by Nick Oldham
She drew him to her and held him tight, feeling his heart pounding in his chest. For the first time, his arms encircled her.
‘ Thanks,’ he breathed into her ear, lips nearly brushing her lobe.
A shiver zipped down her spine and finished somewhere between her legs.
He was all over the place, his mind racing here and there as everything poured out. Danny sat there quietly, listening and nodding in the appropriate places, making occasional comments, asking a question now and again.
‘ I couldn’t believe what was happening to me,’ he stated forcefully. ‘I’m not sure, even now, that I believe it has happened to me, though I know it has. It’s like a dream — a nightmare.’
‘ I can imagine,’ Danny responded softly.
Henry had a vodka on ice in his hand. He was sitting on the settee, jacket and tie discarded, cuffs unfastened, sleeves rolled up, shoes pushed off. He’d had a quick face wash and looked fresher, more with it.
‘ I’ve dealt with dozens of rape victims,’ he continued, the level of his voice monotone and, at that moment, unemotional. ‘All female and — curse me if you want — but I always had the thought at the back of my mind: Why did you let it happen? Why didn’t you just keep your legs closed tight? What stupid, naive thinking that was. There is no choice in the matter. It’s death or rape and it really does mean death, doesn’t it?’ He sipped his cold, Russian spirit. ‘At the time I didn’t want to die… but now I wish I had.’
He closed his eyes and fought against hyperventilation.
Danny, on the other end of the settee, glass of wine in hand, reached across and touched him.
‘ I’m OK,’ he said, opening his eyes. ‘Honest.’
‘ There I was, strapped to a bloody Black and Decker Workmate. I mean, talk about DIY! That’s taking it to the extremes, isn’t it?’ He laughed without humour. Danny could not find it in herself to raise even a false smile. She was visualising the scene, repulsed and frightened by the thought of it. ‘And the bastard stood right next to me and showed me exactly what he was going to shove into me. Rock hard, ugly. He pushed it into my face. It was damp. I thought… he was going to make me give him a blow job. I would’ve spewed up if he had, but he just wafted it about and slid it across my face and over my lips… I can still smell it, taste it… then he went behind me…’
‘ I feel so dirty, so unclean. I can’t get it off myself, the smell- it’s still clinging there. I utterly despise myself for letting it happen… how could I let it happen, Danny?’ he cried plaintively. ‘I should have stopped him. I’m a man, for God’s sake.’ He shook his head sadly, constantly re-thinking the night.
‘ You mustn’t punish yourself for this, Henry. Like you said, there was no other choice, no decision, except to live. You were overpowered and it was against your will. Don’t blame yourself.’
‘ But I do, I do. I’m so fucking ashamed.’
‘ Another thing is, y’know? Me and sex. I mean, Christ, he rubbed his dick all over my face, his penis, dirty, smelly… and I think, God, is that what men are really like? Is that what it’s like for a woman? To have that shoved in? To have to hold it, to suck it, just because a man wants it to happen? Am I going to have a hang-up about sex for the rest of my life?’
‘… God, everyone getting to know about it. What’s that going to be like for me? I can just see people’s faces, their sniggers, their talking behind my back. "Got well buggered, he did. What sort of a man is he?" They’ll despise me… they won’t know what to say to me, they’ll laugh and I won’t ever get treated seriously again. The implications completely fuck me up inside.’
Henry stared hard at Danny. ‘My mind whizzes round and I wonder how the hell they found out I was a cop. Somebody must have bubbled me! I have my suspicions… but they can’t be right. Nahh… one cop wouldn’t do that to another, surely? Just because I said I’d go for him.’
‘ What are you talking about, Henry?’
‘ Detective Superintendent Rupert Davison.’
Danny frowned. ‘You mean the Rupert Davison?’
‘ One and the same. That dickhead of a PC as was. Now a GMP Superintendent.’
‘ Bloody hell!’ Danny blurted. ‘He once asked me to sleep with him. I refused, of course.’
Another class product of the fast track — but even so, it seems absurd he would have gone to the lengths of… Christ, I was going to say “shafting me”… of putting my life in danger.’
‘ I wouldn’t put it past him,’ Danny said darkly, recalling the immature PC who, if dismissal procedures had been anything like proper and effective, should have been out on his ear years ago. But that was one of the main causes of malaise in the police service: it was virtually impossible to sack someone once they had completed their probation. Many unsuitable people, therefore, went on to become unsuitable managers and high-rankers.
But Henry could not believe that Davison would have fed him to the wolves. It was far more likely to have been Billy Crane who had recognised him and then warned Thompson and Elphick.
‘ It’s been good for me, this, Danny.’ Henry breathed out. He had been talking for three-quarters of an hour. ‘Thanks — I needed it. I’m just sorry it had to be you.’
‘ I’m not sorry, but I do need to ask you something.’
‘ Go on, fire away.’
‘ Why haven’t you talked to Kate about it?’
