by Nick Oldham
‘We’ve got the job,’ he told Danny, outlining the phone call.
‘Do we need to go in now?’
‘No, but let’s get there for seven.’
They were sitting side by side on the bed, naked. Henry rubbed his eyes. He was exhausted and needed sleep. ‘Can I stay here?’ he asked.
Danny hesitated. ‘Yeah,’ she said unsurely, ‘but what about Kate? Won’t she be worried?’
His face wrinkled shamefully. ‘No, it’s OK. She thinks I’m at Headquarters.’ And already he was feeling the guilt of the lie he had spun to Kate on the phone before turning up at Danny’s house at midnight. He had told Kate he was stuck on a big job at Headquarters which looked likely to run through the night; as a consequence he had taken a bedroom at the Training School. Even at that early stage, he had subconsciously wanted to end up in bed with Danny.
Now that it had actually happened, something he had been resolutely trying to deny to himself struck him like a mallet blow. The difficulties at home over the past few months were down to this one thing alone: he had fallen in love with Danny Furness.
Ever since working with her on an enquiry which pre-dated Jack Sands’s suicide, and then helping her through the aftermath of that tragedy, they had grown very close to each other. That was the underlying reason why he’d taken the undercover job against Jacky Lee. His professional instincts had told him not to take it, but it had offered a convenient escape route from an increasingly uncomfortable domestic life and a working environment in which he was in daily contact with Danny. Outwardly, at work, he had maintained a completely professional stance towards her, but below the surface something had been bubbling; and intuition told him it had been happening to her, too.
The undercover job had been the ideal opportunity to break away, put Danny out of his mind and get his marriage together.
But, as tonight proved, it had not worked.
‘We need to talk, Danny.’
She kissed him. ‘We do, but not now. Now we need to get some sleep and give ourselves a fighting chance of getting through the day ahead, because it’ll be another long one. . .’
Two a.m. Another motorway service area, this time on the M1.
Billy Crane sat in the 24-hour self-service restaurant, staring blankly down at the plate full of food he had not touched. It was going cold, but he did not have the energy to lift a fork up to his mouth. He looked around at his fellow night-time travellers and wondered when the man would turn up, the one contracted by Don Smith to deal with the money. The one who would launder it, then make it reappear clean and as if by magic in bank accounts around the world - half for Crane, half for Smith. At least, that’s how it should’ve been. Now it all belonged to Crane.
He was exhausted, felt like a zombie, unable to be enthusiastic about the thought of all that cash. The events of the day had drained him, mentally and physically. Just as the commission of the crime had been a greater rush than maintaining hard drugs, the aftermath was even worse than the worst cold turkey. All he wanted to do was lie down and sleep and then get back to Tenerife and recuperate in the sunshine. But even that wouldn’t be so easy now because the cops would be hunting him worldwide: they might not know exactly who they were looking for, or where he lived, but they’d definitely want him. He would have to keep a very low profile for a long time. Wind up the drugs business, sell off his bars - without too much of a show - maybe just keeping Uncle B’s going, maybe not, and spend lots of time at the villa on La Gomera being a model citizen.
Lost in his thoughts he did not see the man approaching, but was suddenly aware of someone standing nearby. His dark eyes rose to see a young man, smart but casually dressed, looking at him uncertainly. Crane knew this youngster was the one - a twenty-three-year-old financial whizz-kid from the City who worked at a futures desk during the day but whose clandestine speciality was making bad money look good. . . for a flat fee of ten per cent.
Chapter Nineteen
Two days later, on a clear, fresh, chilly morning, Detective Inspector Henry Christie stood outside the public mortuary situated behind Lancaster Royal Infirmary. He stamped his feet in order to keep them warm and drank weak, hot tea from a plastic cup. He was accompanied by the overweight, sexist, racist DC Dave Seymour. Seymour was munching a bacon sandwich bought from the hospital canteen and the slapping noise his mouth was making as he ate made Henry feel a little unwell.
