by Nick Oldham
Donaldson hugged his wife, then Alison and Ginny, who both felt as weak as twigs in his arms.
‘C’mon, Mum,’ Ginny said and took Alison’s arm to lead her away to bed. Both looked like pale ghosts, their eyes sunk deep in their sockets.
Alison shook her off and spoke to the American. ‘What do you know about the man who tried to kidnap Ginny? Some things must have come to light … I know horrible things have happened.’
‘We don’t know much,’ Donaldson admitted. ‘I think he’s military or ex-military, but those are my own thoughts.’ He saw Alison blink at this news and a strange look came over her features, a look he did not quite comprehend.
‘Any fingerprints? DNA?’ she asked.
‘There’s DNA from some things found in Ginny’s room. It’s been fast-tracked for analysis but that could take a few days. That’s just how it is,’ he shrugged off her look of disbelief.
‘Fingerprints?’
‘Some partial prints were lifted.’ He hesitated, not sure if it was his remit to tell her the result of that. ‘Rik should know in the morning,’ he decided to tell her.
Her mouth twisted unhappily.
‘How’s Henry?’ he asked.
She tried, but found she could not answer. ‘I … he … er …’
Ginny interjected for her. ‘He’s heavily sedated and we won’t know for a while.’
‘For sedated, read coma,’ Alison said bluntly.
‘Mum, we need to get you to bed. Let’s both get some sleep and then first thing we’ll go back to Preston.’
Alison nodded compliantly. She kissed Donaldson on the cheek and set off inside. Ginny paused by him. ‘I know this is a big ask, but would you sleep in our living room on the settee? It’s just …’
‘Yeah, sure I will,’ he said. ‘And I’ll lock up.’
‘We’ll feel safer,’ Ginny finished, hugged him and then followed Alison into the pub leaving Donaldson with Karen.
He complained, ‘I thought English villages were supposed to be idyllic.’
‘They are – until a vicious killer comes to town,’ Karen said.
‘Yeah,’ Donaldson said, turned and looked across the dark village green and the dark mass of woodland beyond the stream. ‘Where are you, you bastard, and who are you?’ he asked the night.
Donaldson locked the front doors of the pub, then walked slowly around the outside of the old part of the building with a torch, checking doors, windows and fire exits. The window in the gents’ toilet through which the intruder had entered had now been nailed shut from the inside, but even so he checked it thoroughly, giving it a good push and pull. Then he flicked off the torch and stepped into shadow by the building line, let his eyes adjust and simply stood there watching and listening wishing he had night-vision goggles to penetrate the darkness. He was sure that if the intruder was from the sort of background he believed him to be, then he would be armed with such basic equipment and could now very easily be observing Donaldson’s antics, maybe even with a rifle aimed at his heart.
Just in case he was, Donaldson gave him a middle finger.
Then, not having seen or heard anything untoward, he made his way to the front door, let himself in, checked everything internally, including the locked door to the new annexe. As all the bedrooms in there were empty, Donaldson made extra certain the door was secure because he thought the annexe was a weak spot.
Satisfied, he made his way into the owner’s accommodation where, hopefully, Alison and Ginny were now asleep.
He went into the lounge, dragged an armchair to the door and after making himself a coffee, he sat in the doorway so he had a view of the whole length of the corridor and the doors to the bedrooms opposite.
He was determined to keep awake until the two ladies surfaced in the morning, then he would catch up on his own sleep.
At that moment, Major Smith was still at his cramped desk in his office in Hereford.
Behind him, the door to his office safe was open, the safe empty, because the single A4 folder which it had contained was on his desk. It was marked ‘Top Secret’, as though stamping those words on it would deter anyone in possession of it from reading it.
Smith opened the folder and extracted the contents.
He adjusted his desk light and looked at the photograph of the man pinned to the top right-hand corner of the cover sheet.
The file was simply entitled, ‘Codename Stiletto’.
Smith actually did not need to read any of the contents. He knew them well.
