One Dead Witness hc-3

by Nick Oldham

  It was very hard for him to remain in control when faced with investigating such deaths. Hard to refrain from beating the offender — if caught — to a pulp. He squinted sideways at Danny, but was unable to identify the meaning of the expression on her face… mainly because she was experiencing conflicting emotions.

  The first was relief.

  At least it was not Claire Lilton lying there, having been dragged, beaten, mutilated, raped in the bushes, then horribly murdered.

  The second was repulsion.

  Who — WHO? — could have done such a thing? It beggared all belief and understanding in the human condition. To put someone through such suffering… The savagery people could stoop to constantly amazed her.

  Henry’s voice broke into her train of thought. ‘What do you think?’

  ‘ I think we’d better step up the hunt for Trent. He’s never killed before. He came close, but now I think we’re dealing with someone who’s gone right over the edge. Uncontrollable. He’s my prime suspect.’

  ‘ I agree, but let’s not blind ourselves to the possibility it might not be him.’

  ‘ Yep,’ Danny said flatly. Her gaze returned to the dead girl. ‘Let’s make sure we do things right — and when we’ve identified her, let me tell her parents.’

  ‘ You sure? You’ve had a tough few days.’

  She spun on Henry. ‘Of all the people, I didn’t expect you to patronise me, Henry.’

  ‘ Hey — whoa, sorry.’ He retreated, taken aback by her anger.

  She stormed away, leaving him open-mouthed.

  Halfway across the Atlantic Ocean, a man called Charlie Gilbert sat in the first-class cabin in a plane travelling at 37,000 feet, Miami International Airport 1500 miles behind.

  Even though the cabin temperature was quite fresh, Gilbert was sweating profusely, as grossly overweight men often do, whatever the circumstances. He had a wide seat with plenty of legroom but was extremely uncomfortable. He looked as though he’d been forced into the available space, like a fat hamster pressed into a tobacco tin. He had very little room to manoeuvre and there was only just enough space to drop his food tray in front of him.

  He wasn’t too concerned.

  His business trip to America had been successful. Of course, there had been the little blip — namely, being arrested for taking part in the rape and indecent assault of a young girl — but that had been fixed. Mario Bussola assured him on that point. And when Bussola made assurances, they stuck.

  The incident would be hushed up, he promised Gilbert. The press would not get to know about it. No further police would be taken, and appropriate revenge would be meted out.

  Charlie Gilbert would be safe.

  Thank God, because, after all, he had a reputation to think of.

  Myrna realised what she had to do immediately was put together a strategy to ensure as much damage limitation as possible as far as Kruger Investigations was concerned.

  Being Kruger’s number two, and having taken on full responsibility for running the company, there were many things for her to do — not least reassuring jittery customers, some of whom had already called and were sounding extremely agitated.

  To quote one: ‘Just what the hell are Kruger Investigations up to, that their managing director has ended up dead in a fucking shoot-out with gangsters, for fuck’s sake’ — unquote.

  Myrna quickly needed to soothe ruffled feathers. Then she needed to deal with the staff. They were shell-shocked — and rightly so. Within the space of a day, three employees had met very violent deaths, three people who were well-known and loved by everyone.

  Myrna knew she had to act, hold it all together, otherwise she would lose other good people.

  All thoughts of revenge, or mounting some sort of operation against Bussola needed to be shelved indefinitely. To hit out, strike back, was what she had desired to do initially… but that was a task for the legal process and if it failed, so be it.

  It wasn’t a job for a respectable company and Myrna wasn’t about to put others at risk again.

  She was in her office. It was an hour since the staff meeting. An hour since she had hurled up her insides.

  She had just finished a phone call to Kelly, the comms van operator, who had returned home to Memphis whilst the Bussola threat was still in the air. Having given her the lowdown on the Kruger situation, Myrna suggested that maybe she would like to stay off work a little longer — on full pay. Eminently sensible lady she was, Kelly agreed to the idea.

