Bad Blood

by Nick Oldham

  ‘On what charge?’

  ‘Oh, I thought I’d said. Failing to provide details. Did I not make myself clear?’ Jake said. His tone of voice was beginning to lose its pleasant edge. ‘Plus I think this vehicle’ – he pointed to one of the Range Rovers – ‘was involved in a serious road-traffic accident.’

  ‘Utter cock,’ the man said. ‘What makes you say that?’

  Jake was about to respond when he heard Rik Dean behind him say, ‘Jake, what’s going on here?’

  Rik, plus his two shady mates, Jenkins and Smith, were approaching him.

  ‘I’m just trying to elicit details of these men in relation to a car accident I’m dealing with, boss,’ he said, arching his eyebrows. ‘You know the one I mean … but they’re being awkward.’

  Jenkins said to Rik, ‘Call off your bloodhound, Superintendent.’

  ‘He’s investigating a serious accident involving a retired police officer. I’m sure he’s just doing his job.’

  ‘His job does not include these men,’ Jenkins said. ‘Pull him off.’

  Rik jerked his thumb at Jake, who physically backed off, confused.

  Jenkins nodded at the two men, who climbed into the Range Rovers and started the engines, which growled like lions.

  Jenkins nodded haughtily at Rik, then strutted away with Smith in tow.

  Rik sidled up to the unhappy Jake. He was just as unhappy.

  ‘Hope you don’t mind me asking, boss, but what was that all about?’

  ‘Spooks and assassins,’ Rik said.

  ‘The guy in the suit being the spook,’ Jake guessed.

  ‘And the other guy being the assassin,’ Rik concluded. ‘Secrets and lies, and perversion of justice, but don’t get me started,’ he muttered. ‘And anyway, why were you talking to the Mitchell brothers?’ he asked, making reference to a pair of roguish brothers from a TV soap opera.

  ‘I think they were involved in Henry’s so-called accident.’

  ‘Clutching at straws?’ Rik asked.

  ‘No,’ Jake said with certainty. ‘If you’ve got a second …’

  He beckoned Rik to accompany him to his Land Rover where he took something from the front seat.

  ‘Couple of things.’ Jake took out his mobile phone and opened the photo file. The last dozen pictures were of the two black Range Rovers, but predominantly one of them, the one with evidence of damage on the front bumper. He let Rik slide through these, then showed him what he had just taken from the front seat of his car. ‘I took the photos and also took the liberty of taking paint samples from the front bumper. Black, of course, but also some flecks of white paint, the colour of Alison’s Navara.’

  He then handed Rik a clear, sealed evidence bag containing the shavings he’d pared off the car, black, white and undercoat.

  ‘I’m no scientist, but I do know black paint was on the back of the Navara and on the road. I’ll bet it matches. And not only that …’ He reached back into the car and pulled out another evidence envelope containing some tiny cubes of broken glass. ‘The front nearside fog lamp was broken. I took this sample from the Range Rover. There were bits of broken glass on the road where Henry went over the edge like this. Forensic will match it, I’m certain.’

  ‘Shit,’ Rik said.

  ‘For certain it’s the one that forced Henry off the road.’

  ‘Have you checked it on PNC?’

  ‘Yep – blocked.’

  ‘Oh, what a surprise … What the hell had Henry got himself into?’

  Jake shrugged. ‘Dunno. I can only assume Lord Chalmers is involved somewhere along the line, but he’s proving to be elusive, which is a sign itself. Look, boss,’ he said plaintively, ‘I don’t know who those guys are but they’re clearly a nasty bunch. They must know Henry is still alive – unwell, but alive – and if they do want him dead for some reason we haven’t yet worked out, he’s a bit of a sitting duck.’

  ‘And talking of Henry, how was he?’

  They reconvened at the Travelodge located on the M6 services south of Lancaster. The hotel was itself on the northbound side of the services, historically known as Forton Services, now renamed as Lancaster Services so travellers knew exactly where they were in the world. To access the hotel travelling south, they exited onto the southbound side, then drove across the motorway bridge.