With a dithering hand, he picked up his desk phone and dialled a London number which was etched in his brain.
THIRTEEN
‘He’s in exactly the same condition we left him,’ Alison said to Rik Dean and Karl Donaldson. She had been on the phone to the hospital for an update on Henry in the intensive-care unit. ‘If he remains stable they may move him to a ward … I dunno,’ she shrugged. She had managed three hours of restless sleep, but it had helped her achieve some balance.
It was seven a.m. She was in the dining room, talking to Rik and Donaldson. Rik was smearing his burned face with antiseptic cream.
From settling down, the night had been quiet, without incident and Donaldson had not slept in the chair and he did not want to even now, even though he knew he must.
‘We’re going to go back down to sit with him. We’ll use Ginny’s car seeing as Henry’s still has four flat tyres, but I’ve got a garage coming out to fix them this morning.’ She looked at Rik. ‘As I said, I’ll happily feed your staff for a couple of days. I’ve told chef what to do, but he will need to know numbers.’
‘I’ll keep him informed,’ Rik said. ‘And thanks.’
‘I’ve decided to keep the place open for business, though. It might sound mercenary but we can’t afford not to, so the pub’ll be open from now, as usual. I’ve left messages with staff and Anna will manage it.’ She sighed, almost wilted. ‘We’re setting off in a couple of minutes.’
‘I’ll get a car to follow you down,’ Rik offered.
She shook her head. ‘No, don’t, we’ll be fine … you need as many people up here as possible to find the man who almost took Ginny.’ Her voice cracked. ‘And killed Tod and your crime-scene man. He needs catching – and so does whoever forced Henry off the road.’ She looked challengingly at Rik. ‘I don’t envy you, because I’ll be harassing you every step of the way, you know?’
‘Yup. And I promise I will do everything in my power to get those results.’
She softened. ‘I know you will.’
‘Keep me informed about Henry, please,’ Rik asked. ‘There will be a police presence at the hospital, but I want to hear from you personally, OK? I’m still concerned that man is out there and he hasn’t finished what he started.’
She nodded. ‘We’ll be OK.’
They watched the two ladies drive away in Ginny’s battered Fiat Punto, then eyed each other.
‘You need sleep,’ Rik told Donaldson.
‘I’ll sleep when I’m dead,’ the American said. ‘I’ll be OK. I’m on drugs … well, caffeine at least.’
‘Did I say thanks for saving my life yesterday?’ Rik asked.
‘By using you as a human shield?’
‘That too.’
‘Yes – but you can say it again.’
There was an awkward moment, broken when they gave each other’s shoulder a manly punch. They would probably have embraced, but fortunately the first of a stream of police vehicles arrived on the car park next to the mobile incident room and Rik knew he had somehow to get his head around some serious deployments, PDQ.
Smith tried to avoid London if at all possible, but the nature of his job often brought him into the capital, which he despised, not only for its overcrowding and rudeness but also because of its sordid underbelly, an example of which he was about to meet.
To be fair, the morning was glorious and his journey down from Hereford to Watford, where he parked his car and caught a train into the city,
had been pleasant enough. He was now standing on Westminster Bridge close to the Victoria Embankment looking down the Thames at the London Eye on his right and Hungerford Bridge dead ahead. And the river looked well as he leaned on the railings. He turned around and looked up to the top of Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament, wondering how easy it would be to blow the whole lot to smithereens these days. Pretty easy, he assumed, for someone determined enough.
He watched the big hand move on to eight a.m. and the clock began to strike just as a rotund, small, suited man walked past him, tapped him on the shoulder and said, ‘With me.’
Smith dropped in a few steps behind and followed this man, who he believed to be called Jenkins, although this could be right or wrong, he did not know. What he did know was that this chubby, shadowy guy operated across all levels of the government, the security services, the military, and had the ear of the Prime Minister and several key members of the Cabinet.
He was a man who wielded power and influence and owned people’s lives.
