by Nick Oldham
‘I wonder how many he’s actually carried out?’ Henry mused.
‘What do you mean?’
‘The reported ones are always the tip of the iceberg… the terror factor makes a lot of victims clam up. Any chance of pulling an operation together for a couple of nights this week?’ Henry asked in vain hope.
Rik screwed up his face. ‘I could possibly muster a few bodies tonight, but it’s a late request. Maybe more tomorrow, but then we hit the weekend and everybody’s stretched.’ He checked his watch. ‘I’ll see what I can do, but don’t hold out much hope.’
‘We need to plan something for next month.’
Rik nodded and gathered all the paperwork together. ‘I’ll get home for some tea, then I’ll see you at Blackpool for Mark Carter, seven thirty?’
Rik left. Henry picked up the phone to call a detective sergeant at Preston who was dealing with one of the domestic murders Henry was overseeing. He needed an update… and that was how the rest of Henry’s afternoon unfolded, checking up on progress. Then it was six and he had a sudden, gut-wrenching thought that he hadn’t called Kate to let her know he would be late home.
It was only as he unthinkingly tapped the first digit of his home phone number that he remembered. Suddenly he was overwhelmed by a feeling of despair and emptiness, heartbroken by the realization that it was a call he would never have to make again.
In the same time zone, about three thousand miles to the south on the west coast of Africa, Steve Flynn steered Faye2 out of the deep Atlantic Ocean and into the wide mouth of the Gambia River. The journey from Gran Canaria had been uneventful, even his overnighter in Nouadhibou. Here Flynn had refuelled, taken on fresh supplies and had a long, uninterrupted sleep.
The Gambian capital, Banjul, was on his starboard side and he sailed past with disinterest, his eyes cold as granite under the brim of his baseball cap. He angled Faye2 upriver and cruised slowly past many creeks, surveying them with binoculars, until he found one he wanted. It was deep enough and contained a badly constructed wooden quayside against which he manoeuvred and tied up his boat. He had noticed it on his previous visit to the country, but had never imagined he would be returning to use it.
The heat was heavy and cruel in the early evening, although the sun had virtually disappeared over the western horizon.
Flynn poured himself a long, iced cola and rolled his hips as he drank it, still feeling the pain of the gouge-line ploughed by the bullet along his ribcage, nicking bone as it went. The wound was healing well but had a way to go yet. But he was mobile enough to return to the country from which he had fled like a rat being chased by dogs.
He had abandoned a dead friend and left that friend’s lady in a horrifying situation, and did not even yet know if she had survived it. She could well be as dead as Boone, and that was what Flynn expected.
His guilt was gut-wrenchingly physical. Tearing him up.
Boone had been dead for certain, his body kicked like a dog into the creek. But Michelle had been alive and maybe she had survived. He knew he could not have helped her at the time, but that didn’t make him feel any better.
Which is why, after a horrendous return to Gran Canaria and some convalescence there, he was right back in the Gambia as soon as he was fit, with one thing on his mind.
He downed the last of the cola, the ice chinking against his teeth, then vaulted off the boat, tucking the 9mm Glock 17 into the waistband of his three-quarter length trousers, pulling his shirt over it and pushing the silencer into his pocket.
Henry did not bother going home, unable to face the house, empty or otherwise. He’d spent about half an hour staring into space at his desk, his mind empty and dull. Eventually he clicked into action, roused himself with a sorry shake of his head and pushed himself up from his chair, which was like trying to lift a lead weight. He gathered his stuff and made his way to his car, sat in it for a while and experienced more guilt at having acquired such a fancy machine for what, it seemed, was the cost of Kate’s life. He knew he would not have owned such a beast if she was still here. It would never have entered his head. The Mondeo had been more than adequate.
