The Child Taker to Criminally Insane Box Set, Crime Books 1, 2 and 3 Detective Alec Ramsay Mystery Series (Detective Alec Ramsay Crime Mystery Suspense Series)

by Conrad Jones

  “You keep her alive,” Alec said quietly. “Do you hear me?”

  “She’s in a bad way.” The medic placed a ventilator over her battered face and squeezed air into her lungs.

  “Guv!” Alec looked toward the house. The fourth armed officer was stumbling down the steps unharmed. He was panting and puffing like a steam train.

  “What happened in there?” Alec ran to where the armed unit was standing.

  “The cellar is knocked through to next door, Guv,” the lead officer explained breathlessly. “There are ten or more oil drums in the second house and they are all wired up to the device on the stairs.”

  “It hasn’t gone off,” Alec looked into the house again.

  “It isn’t going to, Guv,” the officer bent over and put his hands on his knees as he tried to catch his breath. “The timer keeps on resetting when it reaches zero and the oil drums aren’t full of petrol. The ones I checked are full of water.”

  “Are you sure?” Alec raised his eyebrows.

  “Positive,” the officer nodded his head. “We found your detective in the second room, but there was no sign of the kid. I thought I saw the suspect in the next house and I went through a hole in the wall, which leads into the next one, I think. It’s black down there, Guv so I let off four rounds. There was no way I could make it back through the cellar before the timer ran down, so I took cover in the third house. When I realised it wasn’t going to explode, I checked out the drums. Definitely water.”

  “So the cellar in there goes through to the next house?” Alec gestured to the firefighters.

  “Yes,” the armed officer nodded. “And there are no devices in there.”

  “Open that front door!” Alec shouted. “Smithy!” The ginger detective was standing over Kisha as the medics worked frantically on her. Alec watched them giving her chest compressions. “Smithy!” The medics picked up her limp body and placed her on a stretcher. Two men carried her whilst a third continued to administer ventilation and heart compressions. They carried her toward the back of a waiting ambulance. Smithy waited until the back doors closed before he turned to face Alec. Tears stained his ruddy face. “I don’t think she’s going to make it, Guv.”

  Chapter Sixty-Two

  Zamir Oguzhan

  Will Naylor peered into the reception area and saw Salim’s grandfather waiting there. There was a big man in a black leather jacket stood by the door with his arms folded. “Do you think he’s the minder?” Will asked sarcastically. His mood was dark. Sharon Gould smiled. The entire team was on edge.

  “Stereotyping again,” she laughed sullenly. “He might be his lawyer.”

  “Do you want to bet twenty quid?”

  “Nah,” she shook her head. Her mobile buzzed as they waited for the front desk sergeant to open the door. She looked at the screen. “It’s the governor.”

  “Tell him I’m about to interview Oguzhan, will you, and I need to speak to him when he has got half an hour free.” Will didn’t think a two-minute conversation was going to cut it. The door clicked as the desk sergeant disengaged the electronic lock, which stopped the public from accessing restricted areas. Will opened the door and approached the elderly Turk.

  “Mr Oguzhan?”

  “Yes.” The old man looked up, but he didn’t move. His dark brown eyes looked into Will, searching for weakness. Will sensed that this ordinary-looking pensioner was far from ordinary. He kept his silver hair neatly cut, and he wore a dark blue Crombie over a white shirt and blue tie. He looked more like a banker than a mobster. “And you are?”

  “Detective Inspector Naylor.” Will didn’t offer a handshake. “Can we just have two minutes?” Will pointed to a door, which led to a small interview room. Uniformed officers used it to assess exactly what a member of the public needed to discuss, and with whom, rather than for interviewing suspects formally. The proper interview rooms were downstairs next to the cells. Years of misuse by the disgruntled public had left the paintwork on the door scratched and chipped. The old man wrinkled his nose at the thought of walking through it. He looked to his minder and the big man shook his head in the negative.

