by Nick Oldham
‘I need authorisation for a firearms team,’ she began breathlessly.
‘We think we’ve located-’
Crosby slashed his right hand through the air as if he was executing a karate chop, stopping her in mid-sentence.
‘You deliberately disobeyed my orders yesterday, miss, and now you want me to sanction another team?’
‘What d’you mean, sir?’
‘I said “No” to your request yesterday.’
‘You did, yes.’
‘Yet you utilised the Blackpool ARV,’ he stated.
Her mind whizzed. What was going on here? ‘It was a compromise,’ she said defensively.
‘It was disobedience of a direct order,’ he shouted. ‘Implicit in my “No” was the fact that you were not, repeat not, to use armed officers for your little fiasco.’
She looked quickly at FB who smirked, enjoying her discomfort.
‘I didn’t use a team,’ she said, trying to regain her composure. ‘You used armed officers!’
‘Yes,’ she said, exasperated. ‘I used the ARV. They are on twenty-four-hour cover in every division and can be used for day-to-day jobs just like any other patrol in the county. They were there as insurance. They didn’t draw their weapons, neither did they get involved in the raid. It was a sensible move, if you ask me.’
‘No one’s fucking asking you! You disobeyed my orders, pure and simple.’ His face was red with rage; he was screaming in classic Scouse.
‘I protected my men,’ she insisted. There was no way she was going to back down and admit she was wrong - particularly with FB looking on.
‘And it wasn’t even the man you were after, just some poor innocent bloke...’
‘Whose driving licence was used by the biggest mass murderer since Lockerbie.’
Crosby wasn’t to be diverted now. He was in full flow. ‘You used excessive force in entering his house and now I believe we’re faced with a huge bill for trashing the place.’
‘Trashing is not the term I would use. Damage was caused, yes, but it was minimal. The cost of repair will be relatively small.’
‘I am tempted to have you disciplined for this,’ Crosby growled.
‘What? So you can have your investigation back? Because your beloved CID aren’t running the show? Grow up, Mr Crosby . . . I know you don’t like me, or the fact that I’ve got this job, but I’m doing it to the best of my ability and I’m that far off getting a result.’ She held up her thumb and forefinger with just a sliver of daylight between them. ‘And I won’t be browbeaten or bullied by the likes of dinosaurs like you two...’
‘Dinosaurs!’ he blasted.
‘If you want to sulk, then do so. But if you hinder the investigation, so help me God, I’ll bring you down - and you, FB.’ She pointed a finger at Fanshaw-Bayley.
‘So what’s it going to be?’ she demanded. Her mouth was a tight angry line. Her eyes had large bags under them the colour of prunes and she’d been wearing the same outfit for a long twenty hours. Her hair felt like straw and she needed a bath followed by twelve hours’ sleep. What she didn’t need was this shit!
‘The answer’s no,’ Crosby said.
She wheeled round and marched out of the office.
Two minutes later the tension that had been welling up inside Crosby’s chest reached a climax. It burned up through his arteries like razor blades on fire, from his heart to his left arm and up the side of his face.
He clutched himself.
Then keeled over off his chair onto the floor with a crash, taking the contents of his desk with him.
FB looked on bemused for a moment before he realised what was happening.
His boss was having a major heart attack.
Whisper had been moved to a side ward, but other than that no one had touched him. He still lay on the hospital bed in his dying position: head lolling to one side, arms hanging loosely off the bed. The nurse who’d discovered him had tried to save him. She’d ripped the bedclothes off him and torn open his pyjamas, but it had been too late for Whisper. Despite all his gurgling and blowing of bubbles of blood through his nose and mouth, he was already dead.
Kovaks’ weary but sharp eyes gazed at the wounds. There were at least twelve punctures in the chest around the heart and innumerable ones in his face and neck. One of his eyes had been gouged out, an ear sliced off and his cheek carved open. Kovaks could see Whisper’s teeth through that particular wound.