‘Eat quietly - that’s an order,’ Henry said.
‘Yes, boss - sorry.’
Throughout his career, Henry had met, mingled with, arrested and put away some very major players. He had chatted on first-name terms with bosses from the biggest crime families in England, he had observed American Mafia chiefs, shouted at serial killers and rapists and child murders and, on occasion, been face to face with desperate contract killers and corrupt officials, all of whom would have been more than happy to put a bullet into his head.
But today - so he had been briefed, warned, whatever - he was about to meet probably the wealthiest, most ruthless and most successful criminal he had ever come across in his life. A man who operated every conceivable form of criminal activity Henry could think of, from drug smuggling and assassinations on an international scale, to arranging massive art thefts across Europe, to pimping in the white slave trade - intelligence had it that this man had set up routes for young kids out of the former Yugoslavia and into paedophile networks, particularly in Holland and Belgium. He arranged thefts, burglaries and handled stolen goods across all borders. He bribed officials and when they did not respond, he had them murdered. He intimidated businessmen and when they didn’t kow-tow, he had them murdered too. He was intent on continually expanding his criminal empire and when he met resistance, he killed. This was something Henry Christie had personally witnessed when Jacky Lee had been executed right in front of him in a transport cafe.
Henry knew virtually everything about this man, yet those facts, he knew, should not blind him to the reason why he, Henry, was about to meet him that morning at Lancaster Public Mortuary.
The man was coming to make a formal identification of a body on a slab, a body believed to be that of his grandson.
The man’s name was Alexandr Drozdov. He was the most powerful member of the Russian Mafia. The name of the grandson was Nikolai Drozdov: he had been brutally murdered.
Henry knew he would have to play this one by ear. It was usual in murder investigations to attach a liaison officer to the bereaved family. Just because the family were criminals and from Russia, should they be denied such an offer? This was one thing Henry was wrestling with; another was the capacity of the Drozdovs to react to Nikolai’s murder in a way Henry would not want. That is, to go and discover the murderer themselves and then assassinate him by way of revenge. Henry had to talk Alexandr out of such a course of action, which he knew would not be easy.
Dave Seymour moaned, ‘Where the hell is he?’
‘He’ll be here soon.’ Henry had arranged for a traffic car, motorcycle escort and a Mobile Firearms Team to pick up Drozdov from Blackpool Airport where the Russian’s private jet had landed. As far as he knew, things were running on time. The firearms team had been provided as the result of a specific request from Drozdov, via Interpol - who had informed him of his grandson’s death on behalf of Henry. Wherever he went in Russia, apparently, he was always accompanied by a protection unit. The implication was that this ‘protection unit’ consisted of armed personnel. Because Drozdov would clearly not be allowed to bring such a unit of his own thugs into the UK, Drozdov had insisted on an armed police guard because he was always in danger. Despite feeling that he was pandering to the ego of a common criminal, Henry fixed this up. Better that, he reasoned, than Drozdov’s goons turning up armed to the back teeth with Kalashnikovs and having to deal with that.
‘DI Christie receiving?’ Henry’s PR asked him from his jacket pocket. It was Lancaster Comms calling him. He acknowledged. ‘Information received from Control Room: two minutes,
repeat, two minutes. Understood?’
‘Yeah, thanks for that.’
Two minutes and Drozdov would be here. Henry emptied the last of his tea down his throat and crushed the plastic cup in his palm, tossing it away. He went into the mortuary to check that everything was set up in the viewing room.
Nikolai’s body was laid out as tastefully as possible in the circumstances, ready to be identified, a wide white bandage wrapped skilfully around his head to hide the horrendous injuries caused by the bullets which had been pumped into it.
Henry went back outside as the police convoy turned down the driveway towards the mortuary.
The two minutes had passed very quickly - almost as quickly as the last two days.
