by Dave Lacey
This end of town was quiet, even at this time on a Saturday night, which made his job easier in one sense. These days the streets where patrolled in much heavier numbers than they were, say, ten years ago, and incidents of street violence had been severely reduced. Again, although this made life easier in some respects, it also made him stand out more as there were fewer people around. It was one thirty and the clubs would be dumping their alcohol sodden clientele onto the pavements pretty soon. It was time to make a move.
Jack crossed the street, treading lightly and quickly in short steps. It didn’t really matter; the target didn’t know he was being followed, and even if he had worked it out it was only a matter of time before they pulled him in. But stealth was a force of habit for Jack. There was something about being on the streets at night that he liked. Maybe it was the solitude, maybe it was the quiet. But there was something else. There was an atmosphere to the night. It felt charged as if with an air of expectancy. He offered to work the nightshifts for reasons such as this, though there were other reasons he had to admit. His recent marital troubles meant that there was little point in him being at home during the evening. Being at home alone each night made him feel worse than he already did.
When he wasn’t working nights, he spent his time in the gym working on his fitness. Before the split he had been in pretty good shape, but now he was on a different level. Tall, around six three, with toffee brown eyes, long eyelashes and dark brown hair, he was considered a bit of a catch. He knew his colleagues considered him baby faced, which brought with it its own problems. Trying to maintain law and order whilst looking like a teenager is no mean feat. Though now he was approaching thirty, he was starting to appreciate the benefits of still looking like a youth.
Jack was closing in. He would rather take his target in the street than wait until he got home, where he could attempt an escape or there might be other people there to slow things down. No, much better to take him here on the street. An altercation between two men on Bank Street briefly distracted Jack, who now turned off and sprinted down Wilton Place in pursuit of his target. The rain was coming down harder now, making it difficult to see clearly, but from first impressions it didn’t look like his man was in sight. He took off again at full tilt, trying to second guess his target’s route, but it wasn’t easy to make sense of it.
Surely it wasn’t possible that anybody could have warned him of the pursuit, or that he would suspect that he was being tracked through the streets at this time of night. He got to the corner of Upper Cleminson Street, looked left, then right, saw nothing. Left, it had to be left. He ran almost blindly through the torrent, clearing his mind of all thoughts. After what seemed like an eternity, he reached the corner of Adelphi Street and turned right. There was no one to be seen.
He stopped, the sound of his heavy breathing masked by the sound of the rainfall, his fists clenched hard in anger. His target couldn’t have disappeared; logic dictated he had to be somewhere very close.
He turned and surveyed his immediate surroundings. Breathe easy. Follow your gut instinct. Concentrate. The only sounds were the steady double thump of his pulse in his ears and the liquid clatter of the heavy rain. The wall. The wall behind him, that was it! Along the whole length of this stretch of Adelphi Street ran a wall around two metres high, which was there to cordon off the canal on the other side. He jumped, took hold of the top of the wall and pulled himself up. There was his target, around fifty yards away, lying on the wet cobbled ground.
Alphonse Ngwenye must have landed badly off the wall and stumbled on. Jack jumped down, fought his way through the bushes that grew between the canal and the wall, and then ran over to where Alphonse lay unmoving on the cobbles. Jack reached for his shoulder and turned his face toward him. Alphonse Ngwenye was dead. His head lay at an unnatural angle, and his eyes had that peculiarly glassy quality about them. Shit. Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit. This wasn’t what Jack had expected at all. He had better call it in. He took out his mobile and dialled Smithy’s number.
“Y’ello?” came his partner’s voice.
“I’m with Alphonse.”
“Really? Did he put up much of a fight?”
“Erm, no, not really. He’s dead.”
“Shit, how? Why? What happened?”
“I was following him. He turned a corner and must have made me, started running, went over the canal wall, and then... well, he’s dead.”
“Must have been quite some bump?”
