by Nick Oldham
After dealing so publicly with Jacky Lee, he had contacted his masters in Russia to report back. They were very pleased. Before he could tell them he was going to have a short break, he was instructed to get to Paris as soon as possible. He was given sketchy details of where and what the job entailed, and told that he would be properly briefed on his arrival in the city. He almost refused, but the lure of a quarter of a million dollars and the assurance that it would be a simple, straightforward hit swung it.
Which is how he came to be at Manchester Airport. If he had to travel by air, he chose provincial airports where appropriate.
In just over ninety minutes he would be in Paris.
Eight hours after that, he expected to be on a train heading south.
He laid out the newspaper on his knees, thought back to the Jacky Lee assassination.
It had gone well. Publicly as requested. Everything had slotted neatly into place. Timings, everything. The Russian closed his eyes and tilted his head back, working through the scenario moment by moment. Then his forehead furrowed. His heart blipped. Something had not gone quite right — but he could not place his finger on exactly what.
His brain rewound. He went through it all again. Pulling up, entering the transport cafe, seeing Lee, killing Lee, the getaway… the tense moment when Lee’s business partner pointed a gun at the speeding car but did not fire… then he was away. The car had been destroyed. All very smooth.
Except for… he wracked his brains. Two things now. Yes, the more he thought deeply about it, why didn’t Lee’s partner shoot? The Russian found that very suspicious. And the stance the man had taken with the gun. A professional stance. The Russian opened his eyes. Maybe the guy had been a cop!
‘ British Airways flight to Paris, now boarding at Gate 21,’ came the Tannoy announcement.
It was a possibility. The Russian folded his newspaper and joined the quickly formed queue.
As he handed over his boarding card, that other niggle, the one he could not quite pinpoint came to him in a sickening lurch. It had been the moment in the transport cafe when he had warned off Jacky Lee’s friend.
‘ Stop — get back!’ he had warned.
No problem in that, except for one thing. In the heat of the battle he had reverted for a split second to his mother tongue. He had uttered the words in Russian.
‘ Thank you,’ he said politely, taking back the boarding card minus the stub from the steward.
He cursed inwardly. Slips like that could become fatal ones.
It would never happen again.
Danny glanced up from the work on her desk and blinked. Her mouth fell open, stunned. For a fleeting moment, she hardly recognised Henry.
For a start, his hair had been trimmed very closely to his skull. Maybe a ‘number two’, at the very least a ‘number three’ cut. He was unshaven and the stubble was probably three days old. His eyes looked tired and a little sunken. Lots of late nights, possibly. He was slimmer and trimmer than he had ever been. The paunch had all but gone and his upper chest and shoulders were broader and firmer, like he’d been pumping iron. With a light tan, too. His leather-look reefer jacket was slung casually over his shoulder, he was wearing a pale blue pique polo shirt and twin-pleated Chinos in slate with black, plain-fronted Doc Martens completing the effect.
Danny gulped in admiration. He looked dynamite and she experienced a little thrill of pleasure deep down.
‘ The spy who came in from the cold,’ she gasped.
‘ Danny,’ he nodded with a boy-like grin, ‘how’s it going?’
‘ Ultra-busy as usual.’
‘ I’m just on my way home. Thought I’d pop in on the way.’
She allowed her eyes to traverse him from head to toe. ‘You look good,’ she said hoarsely, approvingly.
‘ You too. Slim.’
There was a moment of silence.
‘ Hey, Henry, how the hell are you?’ a detective called from across the office.
Henry gave a short wave. ‘Good.’ His eyes returned to Danny. ‘Time for a brew? Chat?’
‘ How about some animal-like sex?’ she wanted to ask, but restrained her thoughts. ‘Yeah, definitely.’ She grabbed her PR and followed Henry up the stairs to the dining room, her eyes at his butt-level. She could not help but noticing that it looked tight, good enough to sink her teeth into.
