Scream Blue Murder: an action-packed thriller

by Tony J. Forder

  The lobby was making a half-hearted attempt to appear classy, but its ash wood and pastel-coloured walls lacked taste, and reeked of impermanence. There was a vending machine set against one wall, plus a couple of chairs arranged around a table on which someone had splayed a bunch of leaflets. I had to ring for service at the desk. A couple of minutes later an elderly porter pushed through a door marked “Private”, tucking his shirt into his trousers. He glanced at the watch on his wrist and muttered to himself. If the man’s beauty sleep had been disturbed, I didn’t feel at all guilty about it, despite the night porter needing more than his fair share.

  “I’d like a room for the night,” I said.

  “What’s left of it,” he observed dryly. His voice was cracked, ravaged by smoke and cheap booze, if the yellow stains on his fingers and the sour smell of whisky on his breath were anything to go by. Close up he had the wrinkled skin of a leather wallet, and one eye had a milky glaze over it. A shaving rash ran down one side of his face.

  “Single?” he asked, flipping open a book on the reception desk.

  I nodded. We were not going to be here long, so what did it matter? Then I thought better of it. When the three of us came through the reception area, we would have to pass right by the porter. I didn’t think company rules would allow the three of us to occupy a single room.

  “Actually, I’ve changed my mind,” I said hurriedly. “Better make that a double. I might get lucky.”

  The old guy gave me what he probably imagined was an old-fashioned look, but it came across as more of a scowl. I handed the porter my debit card, which he ran through the scanner. I popped my PIN in and we were good to go. He gave me a key card and told me the room number. “You get your invoice at checkout,” he added, giving the computer the same look he had given his early morning intruder.

  I took the key from him and shook my head. “I’d get my money back if I were you, mate.”

  “What?” the man frowned and squinted.

  “From the charm school.”

  I let it sink in before turning away. I couldn’t decide if I was more angry with the man for being a miserable old bastard, or the Best Inn Town itself for employing him in the first place.

  5

  The BMW sat where I had left it, Melissa and the kid still in the back. The young woman hoisted a small leather bag over her shoulder before scooping up the kid and stepping away from the car. We headed across to the main building. When we entered the lobby, the old man was nowhere to be seen. It occurred to me then that the porter had not mentioned where the room was, and for a moment I considered pressing the service bell again. We were in room 213, which I assumed would be on the second floor, so we bundled into a lift that just about held the three of us. The journey up two flights was brief, yet less than smooth. I wondered if the tiny lift felt burdened by the nervous silence. For those few moments, Melissa and I were complete strangers once more.

  It was only when we reached the room and I threw open the door that it occurred to me that a gentleman would have at least offered to carry the sleeping child. She wasn’t a big kid, but Melissa was obviously struggling with the weight and encumbered by the shoulder bag. I considered apologising, but it was too late now to make any difference. I dismissed the thought. It was far from the worst thing I had ever done.

  The accommodation was standard. When I switched on the light, a small room to our left was revealed, containing a shower, sink and toilet. To the right was a small alcove in which an aluminium rail had been hung; a couple of wooden clothes hangers shoved to one side. In the main area stood a small double bed. A long chest of drawers, TV, and a table and two chairs completed the furnishings. Either side of the bed, attached to the headboard, were shelves, one of which held the telephone. I crossed the room to peek through the heavy drawn curtains, and felt relieved to see we were overlooking the rear car park. I began to feel less anxious, my heartbeat steadying for the first time since seeing the gun pointed in my direction back at the lay-by.

  Melissa, who had said nothing to me since my return to the car, laid the kid gently down on the bed, her blonde hair splashing across one of two pillows. When Melissa straightened she rolled her shoulders a couple of times and rubbed her neck, causing a momentary resurgence of the guilt I had felt moments earlier. When finally, she turned to me, she took a deep breath before speaking.

  “Look at her. Poor thing. I could weep at the thought of what she has to go through. I’m sure you don’t still want to wake her up from a nice dream and dump her in the middle of a nightmare.”