“You can carry on being a smart arse, or you can get in the car and come round here and collect me. It's pissing it down.”
“Sir, yes sir! On my way.”
Jack hung up and called his boss, Superintendant Whittaker. He didn’t think this particular outcome would go down too well, but in general the boss was a good guy.
“Sumner?”
“Yeah, boss, it’s me.”
“How did it go?”
“He’s dead boss. Alphonse is dead.”
“Oh Christ. How?” Jack explained what had happened.
“Oh cock. This is a nasty turn up for the books.”
“Yeah. Listen, I need the usual team to come down here and tidy up. Might as well send forensics, we don’t want this to turn ugly because we were involved. We could also check the CCTV coverage so that we have clear supporting evidence that it was an accident and nothing more.”
“Sure, sure. Is Detective Smith with you?”
“He’s on his way as we speak. He was at Alphonse’s house waiting to back me up there.”
“Good. Okay, I’ll get on to forensics, and I’ll get the team out to you in the next twenty minutes or so.”
“Great. Cheers boss.”
Jack hung up, moved away from the body, and took a seat on a bollard fifteen feet away, ignoring the rain as it soaked into his clothing. He played back the last fifteen minutes in his head, trying to get a feel for the situation. This was part of his routine, the way in which he best put his instincts to use. And if there was one thing Jack was good at, it was this. He had made sure that he had stayed a minimum of a hundred yards behind Alphonse, so as to make sure his man wasn’t aware he was being followed. Although the streets were deserted, which would normally have made things more difficult, the rain was so heavy that it covered a great many sounds and discouraged anyone from looking around too often. Quite apart from that, there was no reason for him to suspect he was being followed. Why would he?
So, Jack concluded, something had spooked him and caused him to hightail it and jump over the wall. Either he somehow knew he was being followed, or somebody else had joined the party. Or both. He took out his phone again and called Smithy.
“What’s up?” Smithy answered.
“Have you seen anybody hanging around on the streets on your way here?”
“Nope, not so far. Why?”
“I just wondered if anybody else was involved.”
“You don’t think it was an accident now?”
“I really don’t know. I’ve been sitting here thinking, and it occurred to me that it’s an awfully clumsy thing to do. Particularly when you’re being followed.”
“Maybe he is, or rather was, just genuinely clumsy.”
“Hmm, maybe. Can you just do a few circuits of the locale and see how the land lies?”
“Will do,” Jack’s partner replied. “See you in ten.”
Jack stood up and started to walk in ever increasing circles away from the body, in an attempt to pick up any obvious signs of a third party. In the dark it was almost impossible to see anything that might stand out or indicate the presence of somebody else. After a few minutes, he decided he was wasting his time. Instead, he started walking south down the canal bank to see if anyone was hiding behind any of the shrubs and bushes. A few minutes later, he turned and started to make his way north. He walked past the body and continued on to check that area. As he turned to make his way back, Smithy dropped down from the top of the wall with a grunt.
“I�
��m here, panic over.”
“So I see. Did you see anything?”
“Nope. The area’s completely deserted. Did you really expect me to see anything?”
“Not really, more than anything–” He was cut off in mid-sentence by his partner.
“What was that?”
“What?”
“I thought I just saw a light down there.” Smithy pointed south, toward the canal wall.
Jack and his partner took off toward the spot Smithy had pointed at, trying to minimise any noise they made in order to pick up any alien sounds. As they approached, they heard a car door close and its engine roar. They made the transition from jog to flat out sprint at the same time. Smithy reached the wall first and launched himself to the top and then over in one smooth movement. Jack was a split second behind him, and landed on the pavement with a stumble. The car was disappearing around a corner.
“Shit, come on, let’s get the car,” Smithy barked.
“No, by the time we get it, they’ll be long gone. C’mon, move, we only need the licence plate.” They took off again at a sprint. They were too late. By the time they reached the corner, the car was out of sight. They ran to where it had turned last, but already knew what they would find: taillights disappearing into the distance.