Two planes taxied in tandem out to the runway. The Paris flight, followed by the Lisbon one. They were in the air within a minute of each other, only a few miles separating them as they cut south through British airspace.
The Russian relaxed, prepared himself for a quick in-flight snack. He had now carried out his internal debrief on the Lee killing and put his mistake behind him. There was no point in dwelling on it. It was doubtful whether there would be any consequence from it. He adjusted his mind to the next task and beyond that to what would definitely be a holiday.
In the plane a few miles behind, the figure of Billy Crane was also relaxed. He too had considered the last few days of his life and was pretty pleased about the way it had panned out. He was sure his stay in Lancashire had gone unreported to the cops and he was not particularly worried that he would be caught for the killings. He was confident of Don Smith’s abilities to plug holes wherever necessary. Crane was now mulling over Colin Hodge’s proposition, wondering how — or if — he was going to progress it or not.
If things checked out, the probable answer would be yes.
That said, the timescale was very tight. According to Hodge, the next such collection was only three weeks away. To pull it all together and execute it in twenty-one days would be a real tester. Things would have to move very quickly indeed.
Of course, fifty million pounds — if that was to be believed — was a very effective motivator.
He smiled at the stewardess when she offered him a drink. He caught a glint in her eye and he thought that maybe the stopover in Lisbon could be very interesting.
‘ The story was that you were drafted on to some hush-hush HQ project, that you couldn’t be contacted directly and anything for you should be channelled through FB’s office,’ Danny explained. She felt absolutely wonderful to be sitting so close to Henry, their knees touching under the table. She had missed him so much it physically hurt her; she wanted him so much, that hurt too. Yet she was acutely aware of her last encounter with a married man that had ended very messily indeed.
‘ Yeah, I know,’ Henry said. He sounded distracted, but brought himself back on line. ‘Truth is, I’ve been working undercover. I can’t tell you the details, but it ended somewhat shit-shaped, to say the least.’
‘ So you’re back then, are you?’ Danny tried to keep the hope out of her voice.
‘ No, not exactly. Just a few days’ break, then I go back U/C.’ He ran a hand down his tired face, then interlocked his fingers in front of him. Danny touched the back of his hand with the tip of her forefinger. A tingle shimmied down her spine.
‘ You look tired.’
Again, Henry’s mind had wandered. Danny could see he wasn’t concentrating totally on her. It miffed her a little. Then his eyes focused. ‘Danny,’ he said with a click of his tongue, ‘can I bounce something off you — you being a close friend?’
A close friend! ‘Yes, sure.’
‘ Me and Kate parted on acrimonious terms. She was dead against me going back to Crime Squad work…’ He then related his sorry tale of woe. Danny listened intently and offered advice from her perspective, much against what she was really feeling. What she wanted to say was, ‘Ditch the bitch and hop into my sack.’ She didn’t, hid her disappointment and tried to give Henry some options. It was obvious he did not see Danny as a possible; he was too deeply in love with Kate and very distraught by his marital predicament.
‘ I just seem to cock it up all the time,’ he whined. ‘If it’s not my pants coming off, it’s work. I’m such a selfish bastard. Sometimes I think I should jack the job in, buy a newsagent’s or an off-licence, or so
mething and live over the business, then I’d be really tied down.’
‘ Bad idea. If nothing else, you’re too good a cop for that, Henry.’
The two planes remained in tandem until the Paris flight veered east, whilst the Lisbon flight continued to fly almost due south. No one on either of the flights knew anyone on the other flight and although the two planes were never near to a collision, the two men, Crane and the Russian, were soon to be on a personal collision course which would end in bloody violence.
‘ Danny?’ A Detective Constable literally swung into the canteen on the upright door jamb, looking very excited. ‘ Got a good ‘un. Three bodies in a vehicle inspection pit — and they didn’t get into it willingly. Can you turn out and cover the scene? Like I said, looks a cracker.’
‘ Be right there.’ She looked at Henry, desperate to kiss him.