When a murder investigation kicks off, no matter how run of the mill or extraordinary it might be, all hell breaks loose. It is the responsibility of the SIO to get hold of everything and pull it all together. There is information and intelligence overload, all of which has to be constructively managed. A policy book, recording all the decisions taken and the reason for them, has to be started. The team needs to be drawn together and led, IT systems have to be put into place, people have to be allocated jobs according to their skills. Their welfare needs to be catered for because it is true that in the first seventy-two hours, everyone is up for it, wanting to get the case solved; after that, overtime becomes a burden, families start whining about absences and enthusiasm wanes. Intelligence cells have to be formed. And a myriad other things have to be considered, not least of which is sticking to legal and procedural guidelines. All of it is down to the SIO.
When Henry went into work with Danny the morning after their first night together - in separate cars, obviously - he had no idea he would end up as SIO on one of the biggest cash robberies ever in the UK, together with a multiple murder.
He had a good idea there was a major enquiry in the offing ... but not quite so gi-fucking-normous.
He knew everything that had happened the previous day, and on top of that was the discovery of the security van decorated in blood found in Staffordshire with twenty million pounds and four guards missing from it. A police pathologist inspected the interior of the van and concluded that someone had probably died inside it, or had at the very least been seriously wounded. Where this had happened had yet to be established, but Henry had a nasty feeling that Lancashire was the host.
One of the first things he did was speak to the security firm and find out what route the vehicle should have taken. Then he sent a traffic cop down to Staffs to inspect the tachograph to see what clues it could provide as to the possible location of the robbery. Even Henry, a non-traffic-orientated cop, knew that anyone with a bit of knowledge of tachographs could retrace journeys quite accurately.
That was done by 7.30 a.m., at which moment a grumpy FB walked in, not pleased at having been woken several times during the night.
Henry briefed him quickly. After that FB made the decision that, subject to the views of Staffordshire police, Lancashire would pick this up and run with it, as everything pointed to something big having gone down on their turf. If it later transpired it had happened somewhere else, then it would be handed over with alacrity.
When Henry asked FB who the SIO would be, the older man fixed him with one of his famous stares, designed to ensure the recipient’s anus twitched.
‘You are that man,’ FB said. ‘It would be crackers to bring anyone else in, even though it’s still early doors. You have all the information, the holistic view, the experience and above all’ - here FB smiled thinly - ‘I trust you to get results.’
‘I should’ve stayed off sick.’
‘Don’t be a fucking Nancy - get on with it.’
Things began to move when he walked - still shell-shocked - back into the Incident Room in the LEC building to tell Danny the news. Before he could speak she waved a message pad under his nose, just received from the police in Morecambe.
Henry read it, took it in, murmuring the words out loud: ‘“Four bodies found apparently shot to death in a warehouse on the White Lund Industrial Estate. Two identified (not formally) from documents found on them. One: Gary Thompson. Two: Graham “Gunk” Elphick.”’ Henry raised his head and swallowed. ‘Gunk,’ he repeated, stunned by the news. ‘Bloody hell!’
‘Yeah,’ Danny said.
He puffed out his cheeks. ‘We need to have a look at this now,’ he decided, whilst experiencing a very unusual feeling down in the pit of his stomach at the sight of Gunk’s name and the possibility he might now be dead. He was slightly ashamed to discover the feeling was one of high elation.
They were at the scene within the hour.
Even from first glance, Henry worked out that a tremendous gun battle had taken place. The question was - had anybody survived and left the scene? And additionally, was this slaughter connected with the theft of twenty million pounds?
‘If it isn’t,’ Henry mused to no one in particular, ‘then I’m a monkey’s uncle.’
He was able to identify the bodies of the other two dead people immediately.
Nikolai Drozdov and Don Smith. But no Billy Crane, Henry thought.
He paused over Gunk’s body, wondering whether to kick it.
