by Nick Oldham
Working with Interpol and the Cypriot police, an armed raid was carried out on a secluded villa near Paphos and a man arrested without any bloodshed or drama.
Three months later, after much solid detective work assisted by a forensic team that managed to link the man in custody to the position he’d laid up in with his rifle (not recovered) on the bleak moors of Rossendale, he was in crown court facing a murder charge, even though he had not said one word whilst in custody. But that didn’t matter.
And now the jury was back.
Henry held his breath as the clerk of the court asked the jury foreman if they had reached their verdict.
The man stood nervously, as though his back was killing him. His eyes did not look into the steel-grey impassive eyes of the killer in the dock. He said, ‘Yes we have, Your Honour,’ addressing his reply to the judge.
Henry glanced at the defendant. He was ex-army, had been a sniper in Kuwait, Iraq and Afghanistan – a superb one – and had left the services and offered his killing skills to the highest bidder. He had an exemplary service record and no previous convictions, facts referred to many times by the smooth defence barrister. But Henry knew he had carried out at least four other assassinations in African republics that had netted him about a million and a half pounds, probably foreign aid money. The killing of Felix Deakin had brought him two hundred thousand, money that was still being tracked by the financial experts, but it was proving tricky to find the source.
The man, who was called Mike Calcutt, allowed his gaze to take in the jury foreman and Henry – pausing just a little too long for comfort on the detective – before looking back at the jury.
The clerk asked if the verdict reached was unanimous or by a majority.
‘Unanimous.’
A whisper of amazement flitted around the public galleries, which were packed with gawping public and greedy media.
The clerk then read out the murder charge against Calcutt and asked if the jury found him guilty or not guilty.
For a brief moment, as the foreman paused, Henry thought he was witnessing some reality TV show, where contestants were voted off.
‘Guilty.’
Henry’s eyes swept to Calcutt. He did not flinch. Cool, cool bastard, he thought. But we got you in the end. If only we could get the bastard who hired you in the first place.
Henry, Rik Dean and four other detectives involved in the case had gathered in a loose congratulatory circle in the public waiting area outside the court-room doors. They all beamed wide smiles and there were lots of handshakes and high-fives amongst them. The kind of euphoria that comes after a protracted, successful investigation that nails a killer.
‘Well done everyone,’ Henry said, checking his watch. He meant what he said, because he’d very much taken a back seat and had only put his twopenn’orth into the machine when asked. Now that he was a detective superintendent he was trying to delegate more and not get involved in day-to-day investigating. It went against his natural instinct, as was the case with most high-ranking detectives who loved to get down and dirty with the lads. Problem was that it was easy to lose sight of the overview and at his rank, as he was learning, that was not something he could afford to do. He had now become a professional plate spinner and this major inquiry was just one of many he had to manage.
‘Drinks?’ Rik Dean suggested. There was an eager gaggle of yeses from his colleagues, who wanted to celebrate in the traditional way. This was although the defendant had yet to be sentenced by the judge. Once the jury had informed the court of the verdict, the defence had immediately leapt up with a desire to make submissions, so the judge had adjourned proceedings when he would hear further bleating from Calcutt’s defence. Then he would sentence him to life imprisonment, the only available option in the case of murder.
‘You guys go ahead.’ Henry delved into his jacket, extracted his wallet and pulled out fifty pounds, which he gave to one of the jacks. ‘Have a round on me. I need to—’ He was interrupted by the arrival of a court usher.
‘Detective Superintendent Christie?’
‘That’s me.’
‘Message from the holding cells . . . Mr Calcutt wishes to speak to the senior investigating officer before he’s taken on remand.’
Henry looked blankly at the black-smocked man. ‘You mean the defendant, Calcutt?’ The other detectives had become silent.
‘Yes sir, his brief asked me to pass on the message.’
Henry squinted, then looked at Rik Dean. ‘You’re the man,’ he said. ‘Take one of the other guys with you. Your job, I’ll leave it with you.’