  “I have come to pick up the bodies of my grandson and his family, nothing more,” Zamir smiled. It was cold smile, almost a snarl. “If you tell me what I need to do to release their bodies, then we can be on our way.” He nodded toward the glass-fronted doors. Will walked to the glass and looked out at the car park. He could smell the minder. The big Turk smelled of Aramis and garlic, more garlic than aftershave. There was a black transit near the front doors. Directly behind them was a second identical van. Inscribed on the sides was the logo of a London funeral parlour. The driver and passenger of the nearest one stared back at Will, expressionless.

  “Are they being paid by the hour?” Will nudged the minder with his elbow and laughed. The Turk unfolded his thick arms and glared at Will. “I’m only asking because you have more chance of watching Turkey win the World Cup than you have of taking Salim’s body anywhere.” The minder moved toward Will and then glanced at the old man. Zamir held up his hand to placate his bodyguard. “You should listen to him,” Will patted the minder on the arm patronisingly. The Turk’s face flushed red with anger. “You’re well off your manor now, my friend, and if you so much as fart in the wrong place, I’ll have you banged up before you can blink, understand?”

  “Are we going to have a problem, Inspector Naylor?” Zamir asked. He walked to the window and looked out at the funeral van. “You see, in my country we have to bury our dead quickly. It’s a religious thing, you know?” His thin smile crossed his lips again.

  “Well, my boss wants you arrested. But I think if we have a quick chat, we can sort things out without solicitors and tape recorders.” Will pointed to the anteroom again. “I haven’t got the time to fuck around, so shall we talk or do you fancy spending the day in the cells? It’s your shout.” Will shrugged.

  “Your manners leave something to be desired.” The old man smiled thinly and looked at the river. Dark clouds were rolling in from the Irish Sea and the water looked dark green in the dull light. “How old are you, Inspector?” He asked without looking at Will.

  “That really is none of your business,” Will smiled and checked his watch. “Make your mind up, Zamir. I don’t have time to waste.”

  “You are thirty-five, Inspector.” The old man turned to him. “Your birthday is the twenty-sixth of March, nineteen seventy-seven. You were born in Whiston hospital. Your address is Sixteen Palace Mews, Woolton, and you drive a grey BMW. Do I need to go on?” The minder laughed and folded his arms. He titled his head to the side and grinned at Will.

  Will walked to the interview room and opened the door. He looked the old man in the eyes and waved his hand toward the opening. “Nice party trick, Zamir, last chance.” The desk sergeant buzzed the electronic lock and Sharon Gould walked into the reception area. She looked shocked and grey with pallor. Her conversation with Alec had been a disturbing one. “My colleague here will either get your pet thug a cup of tea while we chat, or she can summon two officers to arrest you and show you to the cells, which one is it to be?”

  “Call our lawyer,” Zamir said to his minder. “He takes two sugars, and you have five minutes, Inspector.” He brushed past Will and walked into the small room.

  “I’ll be five minutes.” Will turned to Sharon.

  “What are you doing, Will?” Sharon hissed and raised her eyebrows in surprise.

  “Trust me,” Will smiled. “Is everything okay with the governor?”

  “No, it isn’t, far from it!” She shook her head. What he was about to do was completely irregular.

  “You can fill me in later. This won’t take long,” Will said briskly. He looked at the minder and smirked. The Turkish minder bent his knees and farted loudly. He smiled at Will and farted again. “You should probably check your underwear. That sounded moist,” Will returned the smile and closed the interview room door.

  The old man leaned ag
ainst the radiator and warmed his hands on it. He looked at the bleak walls and frowned. “Police stations are real shitholes, aren’t they?” His thin smile appeared briefly and then disappeared.

  “Most of the people we deal with belong down a toilet.” Will indicated that they should sit down. “Would you prefer to stand?”

  “What do I need to do to release my grandson and his family’s bodies, Inspector?” The old man said, ignoring Will’s question. “It is imperative that we take them home.”

  “Simple.” Will sat down on a metal framed chair. “Release Rose James unharmed, and we will talk to you about their bodies. Until then, they stay in the morgue.”

  Zamir’s face darkened and he sighed. He rubbed his hands together and then placed them back onto the radiator. Will noticed the liver spots on them and the thin dark blue veins crisscrossing his wrists. “Rose who? I have no idea what you are talking about, Inspector. I want my family’s bodies today.”

