Where the Dead Fall

by Where the Dead Fall (retail) (epub)

  Ridpath and Charlie Whitworth joined the ranks and pushed back. Ridpath found himself head to head with a thug with a buzz cut and a livid cut over his left eye. He stank of BO.

  More cars arrived, each full of young men.

  Ridpath felt his arm being gripped by Charlie Whitworth as the pressure against his body increased. On his other side was Catherine Delaney, the newest member of MIT, an aggressive and determined look in her eyes.

  But despite this, the police line was being forced backwards.

  Luckily the entrance to the church was only twelve feet wide, bordered on either side by a brick wall and a privet hedge. Still more thugs arrived. Ridpath felt himself being forced backwards, the BO of the thug in front of him heavy in his nostrils.

  Ridpath heard Claire Trent’s voice behind him as the new arrivals joined the crowd and began to push against the cordon.

  ‘Is the church open?’

  ‘Yes, ma’am,’ one of the sergeants answered, his voice muffled as his hat fell off and was trampled by the onrushing trainers of the gang.

  She shouted, louder this time, her voice aimed at the bald-headed man at the centre of the action. ‘Listen, Terry, go and wait in the church. We’ll let you see your son when the pathologist has finished examining the body.’

  Big Terry stopped struggling with the two sergeants. ‘He’s my son. I have to be able to see him.’

  ‘You’ll see him when the pathologist has finished, that’s a promise.’

  ‘You can’t do that, ma’am. Chain of evidence,’ shouted Charlie, pushing a thug back with his forearm to the man’s throat.

  ‘Don’t tell me what I can or can’t do, DCI Whitworth,’ she said through gritted teeth. ‘You wait in the church, Terry, we’ll tell you when you can see him.’

  Terry used his elbows to create a free space around him. ‘Stop it you lot. Stop it.’

  The rest of the pushing and shoving from the gang members gradually ceased, except for Catherine Delaney and a young thug who were still eyeball to eyeball, their foreheads seemingly joined like Siamese twins.

  ‘Pull them apart,’ ordered Claire Trent. ‘And when you’ve finished, help me show Mr Marsland to the church.’

  ‘Yes, ma’am’ said one of the sergeants, separating the two combatants.

  ‘I’m Tracy and I’m going in with my dad, it’s my brother over there.’

  Big Terry and his daughter were allowed through the cordon and were taken to the church by Claire Trent.

  As they walked away, two police vans arrived outside the church and coppers dressed in riot gear piled out of the back. They formed up and marched up the road, placing themselves between the crowd and the cordon. The crowd began an ironic whistling of the Laurel and Hardy tune – dee-dum, dee-dum, de-dum, dee-dee, diddly-dum, diddly-dee, dee-dum…

  Five minutes later Claire Trent came out of the church and shouted across the car park, ‘MIT detectives to me.’

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  She gathered her team around her out of hearing of the crowd.

  ‘Listen, we’re a gnat’s dick away from a gang war. Alan, I want you to set up a command centre in the church. Keep everybody away from the area. Use whatever resources you need.’

  The DS nodded his head. ‘Yes, boss, what about Big Terry and his daughter?’

  ‘Let him cool down in the church. We’ll let him see his son before he’s taken away but on no account is he to go closer than six feet, understand.’

  ‘He’s not going to be happy, boss.’

  ‘Screw him and his happiness. We’ve got a murder here and nobody is going to contaminate the evidence. He told me he hadn’t seen his son since he went out on Thursday night. He had a date with a woman apparently. Lorraine, find out from your surveillance team what Big Terry was up to around then and increase surveillance on his family.’

  ‘Will do, boss, but I don’t know if we have the manpower.’

  ‘Well, find it. And it’s personnel, not manpower, Lorraine.’

  ‘Yes, boss.’

  ‘Dave…’

  Hardy put his hand up.

  ‘Get on to the district commanders of all the South Manchester areas. I want a visible police presence on the streets for the next couple of days. Let the bastards know we’re out there.’

  ‘They’re not going to be happy, boss, the overtime…’

  ‘Sod the overtime, get the plods out from behind their desks and onto the streets. Tell them to call the chief constable and disturb his Saturday golf game if they want confirmation.’