Henry strode out of the court and stood on the mezzanine. It had become brutally cold outside and he shivered as he slid himself into his Crombie. His first impulse had been to grab Rik and head down to the cells and see what was behind this turn-up for the books. But he would have been butting in. It was effectively Rik’s investigation and Henry was happy to leave it to him. He had been angling to get Rik on to the Force Major Investigation Team (FMIT), which he jointly headed, and it had taken some persuading to get the nod for Rik to run this investigation. Now that it had proved to be successful, Henry hoped he would be able to convince the chief constable that Rik should have a permanent position on the team. If something came out of speaking to Calcutt, then all the better.
He pulled out his mobile phone, switched it on, called home. ‘Has Karl landed yet?’ he asked Kate, his wife.
‘Just this minute pulled up outside.’
‘Great. Hey – see you soon. And we got a result here, by the way.’
‘Ooh, you are such a good detective,’ Kate cooed mockingly. Henry didn’t pick up on the lack of sincerity and said, ‘I am, aren’t I?’ without a trace of irony.
Flynn took the decision to avoid the Irish bar when he turned out late that afternoon, suspecting that an encounter with Janey might lead to complications he could well do to avoid. After showering and dressing in the tiny terraced villa he rented, he wandered back down to the harbour and trotted down the steps into one of the bars in the complex at the back of the beach itself, wearing his beloved Keith Richards T-shirt and three-quarter length pants. It was still early and quiet, but Flynn knew it was unlikely to get any busier. Many bars were struggling to survive in the economic downturn as tourists kept their own heads down and shied away from foreign holidays. This was one of Flynn’s regular haunts and had managed to keep going by providing bargain booze and inexpensive but good food. The manager smiled at Flynn’s arrival and immediately filled a half-litre glass with Estrella Damm, placing it in front of Flynn, together with a small plate of olives, as he nestled up to the bar. Flynn nodded and sipped the ice-cold beer.
‘You eating, Señor?’
Flynn had intended cooking the red snapper caught earlier by Hugo, but couldn’t be bothered. It was in the fridge, would keep until the day after.
‘I think so, Manny.’
A menu appeared in front of him as if by magic. Flynn chose paella for one, which he knew would take about twenty minutes to prepare. He slid off the bar stool and said, ‘I’ll eat outside.’ He took his beer and olives and walked to one of the tables on the decking erected over the sand.
It was still warm, twenty-eight degrees, and Flynn settled into one of the big, comfy chairs and soaked in the heat. He loved it. He had been out on the island for almost five years now and the pace of life, the people and the lifestyle had really taken a grip of him.
He took out his phone and tried, not for the first time, to return the call from Cathy James.
He waited patiently for the connection, but when it went through, the answering service cut in. His mouth warped with frustration. He placed the phone on the table, pulled his baseball cap down over his eyes and reached for the beer, wondering what the hell she could want.
She had sounded troubled and unhappy. Totally different to the last time Flynn had seen her.
That had been in October last year when she and her new husband, Tom James, had
come out to the island for their honeymoon. Flynn had been unable to get to the UK for the wedding, so he had tried to make amends by finding a villa for them – for free – and picking them up from the airport. He had also arranged a fishing trip and a jeep safari, both at no cost, and they seemed to have had a great time.
Flynn and Cathy went way back. He had met her when he joined Lancashire Constabulary after leaving the Marines over twenty years ago. They had been new recruits at the same intake, he being a bit older than her at twenty-three, she nineteen, shiny, straight out of the box, a bit naive, but extremely beautiful.
At the time she had been single and he’d been married. This hadn’t stopped them from becoming lovers for a very brief time, though ultimately they became just very good friends. As their careers moved off in separate directions, they kept in contact but hardly saw anything of each other in the years that followed. Flynn knew she got married and then divorced, while he had remained spliced until both his job and relationship went south and he ended up quitting the cops and taking up residence in Gran Canaria.
It was during the period he was under investigation that he re-established contact with Cathy. By then she was seriously into a relationship with a detective from Lancaster, who she married a few years later – hence the provision of a honeymoon by Flynn.