“Shit!” Smithy stood with his hands on his hips trying to regulate his ragged breathing.
“Did you catch any of the number plate?”
“No mate. But I think I know what car it was.” As he finished saying this, he took his phone out of his pocket and dialled a number.
“This is Detective Tobias Smith. I need to put out an APB on a black or dark blue BMW 7 series, in the Chapel Street area in Salford.” He was quiet as the operator at the other end spoke.
Yeah, I know that doesn’t narrow it down, but if we’re quick there can’t be too many of those vehicles knocking around at this time of night.” Another pause, then “Okay, reach me on this number if we have anything.” He hung up.
“Let’s get back to Alphonse. And we can check out the spot where we think this guy with the light was standing,” Jack decided.
“Aye, okay. I guess it’s pointless trying to go after the Beamer ourselves. Besides, the cleanup crew will be here in a few minutes.” As he said this, two police vans, a coroner’s van and an ambulance hove into view.
“You take care of the new arrivals, I’ll check out the area our friend appeared to inhabit,” Jack suggested.
“Okay.”Smithy jogged up the street to where the various vehicle lights played out their merry dance on the surrounding buildings.
Jack surveyed the canal wall and pavement on the street side of where Smithy had seen the moving light. Nothing, not even a tread. They would bring forensics down here to complete a thorough examination, but he didn’t think they would find much. The rain continued to explode on the road all about him as he drew his visual search to a conclusion. Time to try the other side he thought, and, with that, pulled himself up to the top of the wall and gently lowered himself down the other side, careful to avoid the place where they thought the watcher would have been standing.
Using the LED flash in his mobile phone as a torch, Jack scoured the floor for any sign that someone had been standing there: a footprint, litter, broken branches on a bush. “What’s that?” he muttered to himself. With great care, he leaned one arm against the wall and splayed his feet to support the rest of his weight and to avoid standing on any evidence. Slowly, he lowered himself until he could reach what he had seen. It was a cigarette butt, wet, but still intact.
That’s what the light was, he thought to himself. Somebody had been watching him and Smithy as they had stood to the north of the body, and they had been smoking a cigarette, as calm as you like. He inspected the butt, holding it up to shine his light on it. It didn’t look like a popular brand and it didn’t have a filter. Could be foreign, or menthol, he supposed. He slipped the potential evidence into a small clear plastic bag and popped it into his pocket.
He stood and walked back up the canal bank to where a circus had begun to unfold around the body of Alphonse Ngwenye. Jack’s unit had been tracking Alphonse for the past two months, after he had been implicated in the murder of two men outside a nightclub in Central Manchester in September. The pattern linking him to the murder was weak, which was the reason they had been tracking him and had not arrested him.
He had been pulled three times before on drug related charges, but was released on each occasion through a lack of substantial evidence. They had decided that tonight was the night to tighten the noose and increase the pressure on him, hoping for a mistake. Things hadn’t gone to plan. But, then again, who could have anticipated that Alphonse’s life would have been snuffed out ignominiously beside a canal on the outskirts of Manchester? A knife or a gun outside a club maybe, but this? It really didn’t add up, and, what’s more, he was a big guy and able to look after himself.
“Anything?” Smithy asked.
Jack looked at his partner and smiled inwardly at the comfort he took from him. They had been partners for three years now, and he honestly couldn’t imagine working with anybody else. Smithy’s hours at the gym had paid off, his short but powerful torso the perfect foil for Jack’s tall, rangy frame. His sandy blonde hair was worn fairly long, almost bordering on a seventies style, and his bright blue eyes were evenly spaced in his open honest face. He was a calm, intelligent presence who managed to lighten the load whatever the situation. Work aside, Smithy had also been a friend through one of the most difficult phases of Jack’s life to date, the breakup of his marriage. Yes, Tobias Smith was a good man.