  “I want a Ferrari and a night out with Cheryl Cole, but it’s not happening. You can make one phone call before I slap the cuffs on you, Zamir. I don’t know why people pussyfoot around you, to be honest. Release Rose James and we’ll ask the coroner when their bodies will be released, but be sure of one thing, we will not be speeding anything up for you.”

  “Salim is my only grandchild, you know?” Zamir wagged his index finger at Will. “His children are my only great grand children, and I am too old to be gifted with any more. My family have been murdered and I’m grieving, Inspector. When we lose a family member, the grieving cannot properly begin until we have washed the body. It is our religion, you see, an important tradition. You are insulting my family in our time of grief, and everything has a price.”

  Will put his hand to his forehead and frowned as if he was in deep thought. “Are you threatening me?” He laughed. “We have a few important traditions ourselves. One is that we don’t kidnap women because all our heroin has been nicked, and another one, which is my particular favourite, is that we lock up scumbag gangsters and drug dealers and we throw away the keys. That’s a good one, eh?”

  “I don’t think you have any idea who you are dealing with, Inspector Will Naylor, none at all,” Zamir shook his head. He put his hands into his pockets and looked at Will. “You have no respect.”

  “Yes, I do,” Will smiled. “I am dealing with a tired old mobster who lives in the past. Your mob is on the way down, Zamir. Look around you. The Tottenham Boys, the Kurdish Bulldogs, the Bombacilliers and at least three Albanian gangs are crawling up your arse. Personally, I would put the lot of you on a boat and send you back to Turkey. I can’t do that, but I can promise you that I will block the release of Salim’s body and link it to every investigation we have for the next two years. If you don’t play ball, Salim will be nothing more than a puddle before you get him home. Make a call and we will talk to the coroner.”

  “You are pushing me, Inspector,” Zamir said. “And there is a price to pay for that.”

  “Whatever. Make the call or we’ll go downstairs and do this formally.” Will pressed the panic bar, which ran around the walls of the room and then opened the door. He looked Zamir in the eyes before he closed it and locked it from the outside. On hearing the alarm, three uniformed officers and Sharon Gould ran into the reception area. The minder grabbed the handle of the interview room door and rattled it anxiously. “You fucking pig, you are as good as dead!” He turned on Will. “Open this door.”

  “Arrest him for breach of the peace and making threats to kill,” Will ordered. The officers struggled with the big Turk, but soon had him face down and cuffed on the floor. The air was blue with his protestations. “Give the old man ten minutes, and then arrest him on suspicion of possession with intent to supply. Let me know when his lawyer arrives,” Will said.

  “Are you sure about this?” Sharon asked.

  “Just do it.” Will straightened his tie and made his way back into the station.

  Chapter Sixty-Three

  The Gecko

  Nate Bradley stepped into the backyard of the restaurant and headed for the rear door. An empty gas canister that had once held CO2 held it open. The back corridor was deserted and the door leading to the public area was still open. The red fire extinguisher, put there minutes before by the lobby hostess, held it ajar. Nate zipped up his black raincoat and pulled the hood over his head. At the end of the corridor, he turned right and pushed open the door to the gents’ toilets. The single stall was unoccupied and the door was wide open. No one was at the urinals either. Nate looked through the reinforced fire glass into the restaurant’s dining area, and he could see Dean Hines still rowing with Leon. The third gangster was standing at the back of the queue, waiting for a crewmember to serve him. There were six people in front of him, and it looked like he would be waiting a while before it was his turn. He tapped on the disabled toilet door with his left hand. “Fuck off, someone’s in here!” He heard.

  Nate took a fifty-pence coin from his pocket and slid into the centre of the handle. The design was like a huge screw head so that employees could open the lock from the outside in the case of an emergency. The coin was the perfect thickness and he twisted it easily between his finger and thumb. “Oh!” A startled shout came from inside. “Fuck off, Gar, is that you?”