The Mercedes engine barely made a noise as he drove up the avenue away from the FMIT block, towards the HQ building. At the junction he was faced with a slight dilemma: turn right and exit, or go straight on to the sports and social club, aka The Grovellers’ Arms. The beer was cheap but at that time of day, between five and seven, it was full of office staff and bosses, none of whom he cared to mix with. He rarely socialized with other cops, other than a few close friends, and was a bit worried now that he’d reached the rank at which others might want to brown-nose up to him. The thought worried him. He had always disliked rank and authority, yet was now part of the establishment. Sort of like Mick Jagger accepting a knighthood.
With that in mind, he selected a very old Rolling Stones album from the in-car iPod, from the days when they were the bad boys, and swung the car right, spurting under the rising security barrier quickly, because he never quite trusted it. Then, to the strains of Gimme Shelter, he hit the road.
He joined the traffic heading into Preston, bearing left after crossing the River Ribble, out towards Blackpool, past Preston docks. He enjoyed the drive in the new car, although his left shoulder was giving him some gyp, the one which had been peppered with shotgun pellets during the blood-soaked stand-off in Kendleton, where he first met Alison. A slight sweat came at the memory of his lucky escape.
As he drove he did his retirement sums again. The house was now paid off. The pension would be good. He could buy a dog… Or maybe just keep going until they forced his hand? Then he could come back as a cold case consultant on half the salary, no responsibility and all the fun.
In Blackpool he turned into the KFC on Preston New Road and parked in one of the wide grill bays. Once inside he stood at the back of a long queue and kept an eye out for Mark Carter, who was nowhere to be seen. He ate in the restaurant, glumly avoiding standing on the chips on the floor, having had to wipe the table before sitting at it. But the food was OK and gave him that short energy burst he needed.
At seven thirty he was at Blackpool nick in the CID office with Rik, awaiting a call from the public enquiry desk to say that Mark Carter had answered his bail.
He chatted with Rik about the serial rape inquiry, and whether he had sorted anything out for later. The DI looked sheepish.
‘Singularly unsuccessful. Tomorrow night, maybe, plenty of bodies about, but tonight, too short notice.’
‘Which means?’
‘Uh, well, after we’ve finished with Carter, I’ll get changed into my scruffs, grab the crappiest CID car I can find and troll about myself until midnight.’
‘Yourself?’
Rik nodded.
‘Keeping obs for a rapist?’
‘Yep.’
‘Not exactly the well-resourced operation I had in mind,’ Henry sighed. ‘Tell you what, I’ll come with you. Wouldn’t expect you to do it alone.’
‘Seriously?’ Rik sounded doubtful. ‘Only thing is, every time I go out on a job with you, I seem to end up getting injured.’ He was referring to the times when he’d been stabbed once and shot once, each time out with Henry.
‘You’re still alive, aren’t you?’
‘Just.’
Henry winked, checked his watch and picked up a desk phone, dialled the front desk and asked if Mark had shown his face. Negative. Cradling the phone, Henry checked his watch again and decreed, ‘I’ll give him until half eight, then I’ll go looking.’
‘Probably done a runner,’ Rik said. ‘Guilty and all that.’
It was a ten minute walk to the creek in which Boone’s houseboat was moored. As Flynn turned on to the unstable quayside, his insides seemed to drop from a great height. The tropical evening had drawn in and his way was illuminated by lamp posts along the quay which varied in strength. Some flickered, some glowed dully, others cast intense white light. Even so, Flynn could clearly see
the big shape that had once been the Ba-Ba-Gee, Boone’s houseboat and home.
The old concrete barge was tilted at a forty-five degree angle away from the quay, like an immense, dead, beached whale. It had been completely gutted by fire and everything that had been so lovingly and expensively refurbished by Boone — upper and lower decks, the outside seating area, the galley, the bedrooms — was all destroyed. All that remained was the seemingly indestructible concrete hull, half sunk in the water.
Flynn approached the wreck slowly.
Inside he was cold and raging. Outside his skin had tightened on his skeleton, and now his breathing was laboured and he started to dither.
He walked alongside the barge and up to the point on the quay where the fleeing Boone had been shot in the back of the head. His body draped across the old railway sleeper that was still there.