  Myrna’s hand was resting on the phone when there was a knock on the door. It opened a fraction to reveal Mark Tapperman, the tall, well-built detective, standing there. He wore a forlorn expression making him look like a little boy, not the hard, uncompromising detective Myrna had become acquainted with and despised.

  ‘ Come on in, Mark,’ she said softly, her instinct sensing something not quite right.

  He entered the room and sat down.

  She was perplexed by his whole body language. It was so incongruous to the usual swaggering macho stuff she had seen recently.

  Then, without warning, it happened.

  Mark Tapperman burst into tears.

  ‘ We’re pretty sure he’s called Patrick Orlove, at least as sure as we can be. He’s got dozens of aliases, but the prints from the gun at the scene put up Orlove as his original name. We don’t really know very much about his distant past, but recently he turned up in LA and did some work for the McGreevy cartel, which resulted in a murder one court appearance. He was acquitted: the usual witness problems. Next he turns up in the Big Apple, helping out one of the East Side gangs. Suspected of puttin’ a gunload of lead into a junkie informer’s grey matter, but mainly acted as close-quarter protection to a gang chief. From there, seems he got a recommendation to come south for Bussola, who we know axed and replaced a lot of his security since you and Steve were able to walk all over’ em and interrupt that gang-bang downtown. We think Orlove’s still in the city, but by the same token he could be in Cuba.’

  Myrna nodded as she listened to Tapperman telling her about the man suspected of killing Steve Kruger; the man they had allowed to escape from the scene of the tragedy.

  The noise had been incredible when the guns in their hands discharged and the two men who had been turning and drawing their weapons had been hit. Myrna’s mind saw it all again… the two men swivelled grotesquely and both fell down dead on the concrete floor, blood pouring out of their wounds. Tapperman raced to the third man, the one Kruger had punched in the nose before launching himself between the parked cars, and pointed his gun at the crouching guy’s head. He yelled to Myrna. ‘Cover him, I’m going after the other guy.’

  Myrna had done as instructed, her arms locked in an isosceles triangle, keeping the man covered whilst he tried to stem the tide of blood gushing from his bust nose. Her eyes constantly flicked towards the two bodies close by. Both twitched like they were being tickled. She looked up towards Tapperman who was working his way methodically and cautiously down the line of cars, and she kept glancing to the gap where Kruger had thrown himself. She could see his feet. Why was he just lying there, not moving? Why didn’t he get up? She knew, even then, something was wrong.

  Tapperman edged back, still wary. He stopped at the gap Kruger had gone into, not far from where Myrna stood. He stared between the vehicles, his chest heaving. He knelt down out of sight for a few moments then rose back to his full height, grim.

  Myrna was hopping on her toes, desperate to know, dying to run and see, but her job was to keep the bloody-nosed man covered.

  Tapperman walked over to her. He stood about three feet away from the kneeling man. His face became a mask of rage. He stepped back, then kicked the man in the head, pitching him sideways across one of his dead buddies.

  ‘ Bastard.’

  As quickly as it came, the anger subsided. Tapperman swooped down and cuffed the man expertly, hands right up his back. He threw him face-down. Then he stood up again and regarded Myrna.<
br />
  ‘ What the hell was all that about?’ she demanded, shocked by his reaction.

  ‘ Steve’s dead,’ Tapperman responded simply.

  And somehow the person responsible — now known to be Patrick Orlove — had escaped, and all they managed to find was his gun dumped in a trashcan when the scene was searched later.

  Myrna shook her head and raised her face to Tapperman, sitting opposite her.

  ‘ He’s on the wanted list now.’

  ‘ And the chances of catching him are..?’

  ‘ Zero, if I’m honest, especially if Bussola’s looking after him.’

  ‘ What about the guy you practised your soccer skills on?’

  ‘ Saying nothing… but we’ve got him for illegal possession and he’s wanted in Nevada for a serious assault with a deadly weapon. He’s going nowhere ‘cept jail.’

  ‘ Bussola?’

  Tapperman gave her a withering glance. This she interpreted as, ‘Don’t ask silly fucking questions.’

  ‘ What about the other guy, the English paedophile?’ she persisted.