Blood was everywhere. The bed was soaked, his body was drenched in it. Crimson was splashed ten feet up the wall behind the bed and’ across the floor. It had started to congeal in tar-like clods on the tiles. There were many footprints in it. It had been a frenzied attack. Kovaks was puzzled.
He looked quickly from the body to the blood splashes and back to the body. A police photographer asked him to step aside while he took more shots from a different angle. Another photographer was videoing the scene for evidential purposes.
The stills man bent down on the far side of the bed. His camera flashed. He stood upright and said, ‘Have you seen this?’ He pointed down to the corner of the room.
Kovaks walked over carefully.
A piece of thick, pink, blood-oozing meat lay on the floor skewered by a knife. The knife was thin, as long as a stiletto but with one jagged cutting edge. Kovaks had no doubt he was looking at the murder weapon.
He had no doubt, either, that he was looking at Whisper’s tongue.
The message it conveyed was not lost on him.
He turned to the local sheriff who was standing at the door. ‘I assumed he’d been killed out on the ward and his body moved here after. ‘
‘Apparently not.’ The man shrugged. His thumbs were tucked into his gun belt. He seemed slow-witted, but Kovaks knew not to underestimate such people.
‘I’ll be moving a team in here,’ Kovaks informed him, ‘but we’d sure appreciate your cooperation. I think that together - our skills and your local knowledge - we’ll crack this.’
The sheriff smiled. ‘Us and the FBI, working together? Sure thing,’ he said, pleased.
‘And obviously we’d like to set up an incident room to run from your office, if that meets with your approval?’
‘Yeah, sure. From my office. No problem.’ His smile widened even further.
‘But first can you tell me where I can locate the nurse who found him?’
The sheriff cocked a thumb. ‘Down there. She’s pretty shook up.’
Kovaks strolled down the ward, muttering, ‘Keep ‘em sweet, keep, em sweet.’
The eyes of the patients were on him. Some sneered at the sight of the badge pinned to his lapel. None spoke. He doubted if any ever would.
The nurse was a middle-aged lady whom he’d seen earlier. She was sitting in an office, her head buried in her hands, being comforted by the bored-looking doctor whom Kovaks had also met before. As Kovaks came to the door the doctor immediately ushered him back out.
‘She is in no condition to be interviewed yet,’ he said. ‘I’ve given her a tranquilliser to get her this calm. Her husband should be here soon to take her home.’
‘When will I be able to speak to her?’
‘Tomorrow at the earliest.’
Kovaks nodded. ‘OK. Can you tell me why Whisper was transferred to that side ward, doc?’
‘To aid speedy recovery. He needed complete isolation, in my opinion.’
‘Did you see anything that might be of use to us?’
‘Such as?’
‘Such as who stuck a knife into him a million times.’
‘No, I didn’t and frankly, I don’t have the time to talk to you just now. I need to care for this nurse, then I need to get the hospital back to normal.’
‘When can I see you then?’
‘Ask my secretary. Make an appointment.’
Jack Crosby was still alive when he was slid on a stretcher into the back of the ambulance some fifteen minutes later, but only just. His heart and breathing had stopped at on
e point, but FB’s half-remembered first-aid training had saved him. For the time being at least.
Karen watched the ambulance race away, blue light flashing. She was standing at a first-floor window.
The small crowd of people who had gathered outside dispersed slowly, leaving only two standing there: a pale, shaken FB and a worried-looking Chief Constable. FB began talking animatedly, arms waving, fingers pointing, voice obviously raised.
Karen’s mouth twisted sardonically. ‘I wonder who he’s talking about,’ she said under her breath.
She watched them turn and walk into the HQ building, FB not letting up for a second.
Karen made her way to the Chief Constable’s secretary’s office and sat down to wait. A wave of tiredness enveloped her. This was the longest single uninterrupted period she had ever worked in her life. It was all she could do to prevent herself falling asleep.
Jean, the secretary, glanced up at her.