Flynn stooped to one knee and touched a bullet hole in the planking, slipping his little finger into it. Then he looked up sharply, his face distorted by venomous anger. He came upright slowly, carried on walking along the banking to the next inlet where Boone’s fishing boat Shell had been moored. Flynn had originally moored Faye2 alongside, such a long, long time ago. A light year away. Since then he had been shot, and managed to make it back to Gran Canaria, where a discreet Spanish doctor had treated the wound and taken an excessive amount of money to keep quiet. During his recovery, Flynn had done his research, remembering the Internet pages that he had briefly looked at on Boone’s laptop in the seconds before the man himself had rushed back, pursued by desperate killers.
Splattered all over the news pages that Flynn had accessed back in Gran Canaria was the face of the man he’d watched getting off Boone’s boat. The man who had been injured, the same man suspected of involvement in the planning of terrorist activities in the UK. The man who was now wanted by the authorities and whose name was Jamil Akram.
Flynn had only seen his face briefly from his hiding place behind some oil barrels, but he was convinced it was Akram. His eyes were as good as they’d ever been, honed by five years of searching sun-glistening waves for the sight of blue marlin on the move.
It wasn’t a difficult equation for Flynn to work out.
Boone was clearly still in the cargo trade. He had brought Akram back to the Gambia from wherever — the news reports, Flynn noticed, were sparse on the details of where Akram might have gone to. But Boone was involved. Old habits and all that shit, Flynn had thought. Boone was just keeping his hand in, making money as and when. It was in his blood. That’s what he did. And it had led to his death because the men who came after him were the ones who had been guarding Akram.
So what had Boone done to incur their ire?
He’d delivered the package. But then what? The fact was that Boone had been browsing pages on his computer about a man who, it was alleged, had been helping some young Islamic fundamentalists to cause carnage in Blackpool, a place Flynn knew well. He’d been a cop there once. Had lived with his wife there — until it had all gone wrong.
Flynn concluded that Boone hadn’t known who he was transporting at first. Then he’d found out. And had that knowledge killed him?
Flynn asked himself again — what had Boone done to bring about his death?
The answer was a guess. Boone was a hothead, a guy with an eye for the main chance and not above blackmail.
Could that be it? Had he discovered the true value of his cargo and gone to demand more money, or had he threatened to go to the authorities? Or both? Flynn could imagine Boone combining the two with the subtlety of a bull elephant’s charge.
What Flynn had also found interesting in the news reports he had read was a name that cropped up a few times — that of Detective Superintendent Henry Christie who had been at the scene of the police shooting of one of the suspected terrorists. Henry Christie — a name Flynn could conjure with all day. But, interesting as the name was, Christie was peripheral to Flynn’s own investigations and intentions.
Flynn had healed quickly, one of the benefits of being fit and healthy. The gouge the bullet had taken out of him had been closed, meshed and bandaged by the tame, money-driven doctor. Then, with the assistance of liberal doses of good painkillers, sunshine and alcohol, and a festering desire for retribution, Flynn had reached a stage where he thought he could act.
And now he was back in the Gambia. He didn’t care what the reason was for Boone’s death, he just knew that he didn’t deserve to die in that terrible way. And what of Michelle? Not knowing her fate had been gnawing away at Flynn intensely.
He turned into the creek and stopped abruptly.
Boone’s boat was still tethered there, apparently unscathed. Flynn’s heart whammed in his chest. He truly had not expected this, especially having just seen the wreck of the houseboat. At the very least he thought he would find a burned-out husk or no boat at all.
But here she was, Shell, rocking gently in the creek water alongside the other boats moored here.
Had she been commandeered by Boone’s killers? Did she now belong to someone else?
He moved quietly in his soft-soled deck shoes, his right hand snaking to the small of his back, fingers clasping the handle of the Glock which he extracted slowly and held down by his hip.
There was no sign of life on board, but the boat looked OK.
Instinctively he dropped into a defensive crouch as he approached the stern, where he stopped and listened. Heard nothing.