  ‘ Gilbert? Tucked up on a plane back to the UK.’

  ‘ You told the FBI about him?’ she wanted to know.

  ‘ Should I?’

  ‘ Maybe they ought to know, maybe they can pass on the gen about him to the cops in England. If the cops over there don’t know about this guy, it’s time they did.’

  ‘ Aw… when I get round to it.’

  ‘ In that case, I’ll do it. I know a guy at the London office, used to work from Miami. I’ll tell him and he can pass it on.’

  ‘ Okay, whatever suits.’

  ‘ So that’s it then — we’re getting nowhere fast?’

  ‘ That’s one way of lookin’ at it, I guess. Myrna, you must be one o’ those folks who always sees a half-empty glass.’

  ‘ I’m a realist.’ She sounded sour.

  ‘ Right, sure.’ Tapperman stood up. ‘Just thought I’d keep you informed about things.’ A bashful expression crossed his face, ‘Er, about earlier. I… er… you won’t tell anyone, will ya?’

  ‘ Lieutenant Tapperman, your secret is safe with me.’

  ‘ I owe ya, babe.’

  For the first time in too long, a broad smile crept across Myrna’s tired countenance.

  Mark Tapperman’s secret.

  Behind all that macho bluster and bull, he was a big soft guy with real feelings and emotions. His outburst had astonished her. She was glad she had seen it because it made him human. To know he was grieving for Steve Kruger, as she was, made her feel so much better.

  She picked up the phone and asked her secretary to get the number of the American Embassy in London, England.

  ‘ Sorry… sorry, pretty please, forgive me.’

  ‘ Nah, no problems, you were quite right to jump down my throat. If you’d been a bloke I wouldn’t have said it. It was patronising at best; at worst it was sexist. I’ll hold my hands up.’ Which Henry Christie promptly did.

  Danny grinned. ‘Can we forget it and get on with the job?’

  ‘ Forget what?’ Henry smiled.

  It was ten o’clock. He was surprised to see it was so late. It had been one hell of a day. A short time earlier he had returned from attending a double post mortem — first of a murdered Police Constable, then of a murdered girl. The pathologist had been pretty certain the same knife had killed both people.

  He read the piece of paper in front of him, notes taken during the autopsies. ‘She was sexually assaulted, as we expected, anally and vaginally,’ he told Danny. ‘The pathologist has taken samples of semen, so when we get Trent all we need do is match up the DNA and bingo! She actually died of a stab-wound to the heart, an organ which was horrendously damaged, as was the PC’s. Trent gets the knife in and really rives it round.’

  ‘ Poor souls.’

  Danny had been at the house of Mr and Mrs Tomlinson, the parents of the dead girl, for the last three hours since they had identified their daughter at the mortuary. It had been a difficult and testing time for her. ‘I’ll tell the girl’s mum and dad tomorrow about the results of the PM. That’s when they’re expecting to be told. They’ve had enough pain and misery for today. Christ! All she’d done was pop out to play for a while. She’d just been recovering from flu. She was due to go back to school tomorrow.’

  Henry said, ‘Just for your information there’s now twenty pairs of officers working through the hotels and guest-houses physically, another ten on phones. I’ve told them to crack on until midnight, then pack it in. All my available detectives are pubbing and clubbing it to see what they can turn up. There’s a briefing at eight tomorrow and I hope to double those numbers at least for a couple of days.’

  ‘ How are the people from the estate agents?’

  ‘ The woman he stabbed has been sent home, no massive damage. The guy with the neck-wound is still in surgery — but he’ll live.’ Henry stretched. ‘I’m going to call it a day. Fancy a quick jar on the way home? And it will be quick. I need to be back here by six-thirty to get everything ready for eight.’

  ‘ I’d like that, Henry. I’ve just got a couple of things to do.’

  They made an arrangement to meet in a pub and Danny went to her office.

  Henry headed straight out. He did not see the lurking figure in the doorway of an office nearby, a figure who had overheard their conversation.