  I switched my attention from her to the kid, seeing the child clearly for the first time. She was about six or seven, I thought, although I was not great with ages. The blonde hair was long and wavy. Her cheeks were rounded and shiny, lips slightly parted as she breathed softly into the pillow. She looked nothing like my daughter, but still I thought of Wendy. Of the times, I had stood over her bed watching her sleep, each breath a tiny miracle. Nothing in life is as pure, as innocent, as a sleeping child.

  I considered what Melissa had said to me. What would you want for Wendy? I asked myself. The answer came right away. “Okay. You were right,” I admitted. “We did the best thing for her. Let’s fix ourselves a drink before we do anything else. Then we can talk about what we both saw and heard, get it right for when we do eventually speak to the police.”

  Melissa appeared happy enough with that. On the chest of drawers there was a tray with two cups, a kettle and a bowl containing sachets of tea, coffee, hot chocolate and sugar, four small cartons of milk, and a couple of packets of digestive biscuits. Melissa went into the bathroom to fill the kettle. Out of habit more than anything else, I picked up the TV remote and punched the on button, instantly muting the sound even as the set crackled to life.

  “Tea or coffee?” Melissa asked when she came back into the room and plugged in the kettle.

  “Hot chocolate,” I replied, absently eyeing the TV screen.

  “I’d like to save them for Charlie if that’s all right?”

  I glanced at her. Nodded. “Coffee will do. Black, please. No sugar.”

  Nothing else was said until the hot drinks were ready. I felt edgy being with this woman now, even more so than back in the BMW. We were strangers, thrust together in a moment of terror and tragedy. In the relative darkness of the car, our close proximity had not felt quite so uncomfortable. Now, here in a lit motel room, the abnormality of the situation had a bite to it I could not explain.

  I sipped from the mug and let the caffeine do its work. Melissa sat down opposite me at the oval table, stirring her coffee with a plastic spoon. Now that the terror had numbed to a disquieting fear, I thought of a question I really ought to have asked right from the word go.

  “So tell me, why would someone want to murder your boss?”

  Melissa drank from her cup with its floral motif, added a little more milk and stirred again. Her gaze remained on the table. “I’ve been asking myself that ever since it happened.”

  “And you haven’t come up with an answer?”

  She shook her head.

  “Okay, so what happened back there, Melissa? How did you end up in that lay-by?”

  She glanced over at the bed. Checking to see if the kid was still asleep, I guessed. “I’m not sure. I was dozing, then all of a sudden we were pulling off the road. We stopped, Ray got out. I was still a bit groggy, the rain was hammering down, lightning flashing all around us, and then I heard the shot. As I said earlier, when I looked out of the back window, I saw Ray on his knees and another man standing by a dark car. The man shot Ray.”

  “That’s precisely the time I stumbled on it,” I said. An icy tremor passed along the length of my spine. “At first I couldn’t fully comprehend what I was seeing. I must have cried out, because the other guy turned and fired at me.”

  She nodded. “I heard another shot, but didn’t see you until you jumped into our car. By then I’d already dropped down to the floor behind the seats,
unbuckling Charlie and pulling her down with me to protect her. At first, I thought you must have been with the man who shot Ray, but after a while I could tell by the way you were driving and looking in your mirrors that we were being chased. I still didn’t know what to make of it all, or of you, so I kept Charlie quiet and just stayed still.”

  “So, you have no idea at all why that man shot your boss?”

  “No. I already told you.”

  I wasn’t convinced, but there was nothing to be gained by pushing the issue further. As I pondered my next question, something on the TV screen drew my attention. When I turned to focus on it, I stiffened, as though every muscle in my body had frozen solid. Melissa must have noticed my sudden discomfort, and also turned to look at the TV.

  “That’s my car.” My voice sounded as if it was struggling to fight its way through a dense fog. “That’s my bloody car.”