‘I do hope he’s all right,’ she said.
‘I do too,’ said Karen. She meant it.
‘Is there anything I can get you? You look exhausted.’
Just a warm bed and a stiff drink. Karen shook her head, too tired even to speak.
‘Don’t blame yourself,’ Jean said softly. ‘He’s been warned about his condition often enough. It was only a matter of time.’
Karen managed a wan smile.
FB and Dave August entered and the Chief went straight into his office without acknowledging Karen. ‘I’m not to be disturbed,’ he announced. ‘I’m going to call Mrs Crosby.’
‘Boss. . .’ Karen began, getting to her feet.
‘Disturbed by no one,’ he reiterated and slammed the door.
FB turned to Karen, ‘This is your doing,’ he said with vehemence.
‘None of this would’ve happened without your incessant ambition.’
‘Don’t become a bigger fool than you already are, FB. I wasn’t to know he had a dodgy heart.’
‘It was common knowledge.’
‘Common to whom, dickhead?’ she challenged. She sat back down and folded her arms, determined not to enter a no-win, no-profit argument.
The intercom buzzed on Jean’s desk. ‘Get a car to pick up Mrs Crosby from home and take her to hospital. Then arrange for mine to pick me up from the garage. I’m going to see him too.’
‘Yes, sir.’
Karen came to an instant decision. ‘This is preposterous,’ she said, striding across to the Chief’s door. Jean opened her mouth to remonstrate, but Karen burst through the door before she could utter a word and crashed it shut behind her.
Blackpool Tower came into view. In ten minutes they would be at the central police station where the firearms team had been told to assemble for the briefing.
Karen sighed heavily as she thought back to her head-on confrontation with Dave August, Chief Constable and lover.
‘I said I was not to be disturbed.’
‘I still need a firearms team,’ she said. ‘There’s no ACC on duty now - only you can authorise it.’
‘FB was right - you are a bitch. There’s a man lying near to death and-’
‘And there’s also a killer on the loose who needs catching,’ she cut in. ‘Life goes on, especially in this job. So does death by murder. It doesn’t stop because someone’s ill. Now do I get the team or not?’
‘Yes ... now piss the hell off out of here.’
As she reached the door, August added: ‘And by the way, if this murder isn’t bottomed in twenty-four hours, you’re off the investigation and I’m handing it over to someone with more experience.’
They were slowing down now as the motorway narrowed into a two-lane road and they entered Blackpool.
Karen sat back and cleared her mind, concentrating on the task ahead.
Pepe Paglia mooched, hands in pockets, down the street on which his small hotel was located. He was still rather depressed at having handed a thousand pounds in cash over to Hinksman the day before. On the other hand he felt reassured that Corelli would reimburse him handsomely in the not-too-distant future. That was the good thing about family ties, however tenuous; a favour for a favour.
He entered a newsagents and picked up a copy of that day’s Sun. In the back room of the shop a TV was switched on, showing a lunchtime news bulletin. Paglia was not really paying it much attention. He was too busy choosing goodies for his sweet tooth. He glanced up by pure chance and saw the screen as he picked up a Mars bar. His mouth dropped open.
Paglia almost sprinted back to the hotel, arriving breathless and weak, in desperate need of a cigarette.
They commandeered the parade room at Blackpool Central police station for the briefing. The firearms team was already assembled when Karen, McClure and Donaldson arrived. There was one Sergeant and twelve Constables, including two women. All were dressed in lightweight blue overalls, ballistic vests and caps. Each wore a pair of Reebok trainers. They were checking numerous weapons between them as they waited: handguns, rifles, semi-automatic pistols, MP5s, stun grenades, CS gas launchers. They were like a small, well equipped army.
Karen stopped in her tracks and surveyed them. It was the first time she had ever seen such a team. They exuded calm, confidence and good humour. And efficiency. They were an efficient killing machine.