It was a short leap on to the aft deck, sidestepping the fighting chair. He landed with hardly a noise and stood completely still, listening again. He approached the sliding door that led into the cockpit and tried the handle. The door slid open an inch. He opened it further, wide enough for him to step through into the cockpit. To his right were the wheel and controls, to his left the bench seat and bait area. Ahead was the door, beyond which were the steps leading to the galley and living accommodation.
He crossed to this door and tried the handle. This was locked.
Flynn swore under his breath, took a step back to weigh up the door which was made of thick UPVC in a frame, rather like the back door of a house. In his time as a cop Flynn had booted down many doors, although it had become progressively harder. As a drugs branch detective, entering premises through locked doors was a regular occurrence. In the old days, most doors could easily be removed by size elevens and determination. But as UPVC and multi-lock doors became more common, the cops had become more sophisticated, in a rough sort of way, in their attempts to batter them down. The door Flynn faced that evening was of the newer variety, and even though it was on a boat it was still substantial. He doubted his ability to kick it open using the flat-footed method — but was going to give it a try anyway.
He angled himself side-on to the door, gritted his teeth, and got into the mental attitude required to boot down the door.
But at that moment he felt a gun barrel pressing into the back of his neck, just below his trimmed hairline, at the point where his skull connected with his spine. Flynn did not move an inch, other than to open his fingers when a voice said, ‘Drop your gun.’
FOURTEEN
Mark Carter had not answered his bail and Henry was fuming, convinced he could be doing better, more interesting things than hanging around in a grotty police station. Although when he analysed that thought, he wasn’t exactly sure what. As Alison was back at her pub in Kendleton, he wouldn’t be with her, so the probability was that the only place he would be right now would be alone, splayed out on the settee at home gripping a beer and trying to get his head around why Kate had loved soap operas so much. Or maybe propping up the bar down at the Tram amp; Tower, his local, bending the ear of Ken, the landlord, who’d become a bit of an unwilling listening post for him.
Maybe being annoyed at the police station, waiting for someone to answer bail, wasn’t such a bad option.
He checked his watch for the umpteenth time and looked across at Rik Dean, who was busying himself with paperwork. Then his mobile
rang and the display read, ‘Unknown Caller’. Henry said, ‘Bet this is him
… Henry Christie.’
‘Detective Superintendent Christie?’ came the crisp, upper-class tones that Henry recognized instantly: the spookmeister, Martin Beckham. Henry snatched the pen from Rik’s fingers.
‘Mr Beckham, hello — at last.’
‘Mm, this is only a courtesy call.’ Beckham sounded unwilling even to speak and Henry guessed he was doing so under pressure from some other quarters. ‘You sent a list of questions and some requests concerning Zahid Sadiq.’
‘Oh yes… when was that? I’d almost forgotten.’
‘Sarcasm will get you nothing,’ Beckham’s voice hardened. ‘Just to say that our interviewers questioned him on your behalf and he made no comment, so I’m afraid that’s where it ends.’
‘He made no comment?’ Henry asked incredulously. ‘His ejaculate was found inside a female murder victim and you allowed him to make no comment?’
‘That is the situation.’
‘In that case, I need to come and interview him properly, like I should have been allowed to do in the first place.’
‘Are you suggesting that my interviewers are less than competent?’
‘What I’m suggesting is that an investigator with a feel for the brutal murder of a teenage girl needs to speak to this guy, who must be seen as a prime suspect until I’m satisfied otherwise.’
Beckham gave a harsh laugh. ‘I may point out to you that the ejaculate, as you so delicately put it, is only one of four specimens found inside a girl who, it would appear, was of loose morals and may well have been the author of her own downfall.’
Henry tugged his collar, feeling the redness of anger shoot up his neck. ‘Can I quote you on that?’ he asked, trying to keep his voice level. ‘She is a murder victim and I have a job to do, and, as far as I can see, you are obstructing justice.’
‘The bigger picture, Superintendent. I assume you’ve heard that term before?’ Beckham said patronizingly. ‘Sadiq is an asset in the war against terrorism and you will not have access to him.’