Even as they were inspecting that blood-splattered scene of carnage, having great fun working out what had gone on, testing out theories, angles and the like, another message came from the police at Carnforth, a small town to the north of Lancaster. A stolen HGV had been discovered that morning on a lorry park on the A6, near to Junction 34 of the M6. The police officer who attended the report soon found the lorry was empty - with the exception of four dead bodies on the trailer, all shot, and all dressed in the uniform of security guards.
The convoy came slowly down the gravel driveway. Two motorcyclists were leading, followed by a plain car, a liveried traffic car and another plain car bringing up the rear. The plain cars were carrying the firearms team - eight officers in total - and the traffic car, driven by a PC accompanied by a detective from the Murder Squad, was carrying the dignitary. On this occasion, a Russian gangster.
At the last moment, the motorcyclists peeled away and zoomed back up the drive to seal the entrance. The remaining cars stopped in the mortuary car park.
The firearms team poured out of their cars, each officer taking a pre-determined point to protect the traffic car, MP5s at the ready, their eyes roving surrounding buildings and open spaces for possible threats. Henry had briefed them first thing that morning and was empathetic to their feelings. Despite body and head protection, they were very vulnerable indeed. Drozdov was the class of target that if anyone seriously wanted to take him out, a bunch of armed cops, however well-trained, would not be able to stop them.
Henry now felt vulnerable. He wore no protection - but, he thought wryly, if someone did take a pot shot, there was no way he would be throwing himself into the line of fire.
One of the rear doors of the traffic car opened and a huge bear of a man with a beard got out.’ He was much younger than Henry had anticipated, which was puzzling. Henry offered his hand in greeting, but the man blanked him out, went to the opposite door and opened it.
The bear gently assisted out a small, frail old man and set him on a pair of very unsteady feet; he held him there and reached into the car for a walking frame which he unfolded and placed in front of the old man.
This, Henry realised, was Alexandr Drozdov, grandfather of Nikolai. He could not have been over five-two tall, was incredibly wizened, his skin pure white, but not albino; he was hunched over with a pronounced curvature of the spine. He looked a hundred years old. Henry gawped stupidly at him, unable to imagine this pensioner as a ruthless gangland warlord with a worldwide business empire. He did not look capable of taking a deep breath. Looked like a good meal would kill him. Not for the first time, Henry’s stereotypical expectations of what a gangster should look like were dashed.
Henry held out his hand again.
The old man’s eyes flicke
red up and that gave the game away. Henry firmly believed the eyes were the window to the soul, and Drozdov’s pair of steel blue ones made Henry freeze inside. His bony, almost transparent hand, which Henry could easily have crushed, was in direct contrast to the fire which burned behind the eyes.
‘Mr Drozdov,’ Henry said slowly, ‘I’m-’
‘I know who you are,’ Drozdov cut in sharply, speaking perfect, accentless English. His voice was forceful and authoritative, belying - again - his appearance, which was that of a doddering old man. ‘Detective Inspector Henry James Christie. You are the Senior Investigating Officer in charge of the investigation into the death of my grandson.’ He watched Henry’s reaction and smiled. ‘I make it my business to know such things. Now let us proceed. Serov,’ he said to his huge companion, ‘stay with us.’
‘Yes, that is the body of my grandson, Nikolai Drozdov,’ the old man said. Henry saw him intake breath sharply and steady himself on his walking frame. Then Drozdov shuffled out of the identification room, backed by the huge bear-man. Henry drew a white linen sheet over Nikolai’s face and stepped out after Drozdov.
‘I must speak to you,’ he insisted.
‘Why? What can you do for me that I cannot do for myself?’ he responded, not pausing on his unsteady route back to the traffic car.
‘Mr Drozdov,’ Henry said sternly, ‘I am investigating the murder of your grandson as well as that of seven other people. You must talk to me. If nothing else I need to inform you of the legal procedures and give you details of when you can expect to be allowed to take Nickolai’s body back to Russia.’
‘Allowed?’ Drozdov snorted, stopping in his tracks, turning slowly, but angrily on Henry. ‘Allowed? My grandson will accompany me back to Russia now.’