Karen cleared her throat and moved to the front of the room, aware for the first time of the magnitude of the chain of events that she might be just about to unleash.
She introduced herself and her two colleagues.
The ceiling of Hinksman’s room had many cracks in it and some dampness in one corner. He lay on the bed, hands clasped across his chest, staring blankly up at it, when Paglia rushed in without knocking.
Even though the door had been flung open, Hinksman had reacted instinctively as soon as the handle had started to move downwards. He rolled off the bed, grabbing the revolver which was on the bedside cabinet, twisting himself onto his knees, using the bed as cover; by the time Paglia actually stepped into the room he was greeted by the sight of a black muzzle pointing directly at his chest, the hammer on its deadly backwards journey.
Paglia froze. His jaw dropped.
Fortunately, Hinksman saw who it was and eased the hammer back into place with his thumb. He stood up angrily.
‘Jesus H Christ,’ he cursed through gritted teeth, ‘I told you knock and wait. Next time I’ll kill you. That’s a promise.’
Paglia gulped. ‘Sorry,’ he blabbered, ‘but I thought you should watch this.’
He switched on the portable TV. The top story was being wound up with an artist’s impression of the man police were after in connection with the M6 bombing. The sketch was Hinksman, of that there was no doubt. It captured his features exactly, right down to the cruel, piercing eyes. Killer’s eyes.
Hinksman watched scornfully. ‘So?’ he spat. ‘It changes nothing.’
‘Oh,’ said Paglia, bemused by the calm reaction.
‘Because they think they know what I look like means nothing. They don’t know my name or where I am, do they?’
‘Right, right,’ said the hotel-keeper. ‘I thought you should know, that’s all.’
Hinksman nodded. ‘You did right.’
When Paglia had left, Hinksman switched the TV off and lay on the bed again. The drawing had been a very good likeness - and that was a niggling worry. There was no way it could have been drawn from someone’s memory. It was a lift from a photograph, Hinksman suddenly realised. But which one?
Maybe it was time to quit this Godforsaken little country after all. Get the job done and get out. In the meantime, Hinksman decided, he’d hole up somewhere else. In a city. Manchester or Liverpool somewhere he could just fade into the background.
The telephone rang in the reception area. Hinksman heard Paglia answer and then the sound of footsteps running upstairs.
This time Paglia knocked and announced himself nervously through the closed door.
‘Come in, you idiot.’
‘Who is it?’ Hinksman asked sharply.
‘Only one other person knows you’re here.’
Hinksman shouldered Paglia out of the way and sprinted down to take the call.
Only a minute later he was back.
He started to pack. Quickly.
Paglia hovered at the bedroom door. ‘Problem?’
‘Big problem,’ said Hinksman, stuffing his clothes into a holdall.
‘They do know who I am and what’s more, they know where I am.’
And not only that, Hinksman thought as he looked at Paglia, you know far too much about me.
Chapter Nine
The briefing was over. The team was ready to move.
Karen had been as honest as she could be about the situation, which pleased them all. Normally briefings were couched in half-truths, downright lies and need-to-know, which could put team members in unnecessary danger. Here, she laid it all on the line, laid it on thick that Hinksman was a killer out of the top drawer, who knew how to kill well, had been trained to do it efficiently and probably enjoyed it too.
They got the message.
‘Do you have any further questions?’ she asked as she packed her notes together.
The team leader, Sergeant Macintosh, a well-built officer over six feet tall, who looked as if he would take no messing from anyone, asked: ‘Where has the information about the hotel-keeper come from?’
Karen looked at Donaldson.
He coughed and replied, ‘From a reputable Mafia source in Florida - a man who’s presently serving time.’
‘And how much do we know about this Paglia fellow?’
‘Very little, other than he’s been in this country for thirty years, generally in the hotel or restaurant trade. He’s got a family connection with a Mafia boss we’re currently investigating - and family connections mean a lot to these people. It would appear that over the years he’s given refuge to many Mafia members en route from either Italy or the States.’