Flynn raised his eyes and looked across the beach, watching holidaymakers trudge through the gentle surf at the water’s edge.
He wondered if something had gone wrong with the marriage, Cathy’s second. Was that why she was calling him, wanting to talk? He hoped it was something much less complicated, but couldn’t guess what. He wasn’t a good counsellor, but a man of action who wasn’t anywhere near in touch with his feminine, touchy-feely listening side.
Cathy and Tom had seemed a perfect couple, but wasn’t that what honeymoon couples usually appeared to be? Flynn remembered discreetly watching her on the day he took them out fishing. She had been all goo-goo eyes for Tom, the new hubby. Couldn’t stop watching him, hanging on his every word. Flynn had actually felt some mixed emotions at that point.
First and foremost he was happy for Cathy. She had been through a bad time, had had a terrible first marriage, really been through the mangle. Then she’d found Tom, who on the face of it came across as a caring, generous guy, and she was head over heels in love with him. On the flip side, Flynn had felt a pang of envy. Not many months before he thought he had been on the verge of finding the love of his life, but had lost her tragically. The third side of the coin, if there was such a thing, was that Flynn also thought about what could have been with him and Cathy, had the timing been right. They had probably been in love, he thought, way back when – whatever love meant, he thought cynically. Maybe things would have been very different if both had been free to pursue their relationship beyond a fling at a police training centre. Instead, they had accepted that their only future was as mates.
Cathy – maybe, it seemed – had also harboured the same wistful idea. She had caught Flynn looking at her and sidled up to him, out of sight and earshot of Tom. She was down to a skimpy bikini and her body was still slim, yet plump in all the right places – just as Flynn remembered it all those years before. She gave him a loving hug and whispered into his ear, ‘Oh, what could have been.’
‘I reckon you’ve got a good man,’ Flynn said, trying to hide the rush of blood her proximity had given him.
‘Yeah, I have. He’s a good man, you’re right.’ She glanced over at Tom who was harnessed in the fighting chair, being attended to by Jose. Then her face turned to Flynn. ‘Thanks for this,’ she said.
‘It’s what friends are for.’
‘I just wish you were as happy.’
Flynn chortled. ‘One day I will be.’
‘Good. I hope so, Flynnie.’ She touched his face gently with her fingertips. ‘Always be there for you, y’know, y’ big lug.’
‘And me for you,’ he promised.
But then that little moment of tenderness was shattered by Jose’s booming Spanish-accented voice. ‘Big one, boss!’
Flynn looked up. Two hundred metres off the stern of the boat was almost certainly the biggest, and the last, blue marlin of the season, rolling magnificently through the waves. Flynn jumped into action and with his skill as the best skipper in the Canaries – something he rarely let Jose forget – took the bait to the fish and brought in a seven hundred pounder that had the newly married Tom fighting a battle that lasted almost two hours.
Halfway though the contest, Flynn had said to Cathy, ‘I hope you weren’t planning any conjugals tonight. After this I don’t think he’ll be able to lift a pint, let alone . . . you know.’
‘In that case he’ll have to lie there and take it – just like you used to do.’ Cathy laughed lustily and screamed with glee as the magnificent fish leapt a dozen feet out of the blue sea in an effort to shake loose the steel hook. Its muscular body writhed and twisted before it fell back into the water and dived deep into the ocean.
Flynn blinked himself back to the present day as his seafood paella arrived, decorated with pink langoustines, still in the shell. Flynn took one, burning his fingers, cracked open the hinged body to access the lovely white flesh within. With the assistance of another beer, he wolfed down the dish, then sat back to let it settle.
It was slightly cooler now, a breeze getting up, but still plenty warm to sit out, something rare in the UK, he thought, even in summer.
His mobile rang.
‘Steve Flynn.’
‘Flynnie . . . Flynnie . . . oh, thank God I got you.’