  He slid the door open, stepped inside and shut the door behind him in a matter of seconds. He pointed the Walther at Monkey. “You wanker, Gar, is that you messing about? I’m having a shit!” Monkey’s smile faded when he realised that the man with the hood and gun was white. He dropped the newspaper and held his hands above his head. He wanted to shout for help, but fear constricted his throat. Nate pulled the trigger three times, tap, tap, tap. Two rounds into his chest and one to the forehead. The 22 calibre bullets were perfect for a close range execution because they weren’t powerful enough to exit the body. They bounced about inside his chest, ripping and tearing the vital organs to shreds. The head shot rattled around inside his skull like a marble inside a jam jar, liquidising the brain matter on its way. Monkey slumped sideways and fell onto the toilet floor twitching. There was one less enemy to cope with at the drug deal.

  Chapter Sixty-Four

  Shankly Way

  The front doors were systematically bashed open by the firefighters, and the Armed Response Unit was ready to clear the first building. “The helicopter’s here, Guv!” Smithy shouted as the sound of helicopter rotor blades neared.

  “Good, I just hope it’s not too late,” Alec said, looking up. “I want those people moved back from the end of the street.” As he spoke, two more armed response units screeched to a halt. Uniformed officers lifted the orange tapes, allowing the vehicles to drive into Shankly Way. He called one of the firefighters over to him. “Listen, if Howarth has built a rat run through the houses, then he may be heading for the end of the terrace. Start at the end house and let the ARU clear the buildings from that end. We’ll work this way toward them.”

  The ARU officers acknowledged the orders and sprinted after the firefighters. “Smithy,” Alec said, “I want you to coordinate everything from up here. I need to see what’s going on down there.”

  “Guv,” Smithy said sullenly. He wanted the chance to catch Jack Howarth. Just a minute alone with the animal would do. “The bomb squad are on their way.”

  Alec walked toward the police cordon at the end of the street and watched as the firefighters smashed open the door. Eight armed officers waited impatiently to enter. “Split up,” Alec ordered. “One unit in this one and the other unit next door.”

  “Armed police!” They bellowed as they disappeared into the end terrace. “Kitchen clear!”

  “Ground floor clear!”

  “First floor clear!”

  Alec could hear similar shouts coming from further down the street. He walked down the hallway, which mirrored the others they had seen already. The officers opened the basement door and filed down the stairs in formation. “Armed police!” Alec followed the
m and used the Maglight to guide him in the darkness. Moss covered the wooden stairs and water ran down the exposed walls. A strong musty odour pervaded the basement. “Armed police!” echoed off the bricks. Alec reached the bottom of the stairs and shined the torch around. “It’s clear, Guv, and there’s no way in or out of here.”

  “Are you sure?” Alec blinked as torchlight shone in his eyes. “Yes, the walls are all intact, and there is no access to the drains down here.”

  “Okay, let’s check out the house next door but one.” He had one last look around. “We can alternate with the other team.”

  “Guv.” The armed officers took off up the stairs. Their heavy boots left deep tread marks in the moss.

  “No one has been in here for years,” Alec muttered to himself. “Where were you going when you scurried through the walls, you bastard?” Alec thought about the injuries to Kisha’s face, and his stomach twisted. He stepped into the hallway and shined the beam at the ceiling. Fungus grew along the Victorian architrave. Alec illuminated the wide staircase, which led up to the bedrooms. Dust swirled in the torch beam. “Where are you, Jack? You are so close, I can smell you.” Silence answered his question. He turned on his heels and followed the ARU out of the house and along the street. The helicopter whirled above them, and the bomb squad pulled their transporter outside number forty-four. There were muffled shouts coming from inside the terraced houses, but Alec heard something else. The pitch was too high for it to be coming from an adult. “Wait!” He called. He turned his head to pinpoint where the sound was coming from. Alec ran back into the house they had just left. He mounted the stone steps at speed and stopped when he reached the bottom of the wooden stairs. Heavy footsteps resounded as officers followed him into the building. “What is it, Guv?”

  “Shush a minute!” Alec listened intently. He shined the Maglight up the stairs, and the dust swirls were thicker this time. A dull thud came from the floor above somewhere. A shrill scream followed it. “Upstairs!” It took all his willpower not to bolt up the staircase first. He stepped aside and allowed the ARU to lead the way. “Armed police!” Their cries seemed to resonate from the damp walls. Alec followed them to the top of the stairs and waited until they emerged from the bedrooms. Torch beams cut through the darkness casting long shadows. “It’s clear, Guv.”