  I unmuted and then jabbed the volume button on the remote until I could hear the sound clearly. A female voice: “… but as yet police have no clues as to why this shooting took place. A senior officer gave a brief statement a little earlier, confirming that they are looking for Mr Lynch in connection with the murder of Ray Dawson, and the abduction of Mr Dawson’s daughter, Charlotte, together with the child’s nanny, Melissa Andrews. Given Mr Dawson’s connection with organised crime, a gangland slaying cannot be ruled out at this time. Mr Dawson’s brother had this to say.”

  The item cut to a man with a narrow, pock-scarred face. His eyes looked glassy and devoid of emotion. “I can’t think of any reason why someone would want to murder my brother,” he said. “Nor why they would snatch my niece and her nanny.”

  “Are the police keeping you informed of progress?” the interviewer probed.

  “The police have their own way of working. We have ours. I’m sure they are doing all they can. We’ll be doing everything in our power to help them, obviously.”

  “Are you expecting a ransom demand, Mr Dawson?”

  “I very much doubt it. Don’t you?”

  The man gave a thin smile. It didn’t look as if it came naturally. I neither saw nor heard any sincerity, and could only imagine that working with the police was the last thing this man intended. His sort were inclined to resolve issues their own way.

  There followed a long shot of the lay-by, emergency vehicles gathered all around it, pulsing lights painting the surrounding area red, white and blue. The female presenter started speaking again, but this time her words made no impression on me. I was too busy glaring at Melissa.

  “Organised crime?” I said, trying to keep my voice low so as not to wake the kid. Still, I heard the flint edge to it when I spoke again. “Your boss was Ray Dawson? The Ray Dawson who happens to be a serious villain known to just about everyone in the entire country. That Ray Dawson. Did that slip your mind, Melissa, when I asked you if you knew why someone might want him dead?”

  She closed her eyes for a moment. Drank some more coffee. Breathed softly through her nose. Her hands were trembling as she held the cup. “I didn’t want to panic you more than you obviously already were.”

  “Terrific. That’s just great. I take it you know the brother? That fucking Rottweiler who was just on TV.”

  “Yes. That’s Chris. But I don’t understand. How the hell do the police know who you are?”

  “It’s not rocket science, Melissa. My bloody car is sitting there in that lay-by. Right where they found the body of a murdered man. A thirty-second check through their PNC system would have given them my name.”

  “But I still don’t see how they pieced it all together so quickly.”

  I gave that some thought. “Someone obviously found your boss in that lay-by. Police traced him from whatever ID he had on him, made a few calls, someone mentioned you and the kid. My car is found in the same spot. They add two and two together and end up with me.”

  Melissa ran both hands through her hair. “I’m sorry I misled you, Mike. Really I am. But in truth, what difference would it have made if I had told you?”

  “What difference? Are you kidding me? I would have gone to the police there and then and straightened this whole thing out. I would have got myself out of harm’s way. It may strike you as odd, but I have no wish to be the prime suspect in the murder of your boss, and I certainly don’t want some fucking gangster running around after my blood.”

  “I said I’m sorry.”

  I threw up my hands and looked back at the screen. It was damned hard to be quiet when I was so livid. With her, and the situation I found myself in. The feature was still running on the TV. The narrative had cut to a man standing by the side of my Saab. At the bottom of the screen ran a strip naming him as Senior NCA Officer David Hendricks. He was responding to media questions.

  “We don’t have much more for you at this stage. Obviously, we would ask for the Dawson family to remain calm and let us do our job. The police already have an investigation running, and they are hoping to have some additional news for you shortly.”

  “Will the National Criminal Agency be assisting in that investigation?” he was asked.

  “We will certainly offer them any help they require, yes.”

  Melissa stood up from the table. “I suppose you are going to call the police now,” she said.

  “Actually, I don’t think I am.”

  “You’re not? How come?” Her gaze narrowed.

  Just then, I could not take my eyes off the TV. When I finally turned to her I shook my head slowly.

  “You didn’t see the gunman clearly, did you?” I asked, my voice breaking on the last word.

  “Not really, why?”

  I nodded at the flickering screen. “Because that’s him. That NCA officer is the man I saw shooting and killing your boss.”