“Actually, yes. I found a cigarette stub at the foot of the wall where we guessed he or she was standing.”Jack unfurled the bag in front of Smithy’s nose
“White filter. Menthol?”
“No filter actually, but maybe menthol. We’ll give it to the boys and see what they come up with. I think we should also have them give the once over to the spot where I found it. Maybe we’ll get a partial footprint in the silt over there.”
“Okay, I’ll tell them to extend the search. God I'm hungry. What are we going to do from here? You wanna go back to the office?”
Jack pondered for a moment. “Do we have his effects?”
“I have his phone, but the rest of the stuff will go back with the body.” Mobile phones were often the most important piece of the puzzle in terms of solving crimes in the twenty-first century. Even if you couldn’t have a conversation with a corpse, their phone often turned out to be more co-operative and, in many cases, incriminating.
“That seems like a good place to start. This doesn’t feel right to me.” Jack stood with his hands on his hips and looked around him, until he had turned full circle. “What do you think?”
“Oh I agree, but then we don’t really know what happened. Our watcher may not have directly had anything to do with Alphonse’s death. He may have been here for other reasons…” Jack looked sceptical and was about to interject, but Smithy held up his hand and closed his eyes “I know, I know. Be calm, my young Padawan, I haven’t finished. He could have been, let’s say, cruising. I’m pretty certain he was involved, but his influence over events could have been as simple as to threaten or intimidate Alphonse, who then, in his panic to escape, had himself a little tumble…”
“He’s a big guy, Smithy, or rather he was. He was a criminal in one way or another, so he would have been no stranger to threats or intimidation. Do you really think he would have been spooked so quickly and easily? I was less than a minute behind him. That’s not much time to terrify somebody such as Alphonse, you must agree?”
“We don’t know anything about our watcher, other than perhaps his brand–”
“Or her.”
“–or her brand of cigarettes and the car they drive.”
“I don’t think they were driving. The car wasn’t there when I arrived at the wall, so it came after I got here. They were driven.”
&n
bsp; “Okay, but my point is it could have been anyone, and they could have been tooled up to the teeth.”
“I think we’ll find that he had help with his fall, and I don’t think this is going to be straightforward,” Jack announced ominously.
“Gut feel?”
“Yeah, gut feel.” Jack cast one last look around the scene, then headed back toward the wall.
“C’mon, we’ll update forensic, then head back and go through his phone like you said.”
Smithy and Jack climbed the wall and made their way back to the unmarked car Smithy had been driving. It was two thirty. Jack rubbed his eyes. They were due to finish their shift at four, but he didn’t like their chances of getting away before six.
It would be three before they got back to Headquarters on Boyer Street, and then the real legwork would begin. They would go through the phone to begin with, and then they would have to start matching the contents to the known associates of Alphonse. This was all pre-emptive, as until forensics notified them of the cause of death, the case was not really theirs. When they did arrive back at HQ, a message was waiting for them to go straight in to see the chief.
Chapter 2
Manhattan, New York City, New York.
Zefram Mayer ran breathlessly across East 37th Street, heading south west toward the Queens–Midtown Tunnel. It seemed to him that he had been running endlessly since he had noticed the tall heavily built man twenty yards behind him. Even after he had turned right three times, the pursuer was still there. Since this meant that he had almost made a full circle back on himself, he figured he was being tailed. He had no idea why.
Running. It seemed ironic now he thought of it, but his family had run from trouble too, just like Zefram was now. He had been born to a Dutch immigrant mother and father, Aaltje and Bastiaan Meijer, twenty-eight years ago, after they had fled Europe in the late 1970s. His father had been involved in peaceful protests against American nuclear bases, although the protests had become less peaceful after the arrival of the Dutch riot police. Although he had evaded capture by the authorities, his face, along with pictures of twenty of his comrades, had been shown on television and plastered all around the city. He had been a wanted man.