‘ Duty calls.’
‘ Want me to come?’
‘ Nah, I’m a big girl now. You go home and take my advice — give Kate an old-fashioned night of passion, OK? It works wonders, the orgasm. It does with me, anyway…’
Chapter Eight
The flattening of the rank structure in the police service, together with the philosophy (some say misguided) of pushing more and more responsibility downwards, means that quite often the most senior rank available to attend serious incidents is a Sergeant. As Danny alighted from the CID car, she was aware that the eyes of all the Constables were on her because she was top banana at the scene. The situation did not faze her. Firstly because she had a lot of years’ experience behind her and could bullshit her way through anything; secondly because sooner or later the job would be taken away from her as higher-ranking detectives started to crawl out of the woodwork and the SIO team leaped into action.
What she had to do was ensure the scene was managed properly, that evidence was preserved — and not destroyed by a procession of size 10’s — that everything was properly documented and she didn’t show her arse.
She scrunched out the cigarette she had been smoking, took things slowly and made sure her eager beaver detectives did not rush her.
Firstly she looked at the outside of the premises.
It was a garage. One of those one- or two-man operations found in back streets or on small industrial estates and the like. Peter’s Motor’s was the miss-spelt name on the hand-painted sign. There was one big sliding door — closed — next to which was a normalsized door — open. Adjacent to the building was a small tarmacked area with a sign, again hand-painted, which read MOT/Repair’s only. A couple of old bangers were parked thereon.
Danny was already beginning to draw conclusions about the sort of person she expected this Peter, the owner of Peter’s Motor’s, would be.
A uniformed Constable stood by the door, clipboard in hand, logging the comings and goings. A DC told her that this particular officer had been first on the scene. She approached him, listened, asked a few questions, probed deeper on some issues and told him what a good job he had done. He appeared suitably pleased.
Danny entered the garage after skim-reading the officer’s log.
She was glad that neither a pathologist nor scientific support had yet landed on the scene. Not that their input and observations weren’t crucial. It was just that they were becoming increasingly a pain as more and more films and books appeared portraying them as detectives; they all wanted to solve the crimes these days, were always coming up with theories — usually wrong or just misguided — and were sometimes convinced they had more investigative skills than real detectives.
Time spent simply observing a scene, drawing conclusions and hypotheses, was invaluable to a detective. And the more people there were crawling round, the harder that was to do.
Danny stood inside the threshold, took a deep breath, used her eyes.
It was not a big garage, but was divided into three distinct areas. To her right were two hydraulic run-on car ramps, one straddling an inspection pit. From where she stood she could not see into the pit and did not want to — yet. The next section of the garage was an area of concrete long and wide enough to fit a car on comfortably; beyond that a massive sheet of polythene hung down from the roof like a huge curtain, dividing off the third section of the garage. Danny guessed this was the paint shop. She winced when she thought about the quality of resprays done in there. Hardly a clinical environment.
Immediately to her left was a door marked Storeroom. In front of her was a rickety wooden staircase leading up to an office above the store. She could hear voices and movement up there. She ignored that and looked around the garage again. It was a typical backstreet set-up. Tools scattered around. Cutting and welding gear. Tyre-repair equipment. Oily floors. A dirty sink. A kettle and grubby cups. An old radio with a circular tuning dial. Overalls hung up on hooks. Copies of the Sun on a work-bench. A disgusting four-year-old calendar on the wall.
And a vehicle inspection pit.
Two chairs were set near to it, one with a puddle on it, the other smeared with what was obviously excrement. A metal pipe lay discarded on the floor, next to the chairs. Two planks of wood had been placed parallel to the pit, one lying on top of the other.
Think evidence preservation, Danny instructed herself.
She had been informed there were three bodies in the pit, all with head wounds, probably caused by a firearm. The oily floor surrounding the pit — surely a health and safety hazard — had shoeprints in it. They could be vital. Danny wondered if she really needed to go and look into the pit at this stage of the game and risk ruining evidence. Obviously police officers had been to peer in prior to her arrival, so did she really need to add her footprints as well?