  6

  Senior NCA Officer David Hendricks knew when one of his two personal mobile phones rang that the resulting conversation was not going to be a pleasurable experience. He took a few steps away from a group of police officers clustered around the crime scene, to make sure he was out of earshot, then pressed the accept button.

  “This is not a good time,” he said.

  “So I noticed. What the fuck went wrong?” the caller asked. The voice was not loud, but there was a biting edge to it.

  “A bit of bad luck. It happens. I’ll make it right.”

  “Oh, you’d better. This could not have gone a lot worse.”

  “Ray Dawson is dead, isn’t he?”

  “And that’s the only reason we’re still talking. Sort it out, Hendricks. And do it quickly.”

  The connection was cut. Hendricks glared at the phone for a few moments while he gathered his thoughts. Being spoken to in such an aggressive manner was tough to accept, but it went with the territory when you walked the lines in the shadow he had chosen to take. Turning to look back at the scene, Hendricks observed forensic technicians swarming all over it like ants at a picnic. He glanced across at Mike Lynch’s Saab and shook his head, kicking out at a pebble and sending it flying across the road.

  Once he had accepted that the BMW had got away from him, he’d had to do some rapid thinking. That was the point at which all of his training, experience and reason came into play. It was rational to assume that on a stretch of road like this, Ray Dawson’s body might well remain undiscovered until daybreak. Hendricks could not afford to sit around and wait for that to happen; for Dawson’s identity to then raise red flags back at NCA headquarters in Westminster, less than half a mile from New Scotland Yard; for the call to eventually land on his plate, and to then have to wait out the requisite time it would take to arrive at the scene if he’d had to travel down from London as expected. Those were hours he could not afford to waste. The gamble he decided to take was a calculated one, worth the slight risk for the sake of an early start in tracking down the owner of the silver Saab.

  Decision made, Hendricks had driven back to the scene of the murder and called it in; his own manager first, followed by local CID. N
ational Crime Agency Manager Robin Dwyer had been less than enthusiastic at being woken so early in the morning, and appeared stunned at learning of Dawson’s murder.

  “I’m not sure if I understand this correctly, David,” Dwyer said. Hendricks could imagine his short and stout boss reaching for a cigarette, already planning how best to distance himself from any potential fallout. “You say you found him? In the middle of nowhere, and a very long way from either your home or office? Would you care to elaborate?”

  “Of course, sir. It sounds worse than it is. I discovered that Dawson was headed down to Exeter yesterday morning, and I thought we might be interested in whatever business he was doing down there you know, the people he might be meeting. I also thought he might hook up with some faces on the way home, so I followed him back as well. My guess is he spotted the tail at some point, because his motor sped up and unfortunately, I lost him for a while. I wasted a fair bit of time trying to find my way around, and then when I got back on track I chanced upon the scene.”

  There was a slight pause, and Hendricks wondered if his boss had bought the flimsy story. Or if he even cared about the legitimacy of it. Dawson’s death would be mourned only by those who were on the take from him. Dwyer wasn’t one of those.

  “Did you see any other vehicles tracking Dawson?” his manager asked. “I think we can safely assume that whoever took him out must have been following him. In addition to you, of course.”

  “I… I can’t be certain, sir. Obviously I wasn’t expecting something of this nature, so I was probably less aware of my surroundings than I otherwise might have been.”

  “I see. Best give it some thought then, eh?”

  “Yes, sir. I’ll do that”

  “Okay, David. Tread carefully. Don’t piss off the locals. Clearly this will be in their hands once the dust has settled. You must, of course, expect to be questioned, and you will initially be a person of interest to them, I would imagine. Provided you have no smoking gun, nor accompanying gunshot residue on your hands, or blood spatter on your clothing, or any other incriminating evidence for that matter, they will allow you to go about your business. You have no authority in a murder investigation, but you might suggest your intimate knowledge of the man, his family, and their wider business interests, could be a major advantage to their investigation team. I’ll contact the area forces myself first thing, just to smooth out the wrinkles.”