  They gathered in one of the small conference rooms.

  Jenkins glowered at the men who had been driving the Range Rovers.

  ‘Fucking idiots,’ he blasted. ‘Do not make the mistake of thinking the cops up here are hillbillies. They’re professionals, supposedly just like you,’ he said with contempt. ‘And if we don’t watch it, they’ll have you.’

  ‘Us, don’t you mean?’ one of them said. His name was Sandy Barnes.

  ‘No, I mean you,’ Jenkins retorted. ‘You told me there were no witnesses.’

  ‘We were pretty sure the guy was dead. We had to pull out because another car was coming.’

  ‘Pretty sure? Don’t guys like you ensure things like that?’ He shook his head. ‘Fucking mess. We’ve got a nutter on the loose, who, incidentally, we need to eliminate and there’s another witness still alive on a completely different issue …’

  ‘Who we need to eliminate,’ volunteered the other man, Dave Beck.

  ‘Not only that,’ Jenkins said, ‘we still haven’t recovered what you went up there for in the first place!’

  ‘We can’t find the plane,’ Barnes whined. ‘We’re sure it came down, it must have, we shot the fuck out of it, but those are fucking big moors for just a handful of us to search … someone’ll find it.’

  ‘We need to be the ones to find it,’ Jenkins corrected him. ‘Not some other random fuckwit.’

  ‘I have an idea,’ Smith ventured. He’d been silent up to this point. They looked at him. ‘I know we’ve had a few guys helping out with the searches for Stiletto, but why don’t we organize a search-and-find operation of our own? Get our own resources in, scramble people and control it … no friggin’ mountain-rescue people. Just us and do it under the guise of a training exercise. I can mobilize fifty men in two days.’

  ‘Two days! Fuck me,’ Jenkins said. ‘The plane will be broken up and sold for scrap by that time.’ He relented. ‘OK, OK, it’s a plan.’

  ‘There’s an exercise in the Beacons now. I’ll just relocate it.’

  ‘Do it,’ Jenkins said and considered the two other men. ‘And in the meantime, cover your tracks and kill that fucker in the hospital bed. That can’t be too hard, can it? You walk in, put two bullets in his brain and then walk out. Hey presto! Then at least that side of it is locked down.’

  Karl Donaldson sat by Henry Christie’s bedside, having taken over the reins from Lisa. It was late in the day.

  He had his laptop on his knee, trying to catch up with some of his own work as much as he could. Although his bosses had given him permission to help out, they were now getting twitchy, not least because a new terror cell had been identified in Brussels and they wanted him to start delving into possible US connections and threats. He had stalled and they understood, but he also understood his work was elsewhere, even if his heart and soul were up in Lancashire at the moment.

  At least he could do some of his work via his laptop, just enough to appease the powers that be for at least another day.

  Donaldson had enjoyed his catch-up with Henry on Rik Dean’s wedding day, during which he and the ex-detective had a rare heart-to-heart about the future and what it held for them both. For Henry it was with Alison and Ginny and the Tawny Owl, and of course his two daughters, Jenny and Leanne, both of whom led very independent lives now. Henry hadn’t left them behind and he confessed that being apart from them was very tough for him, but that he thought about them all the time and had learned to use Skype. Both understood he had to push on with his life now that Kate had gone.

  In turn Donaldson had told Henry about his possible plans to relocate back to the US. He’d had a good innings as a legal at
taché in London and loved it, but staff were always being trimmed and he thought he might be better off back in the States. It meant uprooting his family. Karen was up for it, but the children less so. They were in their teens and had a lot of friends they didn’t want to leave.

  It had been a good chat with an old friend and had been interrupted by Rik Dean, who had also now become an old pal. The three of them had been involved on a few cases over the years.

  Donaldson accessed the FBI database via a special satellite link and clicked his way through a series of firewalls before arriving at his own desktop.

  Discreetly he slightly adjusted the cordless, almost invisible earpiece tucked into his left ear.