Smith trudged behind him all the way up Whitehall, past Downing Street and up to Trafalgar Square (where Smith gave Nelson and his four lions a respectful nod), before Jenkins plunged into the crypt underneath the church of St Martins-in-the-Field where there was an excellent, fairly inexpensive underground cafe.
Smith inhaled the aroma of cooked breakfasts, ordered one and joined Jenkins at a table where he was already sipping his coffee, awaiting a full English.
Smith slid in across from him.
‘I like this place,’ Jenkins announced, looking up and around at the vaulted ceilings. ‘Just off the beaten track for the likes of us – and not too costly.’
‘Yeah,’ Smith said, ‘a crypt. Very appropriate.’
Their breakfasts arrived – service was always quick – and after they had buttered their toasts and forked a few mouthfuls of scrambled eggs into their mouths, Smith said, ‘You read the email?’
Jenkins nodded. ‘Stiletto has surfaced and is causing bloody mayhem by all accounts.’
‘You know more than me,’ Smith confessed.
‘I am connected,’ he smiled. ‘Lancashire Constabulary seem to be his hosts for the moment.’
‘OK … what are we going to do?’ Smith asked. Without enthusiasm he sliced a sausage and placed it in his mouth. He was very hungry but did not feel like eating.
‘You have his file?’
Smith reached into the rucksack he’d been carrying over his shoulder and extracted the folder he had removed from his safe. He slid it across to Jenkins who skim-read it whilst shovelling the food into his mouth with gusto, then pushed it back to Smith with his fingernails.
‘What has he done?’ Smith asked.
‘Bad, very bad things,’ Jenkins said and briefly explained.
‘And the people up in Lancashire, the cops, the public, they don’t know who or what they’re dealing with?’
‘Clueless,’ Jenkins said, slurping his coffee.
‘Then they need to know.’
Jenkins almost choked and his chubby face screwed up in horror at the thought. ‘I’m not sure they do.’
‘He’s killing people, Mr Jenkins.’
Jenkins gave a helpless, couldn’t care less shrug.
Smith pushed another section of sausage into his mouth and glared at this man.
‘There are people up there who need explanations,’ Smith insisted, ‘and now we know where he is we can take appropriate action.’
Jenkins still winced. He took a sip of his coffee and thought about things.
‘Actually, we might not be able to avoid having to make explanations,’ Smith persisted. ‘The very fact that his fingerprints and DNA are blocked on the system will ensure people up there will be knocking on your door, eventually.’
‘My door? I don’t think so … and why was he not wiped from this system anyway.’ He pointed his fork accusingly at Smith. ‘That’s a bit of an oversight, isn’t it?’
‘Whatever.’ Smith was not intimidated.
‘However, you may have a point.’ Jenkins started to mull things over. Smith could only speculate what the hell was going on in those twisted brain cells of his.
‘OK, first of all,’ he said at length, ‘a lid needs to be kept very firmly on this. People up there do need some form of explanation but not necessarily everything. We need to manage this situation, otherwise it will reflect badly on us and we do not want that. So,’ again he organized his thinking, ‘we tell them what they need to know, we offer them assistance, but ultimately we deal with the situation in our own way.’
Jenkins placed his fork down, pointed a stubby forefinger at Smith, cocked his thumb and said, ‘Bang!’
Smith sighed. ‘And how do you propose to do that?’
‘We will order people to comply. We will assist and direct the manhunt and we will conclude it for them in our way, then it will all be buried in the manner in which I am incredibly skilled. How many identities does Stiletto have? Five, six?’
‘Six.’ Smith said dully. Jenkins was referring to undercover identities.
‘Therefore the fallout, if any, will relate to one of those and we will come out of this with our shit shining, as we do.’
Smith’s face showed how unimpressed he was and how he fucking hated it. ‘Only if we get our hands on him first.’
‘That is something you and I shall ensure happens.’
‘We need people on the ground for that.’