The question stumped Henry. He was silent for a few moments, then: ‘I love the girls, I really do. They mean everything to me. I’d die for them without hesitation.’ He sighed through his nose. ‘But as for Kate… I don’t know any more. She’s a really good wife. Ugh! I hope that doesn’t sound patronising, but she is. But there’s something not right any more. Over the last few months we seem to have drifted slowly away from each other. We hardly speak, other than in monosyllables. We never even sit down to watch TV together. Hardly ever make love…
‘ I feel as if I’ve fallen out of love with her, and other than for the kids, I don’t feel like going home any more. I’ve been off sick nearly two weeks and it’s been crap at home. I’ve just avoided her.’ He sighed.
‘ I know she suffered a few years ago — when she herself got raped — and I suppose that should give us some common ground. I just don’t want to tell her, though. I haven’t told anyone but you, and that counsellor I saw down at Occupational Health. No one in the job knows, though like I said, Terry has an idea. Thank Christ he turned up when he did. That bastard Gunk was going to kill me. He’d threatened to stick a knife in my anus…’ Henry shuddered, ‘but he panicked when he heard Terry’s van coming back. No, I’ve just told people I got bubbled and that was why I pulled out of the U/C job — because I’d been compromised.’
There was a pause, then Henry regained eye-contact with Danny. ‘I don’t know if all that answers your question. It sounded like a jumbled mess to me, like all I’ve been saying. Did it make sense, or what?’
It was 2 a.m. Henry and Danny stood in her hallway. Henry was preparing to go, jacket in one hand, rolling his shirt-sleeves down with the other. They stood by the front door, facing each other.
‘ Thanks again.’
‘ No problem. Are you sure you won’t let me call a taxi? It’s a long way on foot to your house, and you’re not going to drive, are you?’
‘ No.’ His car was outside the house. He had already driven there having had a few drinks and with the amount of alcohol he’d imbibed since, he would have been well over the limit, although he was not drunk. It was a risk he wasn’t about to take. There were too many uniformed PCs who would have liked the scalp of a DI on their belt. ‘The walk’ll clear my head.’
‘ I’ll pick you up in the morning.’
‘ Thanks.’ He reached for the door handle, bobbing down quickly and kissing Danny lightly on the cheek. Instead of pulling away immediately, he hovered longer than was necessary, inhaling the aroma of her body. She gasped.
Henry drew his head away, gave a quic
k smile and fumbled for the door again. ‘Must go.’
Danny could not stop herself. She reached out and laid a hand on the side of his face, beating herself up as she did so, yet finding it impossible to resist. Why, she demanded, do you want another married man, another heap of trouble and consequences? Why? Because you love the soft sod, that’s why.
‘ You don’t have to go, Henry,’ she breathed. ‘Not yet, anyway.’
She stood on tiptoe and covered his mouth with her lips, forcing her tongue inside. He responded immediately, discarding his jacket and holding Danny’s head between his hands as they kissed urgently.
One hour later, Henry shook himself out of a doze. He was lying on his back, his left arm wrapped around Danny’s shoulders. She was tucked up underneath his armpit, her hand idly stroking his chest, touching his nipples as she dozed dreamily. Henry blinked and focused on the ceiling. Danny murmured contentedly and huddled in even closer to him, folding a leg across his thighs. Her hand drifted down to his groin and took hold of his limp penis which began to grow, but not by much.
Henry was drained. The act of a long bout of wonderful sex had taken all his energy and emotion out of him. He touched Danny’s cheek with his fingertips and they looked at each other.
‘ That was out of this world,’ he admitted with a grin. ‘Sex doesn’t seem to be a problem after all.’
‘ Now I want more and more.’
Henry’s manhood responded to Danny’s gentle manipulation. He groaned throatily and languished in the sensation for a few moments before the reality of the situation dawned on him. Here he was, once again, lying beside a woman who was not his wife. Cheating.
He rolled on to his side so they lay face to face. His eyes flickered down to her wonderful, soft breasts with the big nipples hard as stones again. He kissed her, lingering for a moment, biting her bottom lip.
‘ I need to tell you something.’ He ran his mouth across her cheek to her ear. ‘I’m… ahhh!’ She had gently squeezed his testicles.
‘ That we’re going to make love again?’ she guessed.
‘ Very, very probably.’
She kissed him hard, and slid her long leg over him, pushing him back and straddling him, never once breaking the kiss or letting go of his cock which, now solid, she positioned for entry.
‘ I want you to make me come again and again,’ she whispered.
‘ I’m not sure I’m that good,’ he admitted honestly.
‘ Oh, you are,’ she promised, ‘you are, you are,’ and slowly eased herself down on to his thick shaft, straight away starting to moan as her next orgasm built quickly… only to be interrupted by the sound of Henry’s pager which, during the throes of ripping each other’s clothes off earlier, had been tossed across the bedroom. ‘Shit,’ she said.
‘ Don’t stop,’ he warned her. ‘Finish what you’ve started.’
And she did. Twice for herself, once for him, to the accompaniment of the high-pitched bleep.
Only then did Henry respond to the message, which was for him to contact Control Room immediately. The Duty Inspector told him that a security van had been found abandoned near to Stafford with a great deal of blood on the passenger side and no trace of the security guards or the money it had been carrying.
‘ 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.