  Jack Sands stepped out of the shadow. ‘Bitch and bastard,’ he whispered.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Charlie Gilbert waddled through customs at Manchester Airport, having collected his hefty baggage and large Mickey Mouse from the carousel. He went down the green channel — nothing to declare, other than being overweight. In the arrivals hall he was greeted by a man called Ollie Spencer who looked and acted something like a wartime spiv: quick, sharp features, trimmed moustache and a look which said he could get anything, any time. He worked for Gilbert in the capacity of manager of some leisure facilities, and acted in close liaison with him in many spheres.

  ‘ Good trip?’

  ‘ Very good, Ollie. As a result of my little visit, our amusement arcades will soon be kitted out with the latest video technology from the States and beyond. We’ll be streets ahead of the others. And not only that, for a very little effort, I’ll be able to make another hundred grand — but I’ll explain that one to you later.’

  ‘ Sounds good. Did you manage to have some fun as well?’

  ‘ Ollie — of course I did. Nice young fun.’

  Spencer led Gilbert out through the sliding doors to where he had illegally parked the car — the vehicle in question being a stretch Rolls-Royce with darkened windows, hired for the occasion of Gilbert’s return home. Spencer positioned the luggage trolley near to the rear of the car and opened the back door. Gilbert forced himself through the not-inconsiderable gap and plopped through onto the front-facing back seat.

  The Rolls had been stretched to accommodate a rear-facing seat too, making it similar to one of those long limos often seen in America, but pretty unusual in Britain. There seemed to be acres of room.

  Sitting coyly on the rear-facing seat was a girl.

  Gilbert’s face widened into a big smile of pleasure on seeing her. ‘Honey Pot!’ he beamed.

  Spencer poked his angular face in. ‘I hope you approve, boss. Bit of a coming-home pressie.’ He handed Mickey Mouse to Gilbert who presented it to the girl; she took it with a giggle.

  ‘ I approve.’ He slapped his thighs delightedly. ‘Come to Daddy.’

  The girl squeaked with peals of merriment. She rushed towards him and immediately fumbled for his flies.

  She was eleven and a half years old.

  Danny did not really feel like going for a drink, but she thought it would be churlish to refuse. After all, Henry had done a lot for her in a very short space of time and a quick drink wasn’t too much of an inconvenience.

  She tidied her desk, picked up Claire Lilton’s Missing from Home forms and w
ent into the Comms room. She ensured the circulation message would be sent that night. Danny knew how busy the following day would be and didn’t want to forget Claire in the melee.

  That task completed, she was ready to leave.

  She hated the fact that the walk to her car had become such a big issue for her. Something she had done for years without a second thought had, in the last few days, become a nightmare journey. Although she was certain Jack Sands had got the message loud and clear from Henry, the walk down the dimly lit car park made her jumpy as hell. All the while checking the shadows, looking round over her shoulder… it was crap.

  She pressed the remote and her car responded. Seconds later she was in the driving seat, trying to get the key into the ignition… when the passenger door opened and a figure dropped into the seat.

  Danny didn’t even look for a moment. She closed her eyes tightly and said through gritted teeth, ‘Jack, don’t you ever fucking learn?’

  ‘ Jack? Who’s this Jack?’

  God, that voice! Danny’s eyes shot open.

  ‘ I’m not Jack. My name’s Louis Trent, but you know that, Danny, don’t you?’ He jammed the point of his knife into the side of her neck. ‘Let’s go for a drive.’

  Henry Christie rarely drank alcohol before driving. For cops the drinking and driving game was far too dangerous to play. Too many had lost their jobs that way, and Henry wasn’t about to join them. However, that evening, he was parched. He needed something long and cold to wash away the grit. He chose Foster’s lager — a pint — and downed about half in one sustained slurp. It tasted wonderful and partly did the trick. He decided he would drink this, have one more with Danny, then head off home.

  He edged away from the bar and sat in an empty alcove from where he could survey the pub. He spotted a couple of crims — low-level drug dealers — who didn’t want to look at him, snorted a short laugh, sat back and waited for Danny.

  Danny could hardly breathe. Like she was being suffocated. Like a pillow was being pressed on her face.