‘Cathy? What the heck’s going on? I tried to call you back loads of times. Are you all right, love?’
He heard her choke. ‘No, no, not really.’
‘What’s up then?’
‘Steve, can you come back? I know it’s a big ask . . . but I need to talk to you. I need a friend I can trust.’
‘Cathy, what is it?’
‘Look, I can’t talk over the phone. Steve, it’s Tom.’
‘Is he OK?’
‘Flynnie, I don’t know who to turn to.’
‘Cathy, what’s happening?’ he asked firmly.
‘I think . . . I know . . . oh, God . . .’
‘What do you know?’
‘Flynnie, I think Tom’s on the take.’ She paused. ‘I mean big style. He’s a bent cop.’
FOUR
It was one of those slightly potty middle-aged-man ideas that usually don’t get anywhere. A product of a conversation loosened by alcohol which no one took seriously at the time but which planted a seed and was remembered.
The main problems were of logistics, workload and opportunity.
Both men were horrendously busy.
Henry Christie, as joint head of FMIT, had many serious enquiries to oversee, committees and working parties to attend nationally and locally. All that in itself would have been fine if the world stood still, but it didn’t, it continued to revolve relentlessly. People did not stop murdering others; long-running investigations didn’t suddenly get cleared up and there was always some new initiative that needed the presence of someone at Henry’s rank to make it happen.
Karl Donaldson, Henry’s American friend, worked as an FBI legal attaché at the US embassy in London. He, too, was overwhelmed with work. Fundamentally he was an analyst and liaison officer, making and forging links between law enforcement agencies across Europe, from the UK to Russia. At the same time he often made forays into the field, sometimes finding himself in dangerous situations, whether coming face to face with a wanted terrorist or dealing with corrupt factions in his own organization.
The two men had first met over a dozen years before. Their paths had crossed when Donaldson, then a full-time FBI field agent, was investigating American mob activity in the north-west of England. Henry, then a detective sergeant, had encountered the Yank when an investigation he was pursuing became explosively intertwined with Donaldson’s. They had made friends hesitantly at fi
rst, but as their personal and professional lives continued to criss-cross over the years, they became good pals.
It also helped that Donaldson had met, fallen in love with and subsequently married a Lancashire policewoman. Even though she had subsequently transferred to the Metropolitan Police to be near Donaldson’s work in London, her northern connections often brought the both of them up past Watford regularly. His wife, Karen, also became good friends with Henry’s on-off-and-on wife, Kate.
A couple of months earlier, Donaldson had been in Lancashire on business – something hush-hush he could not even begin to reveal to Henry – and when it was completed he had stayed on at Henry’s for a couple of nights. On one of those nights, they had hit Henry’s local, the recently refurbished Tram & Tower.
They’d reminisced over a few pints, Donaldson becoming increasingly garrulous after his intake: he was a big man, six-four, as broad as a bear, but he couldn’t hold his drink. Anything over two pints and he started to lose control. Henry, on the other hand, raised in the seventies and eighties culture of the cops, always remained steady, although he didn’t actually drink much these days as he grew older.
‘Y’know, man,’ Donaldson slur-drawled in his soft American accent, ‘I love ya, man.’
They were seated in one of the newly constructed alcoves of the pub, chatting and paying passing attention to the newly introduced ‘Kwiz Nite’ hosted by the landlord, Ken Clayson.
Henry squinted at Donaldson’s revelation.
‘No, I mean, you’re a guy who’s always on the edge, but I kinda like that.’
‘Right.’ Henry drew out the word.
‘Hey! You thought about having any more kids?’
Now Henry screwed up his face. ‘That’s a resounding no.’
‘God, I can’t wait,’ Donaldson said, misty-eyed. He had – accidentally – made Karen pregnant but now he couldn’t wait to be a father again, even though they already had two kids who were just into their teens.
‘I’m too old, and so is Kate,’ Henry said. ‘We’ve only just got rid of the two daughters as it is – and they keep bouncing back like they’re on elastic bands. It’s chill time, pal.’