  ‘Yes, boss.’

  ‘Sandra…’

  One of the female detectives stepped forward.

  ‘Good to have you on the team…’

  Ridpath saw Charlie Whitworth’s eyes roll upwards.

  ‘…I want you to check all the CCTV in the area from noon to the time the body was discovered.’

  ‘What am I looking for, guvnor.’

  ‘I don’t know. Unusual activity, any car parking near the church. There’s no camera on the area the body was discovered but there are cameras on the church. Perhaps we’ll get lucky and we’ll see something.’

  ‘Yes, guvnor.’

  ‘And while you’re at it, get somebody to take a statement from the man who found the body…’

  ‘His name’s Andy Turner. He’s a maintenance worker, here to fix the cameras. Somebody smashed the lenses,’ said Dave Hardy, ‘he’s waiting in the church.’

  ‘Just our bloody luck. Get a statement from him and check them anyway. And keep him away from Big Terry, I don’t want the circumstances of the death to get out.’

  ‘Will do, guvnor.’

  ‘Charlie, I want you to go and see Michael Connelly. Find out where he and his sons were at noon. Increase the surveillance but don’t let him know he’s being watched. I want to know his every move for the next couple of days. And get onto all your confidential informants, somebody must know who did this.’

  ‘Yes, ma’am.’

  ‘I don’t think it was Connelly, boss.’

  ‘Why, Ridpath? Come on, give us your coroner’s officer wisdom.’

  He ignored the put down. ‘Like I said, boss, he was so caught up in his grief, I don’t think he’s had time to act.’

  ‘What about the son, Graham?’

  ‘When he talked, it was about getting revenge, not having taken it already. It’s like they were still waiting for the old man to decide what to do. Just a hunch, boss, but I think it was somebody else.’

  ‘Thanks for the wisdom, Ridpath, but I can’t base the safety of the people of Manchester on one of your “hunches”. You go with Charlie and keep him out of trouble.’

  ‘But if I do, he’ll definitely know I’m still with GMP.’

  ‘So what? Charlie told me he clocked you already. No point in keeping up the game.’

  ‘I don’t need Ridpath, ma’am, I can handle Connelly with Dave Hardy.’

  ‘Dave’s doing something for me. Ridpath can be with you, that’s an order.’

  ‘Yes, ma’am.’

  ‘Oh and one more thing, Charlie,’ she said gently, ‘that’s the last time you question one of my decisions in front of the plods. Do I make myself clear?’

  She stared at him waiting for an answer.

  ‘Yes, ma’am,’ Charlie finally said, his eyes burning into her.

  ‘What are you going to do, guvnor?’ asked Sandra.

  ‘I’m going to have a chat with Big Terry, time to cut him down to size. So, what are you all waiting for, get a bloody move on.’

  Chapter Forty

  The taxi shed was still there, beside the park. Except now there were four men standing outside it keeping watch. Obviously the word had already got out about the murder of Big Terry’s son.

  Charlie Whitworth stopped for a moment on the pavement, taking a surreptitious glance up at his men in the car down the road keeping the area under surveillance.

  ‘We’ve got another team watching his house and one more c
hecking on Graham Connelly’s apartment in the northern district.’ Charlie said out of the side of his mouth. ‘They won’t be able to fart without us knowing about it.’

  ‘Are we up on their phones too?’ asked Ridpath.

  ‘The ones we know about, But this lot are smart, they’ll be using burners, throwing them away every couple of weeks.’

  ‘How long can we keep this up for Charlie?’

  ‘The surveillance?’

  Ridpath nodded.

  ‘With extra manpower… sorry, personnel,’ Charlie corrected himself, ‘three, four days at most on all four gangs. Longer if we cut down on the scope of the surveillance. Anyway, let’s get this over and done with.’

  They walked down the short path and were immediately accosted by one of the men.

  ‘What you wan’?’

  ‘To speak to Michael Connelly.’

  ‘Yeah, well he’s not here.’ The man’s hand appeared on Charlie’s chest. ‘If you don’t take your hand away in five seconds, I’ll be arresting you for assaulting a police officer in the performance of his duty, section 89 paragraph one of the Police Act 1996.’

  The man slowly removed his hand.