  Then he clicked the transmission button connected to the tiny microphone on his collar, acknowledging a contact call.

  He was ready.

  Rik Dean looked at the floor plan of Royal Preston Hospital and counted the number of green-arrowed entrance signs. He made it eighteen. Eighteen official ways in and out of a vast complex. Far too many to cover effectively.

  The critical-care unit, where Henry had been admitted, was on the corridor known as Grey Street, on the lower ground floor, and could be accessed easily by anyone who knew the hospital layout and, like Rik, had a map he had downloaded from the internet.

  Therefore sixteen entrances had not been covered, just the one off the car park outside the Rosemere Cancer Centre, which was further down the corridor from the CCU. The main entrance was also being covered, and that was it. All other resources were inconspicuously deployed in strategic positions close to the CCU itself.

  Rik was sitting in the rear of a plain operations van the size of a personnel carrier but without windows and kitted out with an array of communications technology to run ops ‘on plot’. The van was parked at the far end of the car park of Booths Supermarket opposite the hospital on Sharoe Green Lane.

  Rik was with a firearms inspector, who was hands-on running the op, as well as Jake Niven.

  Eight authorized firearms officers were deployed inside the hospital, secreted in various rooms but all kitted out in their uniforms consisting of dark-blue overalls, boots, ballistic vests and caps, all armed with H&K machine pistols and Glock handguns as well as tasers and the usual other accoutrements. There was no way Rik wanted any confusion about this. If they ended up challenging anybody, that person or persons had to know 100 per cent they were being confronted by an armed police officer who would shoot if necessary. The days of plain-clothed firearms officers were largely consigned to the past.

  The comms van had four computer monitors being closely watched by a trained firearms support staff member. They were linked into the CCTV system within the hospital and each screen was split into four frames giving various views of car parks and hospital corridors, in particular, Grey Street.

  Everything that was being seen or listened to was also being transmitted to the contact centre at headquarters control room, where the deputy chief constable was overseeing this operation – Gold Command – which he had also authorized.

  Normally it would have required total concentration to watch all the images but as it was almost midnight the hospital was quiet, the only busy part being the emergency department which, as ever, was buzzing. Most corridors were deserted, just an occasional nurse walking along.

  ‘This is just a one-off,’ Rik said.

  ‘I know, boss,’ Jake Niven replied.

  The operation had been his brainchild. Putting himself into the shoes of Henry’s would-be killer, Rik supposed that if he were them and there was still a chance of killing Henry (for whatever reason that might be), he would go for it sooner rather than later. Henry was connected to a lot of tubes and wires, hadn’t regained consciousness to finger them, and presented an easy target, not least because he couldn’t move.

  That was Jake’s thinking.

  ‘And if we catch them in the act, then they’ve got no wriggle room,’ he said, ‘and that way we start to find out why Henry is a target, unravel it all.’

  Rik had gone for it, as had the deputy chief.

  But – just as a one-off.

  Running an armed police operation in a hospital was very contentious and hazardous and the police were nervous about it.

  ‘Think they’ll come?’ Rik asked.

  ‘Certain,’ Jake said.

  ‘Why so confident?’

  ‘Because I saw it in their eyes.’

  ‘Anything?’

  It was an hour later and so far there had been nothing suspicious on the move. The question was asked by Jake of the guy monitoring the screens and radio channel. Jake already knew the answer.

  ‘No,’ the man replied. Jake had learned his first name was Trevor.

  Jake leaned over his shoulder, scanned the screens.

  ‘Getting late,’ Rik Dean said and stretched wearily. He’d been sitting cramped up in a chair with his laptop on his knee, putting together a completely new investigative strategy – again. There was so much going on it was almost blowing his mind, not least the refusal of the man from the ministry to cough up details of the killer.

  But Rik was determined to crush eggs into his face, whatever his name was.

  And stick two fingers up the backside of national security.

  He would relentlessly hunt the man down and then, maybe, go away on honeymoon.