Jenkins grinned like an overweight wolf. ‘It just so happens we have a team already operating “oop newerth”,’ he said, trying to emulate a Lancashire accent, ‘wherever the north is.’
‘What? What do you mean?’ Smith demanded. ‘What team?’
‘RedFour?’ Jenkins asked pointedly, still smiling. ‘Heard of that?’
Smith’s jaw rolled. Of course he’d heard of it, he’d once been part of it, as Jenkins knew well.
Rik Dean sat in the mobile incident room and looked at the dry wipe board on the wall on which he had brainstormed his split investigative strategy. He took a photo of it with his smartphone just in case some vital part was accidentally erased by some numbskull.
He had decided to go for two approaches.
With regard to the attempted abduction of Ginny and the subsequent deaths, a forensic team was still working the crime scene in the woods, and a search team under the direction of an experienced Ops inspector, coupled with the local mountain-rescue team and several firearms officers, was just beginning a structured search of the area surrounding the blast and killing area.
Fewer resources were being used in regard to the incident involving Henry Christie, but a forensic team was at the crash point and a crane was en route, provided by a local company, to lift the Navara out of the river and onto a recovery truck.
A couple of pairs of detectives were canvassing the inhabitants of the village to find if anyone had seen anyone or anything mysterious or out of the ordinary recently.
The two bodies from the woods – Tod and the CSI – which were still in situ would be taken to the mortuary at the infirmary in Lancaster where post-mortem examinations were scheduled to be carried out later in the afternoon. Tod’s dog, Nursey, was also being taken there for that purpose. Jake Niven had already spent time with Tod’s parents, who lived in Thornwell, the next village along. Karl Donaldson had volunteered to tag along with him, having been the one to find Tod’s body.
Everybody was ‘out doing’ and Rik was looking at his newly acquired A4 notepad, which would become the murder book, a document required to be kept by every SIO on a murder investigation. He only hoped that he would not have to start a second book for Henry Christie.
He had already written quite a lot. From the moment Henry had been assaulted in the car park, to Ginny’s attempted abduction, to Donaldson out for a run and encountering Tod’s body; then his own visit to the scene and the next incident and killing. At the top of the first page, as ever, he had scribbled his favourite, ‘5WH’,
and then under that, ‘Victim/Location/Offender’, then the old murder enquiry chestnut, ‘Find out how they lived, find out why they died.’ All good principles to be constantly reminded of, but he did believe that the inciting incident in all this, the key to it, was the attempted kidnapping. He knew this was the crux and the killings were just very bad luck.
He re-read all his words, then tapped his forehead with his knuckles. ‘C’mon, mate, wake up,’ he told himself.
His phone rang. It was the chief constable’s office.
‘Detective Superintendent Dean, can I help you?’ he answered in his most businesslike manner, but did not do what Henry Christie had often done in similar circumstances: stand to attention and salute.
Her hands were in front of her, palms together as though in prayer, her fingertips under her chin as she whispered, ‘Come on, my love, pull through this … We’ve got a wedding to arrange, if you remember … I know it sounds selfish, but I don’t want to go on without you … I love you so much …’
Henry did not stir.
He looked beyond a mess. His head was almost twice the size it should have been, his face horribly bruised and cut. A drain ran from his skull into a plastic bottle rigged to the side of the bed. He had three cannulas in his arms, two tapped into the backs of his hands, one on an inner elbow, feeding something into him from saline to morphine and vitamins. He was also connected to a device monitoring his vital signs, including brain activity.
His blood pressure was verging on worryingly low, his heartrate just acceptable.
‘So much,’ Alison whispered.
They were in a single room off the intensive-care unit, but staff were making him ready for a transfer to the critical-care unit.
Space had to be made.
Others would need to come in after him.
He was in the sausage machine that was the NHS.
Ginny came in bearing two mugs of tea provided by the nursing staff.
‘Anything?’ she asked. She had only been away five minutes.