As senior officer on the scene, she decided she did. She bit her bottom lip, considering how best to do this without destroying evidence.
In the end she decided that no one else who was not essential to the investigation would enter the premises. Bobbies were nosy by nature, but they would have to be kept at bay. Secondly, she would indicate a route to the edge of the vehicle inspection pit which everyone would use until all the necessary surrounding evidence had been lifted.
She leaned back out of the door and spoke to the PC who was acting as doorman. ‘No one else comes in here, Tom. My orders — no one. Got that?’ He nodded. ‘Go to the CID car and get that roll of cordon tape from the passenger footwell, please.’
Danny decided on the route to the pit — a straight line from the door which she marked by laying two lengths of cordon tape parallel to each other on the floor, about a foot apart. When the path was marked she walked down it and peered into the dark pit which was about four and a half feet deep.
Her eyes closed momentarily. ‘Oh, Cheryl,’ she said sadly, ‘just what I feared. Shit!’ She shuddered a deep sigh of revulsion and squatted down on her haunches, spending several quiet minutes in that position, gazing down at the three bodies lying one on top of another. Initially she had been looking through sheer fascination, then her detective mind clicked in and took her on to analysis and evidence.
‘ Hell of a sight for a woman to see,’ a voice said behind her. Danny recognised the dulcet tones of Dave Seymour, one of the detectives on her team. He was very close to retirement, had been on CID for most of his service and was one of the most persuasive arguments for disbanding the whole department. He was everything that was bad about the CID: overweight, sexist, racist, homophobic, narrow-minded and difficult to supervise. Henry Christie could get Seymour eating out of his hand; Danny, however, had a lot to prove to Seymour and the biggest hurdle she faced was that she was a woman. And women should not be detectives, particularly not Detective Sergeants — at least, as far as Seymour was concerned. ‘Let’ em do what they’re good at,’ he often said. ‘Looking after kids and brewing up.’
Danny rose to her feet and noticed Seymour was standing outside the path margins. She knew, however, he had been up in the office talking to the garage proprietor, Peter Maynard. Danny scanned Seymour. In respo
nse to his opening remark, she said, ‘Yes, Dave, you are a hell of a sight, but you’ve got to make the best of what God gives you.’
Seymour’s mouth dropped. ‘I didn’t mean that.’
‘ I know you didn’t, sweetheart.’ She gave him a triumphant grin, then indicated the cordon tape. ‘This is the route to the scene from the door, Dave. For the time being, until somebody tells us different, that’s what we’ll all keep to. What does the owner have to say?’
‘ Denies all knowledge, as he would. Says no one but himself has keys to the place and he doesn’t recognise any of the deceased.’
‘ Do you believe him?’
‘ No. First of all, there’s no sign of a forced entry, which tells me the place was either left open, or someone does have the keys. Secondly, he’s a fly bastard — but he’s very, very nervous.’
‘ As he should be… he’s our first suspect. Let’s speak to him in the five-star comfort of the copshop.’ Danny raised her eyebrows, then had a thought. Her original intention had been to take Peter down to the station. That, however, presented problems in terms of dealing with him thoroughly. If he was not under arrest, he had the right to get up and walk away at any point if he so wished. It would be better if he was arrested. That way he couldn’t go anywhere, and it gave the police more powers to search and seize evidence, including bodily fluids and tissue — which might be a good idea. ‘Lock him up,’ she told Seymour.
‘ Will do.’ He made his way back up the rickety wooden staircase to the office. It creaked under his weight.
Danny mulled over what she had got so far; pretty soon she would have to be briefing senior officers.
Three bodies in a vehicle inspection pit. All naked, with apparent gunshot wounds to the head. Two of the deceased known to Danny. Local thieves and druggies, and Cheryl a failed drug importer. The third body was that of an unidentified male, maybe late forties.