  ‘Now get your boss.’

  ‘Let him in, Toby,’ a voice shouted from inside.

  ‘Toby, your name is Toby?’

  ‘What of it?’

  ‘Another fucking mug, hey, Ridpath.’

  ‘I thought that was a jug, Charlie.’

  ‘Nah, this one’s definitely a mug.’

  The door opened and they stepped inside. Michael Connelly was sitting exactly where Ridpath had left him two hours ago. His eyes still red and moist. Graham Connelly was leaning on a cupboard to his left.

  ‘Take a seat, Charlie. I see you’ve brought DI Ridpath with you. Left the Coroner’s Office already, have we? Back with MIT? Has she kicked you out?’

  ‘Who?’ asked Ridpath.

  ‘Mrs Challinor, heard she was a bit of a ball-breaker, doesn’t like incompetent coppers.’

  Charlie walked over to look at one of the old Pirelli calendars hanging on the wall. ‘1994. One of my favourites. 1996 is better though, draped over the F1 Cars.’

  ‘Didn’t know you were a connoisseur, Charlie.’

  ‘I’m not, but everybody likes classic Pirelli. Shame they don’t make them any more.’

  ‘The world’s changing around our ears, Charlie. Women won’t stand for it. Take my daughter, calls herself a feminist she does. Wish she were more feminine, me, but she don’t listen. Even had Carmen copying her before she passed on, rest her soul. World’s changing, Charlie, me and you are the last dinosaurs.’

  The DCI knocked papers off a chair with the back of his hand before sitting down. Ridpath remained standing.

  ‘Where were you at noon, today?’

  ‘Am I being interrogated, Charlie?’

  ‘Nah, we’re just having a friendly chat. So where were you?’

  ‘We don’t do friendly chats with coppers.’

  Charlie switched his gaze to Graham Connelly. ‘Nobody’s talking to you, son… yet.’ The gaze switched back to the father. ‘So where were you?’

  ‘Here.’

  ‘And somebody can vouch for you?’

  ‘At least twenty people.’

  ‘And your son?’

  ‘Here with me.’

  ‘I suppose twenty people can vouch for him too.’

  ‘No,’ he shook his head, ‘thirty can vouch for him.’

  ‘Maybe more, Dad. I’d just come from Mass, remember?’

  ‘Where did you go to church, All Saints?’

  ‘Nah, St Hugh’s. You can ask Father Devlin. A good friend is the good Father.’

  ‘What Mr Whitworth was insinuating, Graham, with all the subtlety of a Manchester bus driven by a blind pensioner, was you are somehow involved in the death of Phil Marsland whose body has just been found at the church. You know the one, next to Barton Bridge.’

  ‘That church? Never been there.’

  Ridpath shook his head. How had Michael Connelly found out so quickly? They had only just been briefed an hour ago by Claire Trent.

  ‘A little bird has told me Big Terry’s son was found there. Right?’

  Charlie Whitworth answered. ‘I’m not at liberty to discuss an ongoing case. Where did you get your information?’

  Michael Connelly glanced at his son and smiled, pulling out a newspaper and throwing it on the desk. In big, bold, black letters, the headline screamed ‘GANG WAR.’

  ‘Looks like you haven’t been reading the papers recently.’

  Beneath the headline, a grainy picture of a group of white-suited SOCOs around the monument obviously taken with a telephoto lens. Luckily, the body couldn’t be seen.

  Michael Connelly sat forward, his arms open in front of him. ‘Listen, Charlie, I’ll tell you this once and once only. We had nothing to do with the death of Big Terry’s son. Jesus, aren’t I after mourning my own son for the last couple of days. But I will tell you one thing. If it was Big Terry who killed Gerard, then his life won’t be worth living, dead son or not.’

  Chapter Forty-One

  ‘What do you think, Ridpath?’

  They were walking away from the taxi shed, leaving behind Michael Connelly and his bodyguards.

  ‘I know it’s strange but I don’t think he was involved in killing Phil Marsland.’

  Charlie Whitworth was tugging furiously on one of his Embassies. For once, Ridpath hadn’t joined him. He’d felt a tickle in the back of his throat, and his nose was stuffed, probably from too much smoking. Come to think of it, he hadn’t noticed the smells in the hut, perhaps it was one of the side effects of the tablets he was taking.

