homepage and typing in ‘ferries to Ireland’.
The occupants of the van would be on some kind of listing somewhere. Only two companies operated the route: Stena Line and Irish Ferries. Bringing up the website for Stena Line, he sought out the number for their customer services department. A few minutes of easy-listening jazz played before a female voice came on the line.
After identifying himself and explaining the nature of his call, he was transferred. The phone was picked up after three rings.
‘Hello, this is Gary Evans speaking.’
The guy seemed extremely young. Good news, thought Jon. He lowered his voice and injected it with urgency. ‘Gary, DI Spicer here, Greater Manchester Police. I need you to run me a vehicle registration check, please.’
‘Right…er, yes…I can do that.’
The other man was blustering and Jon pressed home his advantage. ‘The last three days. Registration is 93 G 48561.’
He heard the sound of typing once again. ‘What’s it to do with?’
‘Ongoing investigation. A fresh lead we need to follow up on straight away.’
‘Right, of course. Let me see. Last three days, you said? Nothing’s here.’
Jon frowned. Must have crossed with Irish Ferries, then. ‘Nothing going either way?’
‘No, I’m looking right now. Afraid not.’
‘OK, Gary, thanks for your help.’ Before the man could reply, he hung up and immediately called Irish Ferries.
This time he was put through to a woman who, when she introduced herself, sounded middle-aged. Her voice was calm and confident. Jon winced. This one might not be so easy. ‘Hello, Mrs Houlcroft. DI Spicer here, Greater Manchester Police. I hope I haven’t caught you at a bad moment?’
‘No, it’s fine, Detective. How may I help you?’
‘I need to check your vehicle manifest, if I may. Crossings, say, three days either side of today’s date.’
‘Have you sent a DPA form across? Nothing’s in my in-box.’
Jon pursed his lips. Data Protection Act. ‘Sorry – it’s all hands to the pumps on this one. Is there any chance you could run me a check now, and I’ll make sure you receive the form as soon as I get a spare minute? It’s really quite – ’
She sighed. ‘Just make sure it arrives today, Detective.’
As he read out the van’s registration, he wondered how long he could stall her for when no DPA form showed up.
‘Just checking now,’ she stated. ‘No, nothing.’
‘Really? Nothing three days either side?’
‘Correct.’
‘Dublin across to Holyhead?’
‘Dublin Holyhead.’
Hope caused his chin to lift. Maybe, he told himself, I’ve jumped to the wrong conclusion with all this. ‘Thanks for your help.’
‘No problem. And Detective, I suppose we can do without that DPA form, after all.’
‘Much appreciated.’ He replaced the receiver and stared at his monitor for a few seconds. I need to know exactly who Darragh is. He went back to Google’s homepage, typed in, ‘Darragh’s nightclub, Clifden Galway’ and hit return.
The search produced remarkably few results. A couple of mentions on official tourist sites for Connemara, comments in a handful of travel blogs, most by Americans. Something in Spanish, by a backpacker from the look of it. No site for the club itself.
He took out his mobile and scrolled down to M. There he was, under Maccer. They’d started out in uniform together before their career paths went separate ways. Maccer had worked in fraud for years before an off-the-record allegation of corruption he made about a well-known figure on Manchester City Council ended up in the papers. Maccer was forced to take early retirement at the ripe old age of forty-three. He now chased debts for a small firm of accountants. When was it, Jon wondered,
that we last spoke? Two years, maybe.
‘Spicer the Slicer, how you doing, mate?’
Jon felt himself smile. The nickname went back to when he’d captained Greater Manchester Police’s rugby team. Some of the hits he’d put in on opposition players had earned him notoriety across the force. ‘It’s been a while since anyone called me that.’
‘Not cut any more poor bastards in two recently?’
‘Maccer? The only slicing I do nowadays is bread for my daughter’s sandwiches.’
‘Happens to us all, mate. How is the family?’
‘Fine, thanks. Alice is due in two months with our second. Holly’s six.’
His former colleague whistled. ‘Time flies.’
‘And you?’
‘Yeah – Danny’s five and Evie’s three. Bloody handful, but doing well.’
‘Good to hear. And how’s life in the real world treating you?’
‘Not bad. The recession’s made things busier, if anything.’
Jon could hear the man’s forced cheer and he knew where it came from. Shoved out of the force so abruptly – losing the sense of cameraderie, the power that producing a police badge bestowed… ‘I can imagine. Listen, mate, can you give me a few pointers? It’s about looking into a potentially dodgy business – with two added complications.’
‘OK. What are the complications?’
‘First, the business is in Ireland.’
‘Shouldn’t be a problem.’
‘Secondly, I need to do it off radar.’
‘Ah. Does that mean totally off radar?’
‘Far as possible.’
‘Keeping completely out of police systems?’
‘Until I have a clearer picture of the people I’m looking at.’
The other man chuckled. ‘Care to tell me why there’s a need for this approach?’
Jon checked no one was in earshot. ‘Family walk in the local park. Some fucker let a fighting dog loose on Punch. He’s barely alive.’
‘Oh my God.’
‘It might be linked to the owner of a particular nightclub in Ireland I had a run-in with.’
‘This being the dodgy business you mentioned?’