  ‘I’m off for a stroll,’ Jake announced. ‘Through the hospital.’

  ‘Got your PR?’ Rik asked.

  ‘Yep.’

  Jake slipped out of the rear doors and headed towards the hospital, crossing the road, then the main hospital car park, and entered the complex, not really having a plan, but trying to put himself into the minds of the men who might want to kill Henry Christie.

  If they were going to come, how would they achieve it?

  They would guess or know that Henry was likely to have some sort of guard and a full-on approach might not be the best option, but once they reached Henry’s room it would be a different matter: the gloves would come off and they would blast away to their hearts’ content.

  So they would want to get in unnoticed, do the job, then get out as quickly as possible.

  Jake took his downloaded copy of the RPH floorplan from his back jeans pocket as he stood in the main reception foyer. The corridor directly ahead, Blue Street, led to various departments and to the lifts or stairs which either went up to the general medical wards or down to the CCU and the Rosemere Centre.

  To his right, Red Street, the corridor led to the emergency department.

  Jake sighed.

  If it was him … he would certainly want to be in and out as quickly as possible, and just on the off-chance of being blown out on the way in, he would want to be as incognito as possible – which did not include wearing the clothes he had seen the guys in before, the windcheaters and jeans.

  He would want some form of camouflage.

  ‘Anything?’ he asked over his PR.

  ‘Negative,’ Trevor replied.

  ‘Roger. Anything from anyone?’

  He received negative responses.

  They weren’t going to come, he thought.

  He set off along Blue Street, walking past the Day Care Unit, then Medical Illustration, passing through the crossroads with Green Street and ending up where the corridor widened and the lifts and stairs were located.

  Nothing remotely suspicious.

  It would be a quick job, he thought again.

  In, do, out.

  He’d already decided that.

  Suddenly he felt naked without a gun. He had spent a lot of years as an authorized firearms officer on the response vehicle, armed every working day, until it had all gone wrong in such a dramatic fashion: the stupid affair with a colleague, the robbery in the jeweller’s Anna got caught up in, and him having to shoot someone, take a life, and also lose his best friend who was gunned down in the same horrific incident. Henry Christie had saved his life and his marriage and those days were still with
Jake many months later. He wondered if he would ever shake them off.

  It meant he was no longer a firearms officer, and never would be again, but he did miss the feel of a gun and to have one at his waist just now would have been like a dummy with a baby. Reassuring.

  He took the stairs down one level, lower ground floor, Grey Street. The cancer centre was at the far end, but before that was the CT scanner unit and the CCU, plus the reception area for the operating theatres on this level.

  He looked along the corridor. All clear.

  ‘Anything?’ he asked again over the PR. ‘Negative, PC Niven,’ Trevor replied tersely.

  ‘And fuck you, Trev,’ Jake thought.

  Beside him, the lift doors opened.

  Jake stood to one side as two green-coated porters manoeuvred a trolley with a patient on board, linked to a drip.

  They crashed the contraption a couple of times against the doors, but managed to straighten it up and push it towards theatre reception, the entrance to which was almost opposite the CCU.

  Jake watched, uninterested – until two things clicked into place.

  The porters were not very skilled at controlling the trolley.

  Neither man had looked directly at Jake.

  But then one peeked over his shoulder at the same time as Jake glanced into the lift from which they had just emerged and saw two crumpled bodies just in the second before the doors clamped shut.

  ‘They’re here,’ Jake said coolly over his PR. ‘Grey Street, approaching CCU, masquerading as hospital porters dressed in green, shoving a trolley.’ He said that as he started to run and pick up pace.

  The two men reacted.

  The one actually pushing the trolley heaved it away from himself, sending it careening down the corridor, bouncing off the walls. He spun to Jake at the same time who saw the pistol in his right hand and also recognized him as the driver of the damaged Range Rover.

  Jake threw himself to one side as the gun fired.

  The other guy zig-zagged across the width of the corridor into the CCU as the one who had fired at Jake came back for him, gun held in both hands, moving quickly towards Jake in a combat stance.