  ‘He’s the obvious suspect. Revenge for his son.’

  ‘But you heard him. He denied being involved.’

  ‘Well, he would, wouldn’t he? He’s hardly likely to say “It’s a fair cop, guvnor, it was me who shot Big Terry’s son and cut off his todger”.’ Are you getting soft in your old age or has working for the coroner addled your brain? My money is on Michael Connelly or his son, probably bringing in some thug from Liverpool or Birmingham to do their dirty work.’

  ‘But why, Charlie?’

  ‘Revenge, Ridpath, the oldest motive in the book.’

  ‘So Big Terry murdered Gerard Connelly and Michael killed Phil Marsland. A tit for tat killing?’

  He took another drag on his cigarette. ‘That’s it, in a nutshell. All we have to do now is find the evidence to prove it and we can put both of the bastards away for a long, long time.’ Charlie glanced at his watch. ‘Shit, is that the time? I need to replace Colin on the surveillance team looking at Graham Connelly’s flat in the Northern Quarter. You got anything else to do?’

  Ridpath thought of the cold, empty house waiting for him. He shook his head.

  ‘Come on, you can keep me company and tell me why you don’t think the two most murderous thugs in Manchester aren’t trying to kill each other.’

  The drive took less than thirty minutes. They parked in one of the city centre car parks and walked to Reston Street.

  ‘You know, I remember when this was an area nobody gave a toss about; full of old pubs, drunks, druggies and hookers people wouldn’t touch with a bargepole. Now look at it.’

  To Ridpath the streets looked like they had always looked, but every shop was now a cafe serving avocado on toast, and designed with a job-lot of freshly distressed furniture. Inside, men with beards and women wearing black, chatted over achingly expensive artisan coffee.

  Charlie began speaking again, the words coming out between drags on his Embassy. ‘Funny thing is, there’s more homeless living here than anywhere else. Come here after dark and virtually every doorway is occupied by a pile of dirty blankets with a body sucking on a can of Tennants Extra Strength beneath the covers. Somehow for our young inhabitants it adds to the “charm” of the place. Can’t see it myself. Give me a quiet, tree-lined suburb any day of the week.�
� He stopped in front of a bright red door. ‘We’re in here on the second floor.’

  Charlie pressed the intercom and a voice immediately answered. ‘Who is it?

  ‘Charlie.’

  ‘About bloody time, boss.’

  The door buzzed and they went in, climbing up two flights of stairs.

  ‘How’d you get this place?’

  ‘Claire Trent put the squeeze on one of the developers. You know the old “you scratch my back and we’ll overlook your multiple infractions of fire and building regulations” number. Works every time.’

  He knocked on the door and it was immediately opened by a detective called Colin Molesworth.

  ‘Jesus, boss, you took your time. I was supposed to be off duty two hours ago.’

  Charlie bustled in. ‘You’ll thank me for the overtime when you see your pay packet.’

  The room was in darkness. A camera on a tripod was focused downwards through a hole in the curtain to the entrance to the flats. Another was focused horizontally. In the gloom Ridpath saw another detective with headphones on, next to a tape recorder. He walked over to the window. ‘Anything?’

  ‘Quiet as a City game. Nothing in or out. Nothing on tape either.’

  The man with the headphones waved. ‘Hi Charlie.’

  ‘Ridpath, this is Grant Thornton from surveillance. Bugs R Us as we call them. If you ever need someone to spy on your wife, he’s your man.’

  Ridpath shook hands with the detective.

  Colin Molesworth was already putting on his coat and bustling out of the door.

  ‘You’re on the Red Eye shift, Colin, don’t be late.’

  Molesworth nodded and then closed the door behind him.

  Charlie bent down and checked both cameras before walking over to a table festooned with coffee cups and empty sandwich wrappers. ‘Bloody Molesworth has eaten everything.’

  Ridpath remembered long days following suspects. Hours spent in cars and apartments like these, where the only thing to do was eat bad junk food and drink worse coffee.

  ‘I can go out and get something, Charlie.’

  ‘Maybe later.’

  Charlie sat down at the table and took out his cigarettes and lighter.