by Nick Oldham
‘OK?’ he enquired.
‘No, not really,’ she admitted truthfully. She was on the verge of tears, struggled to keep them back.
‘I have a little more bad news, I’m afraid.’
She sighed and shrugged her shoulders. ‘Go on.’ She wasn’t sure how much more she could take.
‘I’ve just spoken to Joe Kovaks; he tells me that the guy who gave us the information has been killed. Stabbed to death in his hospital bed at the prison. Even had his tongue cut out.’
‘Oh God,’ she uttered. She stood up shakily and crossed to the window which overlooked the town. In the distance the River Ribble snaked away towards the sea. She shook her head in disbelief.
She couldn’t stop it. She began to cry with gut-wrenching sobs that racked her body, made her shoulders judder.
Donaldson crossed to her and placed an arm around her. She turned instinctively into him and buried her face in his blood-stained shirt. It was a great effort to prevent himself from crying. Ever since McClure had died, he’d shut his mind to it so that he could get on with what had to be done. Now that time was over. Family had been told. Statements had been made.
He stroked Karen’s hair. It felt coarse and grubby. Stale.
She tilted her head and looked up. Tears flooded her eyes, pouring down her cheeks. Make-up ran, lipstick smeared. She would have been the first to admit she looked a mess.
‘I’m sorry, Karl,’ she said.
The door opened before she could finish.
FB and a sidekick strutted businesslike into the room.
‘Oh, this is fuckin’ great,’ he shouted. ‘Straight back to your old tricks and the bodies are still warm. I should’ve known. You’re an uncaring, unfeeling slag. Yes, a fuckin’ slag and you’ll never be any different. ‘
Karen and Donaldson had stepped a pace apart from each other.
They were speechless.
‘Right - collect your things. You’re off this investigation as of now and you’re also suspended from duty pending a full enquiry.’
‘Suspended?’ she said in disbelief. ‘On what grounds?’
‘Neglect of duty, disobeying a lawful order, bringing the force into disrepute ... you name it, lady, it’s there. Unfortunately you’ll be on full pay. May I have your warrant card, please? As of now you’re banned from entering any police station, other than as a member of the public. You must go home and remain there until D and C contact you.’ FB was in full flow. ‘Do you know how many lives you’ve destroyed by this thoughtless operation? And do you care? I’ll bet not.’
Karen couldn’t answer.
‘Let up, will you, pal?’ Donaldson cut in.
‘You shut it, Yank,’ snarled FB, pointing. ‘You’re not involved in this.’
‘Not involved?’ Donaldson stepped forward and grabbed FB’s lapels, heaved him onto his toes and whacked him back against the wall. They stood nose to nose. ‘Not involved, you asshole? My friend died in my arms today, you little shit. Not involved? I oughtta punch you into next week.’
His big clenched fist drew back. FB braced himself, wondering what time-travel would feel like.
Karen caught the fist before it connected. ‘Karl, Karl. There’s no need for that. It won’t do anyone any good ... and please, let me fight my own battles.’
‘But it’d make me feel so damned good,’ he said, reluctantly dropping the sweating FB.
Numbly, Karen rummaged through her handbag until she found her warrant card. She placed it photo-up on her desk. She collected her coat, slung it around her shoulders and walked out of the office, averting her eyes from everyone else’s.
‘Good fuckin’ riddance,’ FB called out childishly. ‘And stay away from the Chief - he doesn’t need your poison.’
‘You be quiet,’ Donaldson warned him. He came up close to FB again. ‘I don’t know you, but you sure got bad manners and if she hadn’t stopped me your teeth would be stickin’ outta your ass now because I’d’ve smashed them that far down your goddamned throat.’
Donaldson hurried out of the office after Karen, but she’d already caught the lift. He ran down the stairs into the car park - just in time to see the back end of her car pull away into traffic with a screech of tyres.
Chapter Ten
The surveillance was back on.
The suspected drugs dealer in the Porsche was gunning down the west-bound carriageway of the M55, heading out towards the Lancashire coast. He was averaging about 100 mph - not particularly excessive for such a car - but it showed he was fairly relaxed about things and didn’t think he was being followed. What he didn’t know was that a sophisticated tracking device had been fitted to the underside of his car and was emitting a powerful, easy to follow signal to the four-car RCS surveillance team, the nearest of which, two miles behind, was driven by Henry Christie.
This is an absolute piece of cake, Henry thought, alternately watching the tracking monitor fitted to the dash, the road ahead, the road behind. He’d only managed to get hold of the tracker by a combination of accident and theft early that morning. In their tiredness, another RCS team, going off-duty after an unsuccessful night’s work, had forgotten to lock it away. So Henry nicked it.
He was alone in his car. Terry was still off sick with his broken thumb and Henry didn’t really feel inclined to be working with anyone else at that stage. He wished to avoid talking about the bomb and its unpleasant aftermath. He just wanted to be at work, doing something, chasing someone, taking his mind off it. He did have a constant dull headache he couldn’t rid himself of, though, due to the bump on his temple. That was reminder enough.
When the bomb exploded, the surveillance operation on the dealer had obviously gone to rat-shit. They had lost him for the time being and it had taken Henry and his team the best part of that day to relocate him and his car in Manchester and then get into position once the tracker had been fitted.
The tracker had proved to be a godsend once the target had started to move, about 8p.m. The team had followed him without a hitch around Manchester for about twenty minutes and eventually onto the motorway network. He’d taken the M61 out of the city, picked up the M6 north and cut left onto the M55 where he was now, at two minutes to nine.
Henry hadn’t a clue what he was up to, nor where he was headed. Because of the bomb they were starting from scratch again.
Presumably he’d sold on his Ecstasy tablets. Henry hoped he was going into Blackpool to do some wheeling and dealing in the pubs and clubs where perhaps he could be caught red-handed.
It would be nice to arrest him in Blackpool, Henry thought. That way he could go straight home. See his wife and children. Even if it was late. He hadn’t given them much time recently and he wanted to change that. They all needed a holiday and he vowed that as soon as he could arrange some leave they’d scoot off to sunny Spain.
On the final few miles into Blackpool, where the MSS narrows into a normal two-lane road, they hit the tailback of slow-moving Illuminations traffic, inbound to Blackpool. Hundreds of cars crammed full of families, all drawn by the world-famous lights fantastic. Everyone, including the Porsche, was forced to a snail’s pace.
Henry decided the time had come to move up into visual contact with the target. He accelerated, executed a few hairy overtakes, causing some swerving, swearing, fist-shaking and angry horn blasts, and slotted in two cars behind the target.
Leaning forwards, he pushed the button to switch on the car radio. It was 9 p.m. He hadn’t heard any news today. He tuned in to Radio Lancashire and almost crashed into the car ahead when the announcer calmly reported the deaths of three police officers in a firearms incident in Blackpool where the person responsible had managed to evade capture; the same person, incidentally, wanted for questioning in connection with the M6 bombing.
It was 9.30 p.m.
The public house on the promenade was busy, packed to the doors. Henry Christie squeezed in, his eyes roving the bar, searching for his man who he was sure had come in here.
He shuffled sideways in between the crush of people, ensuring his left arm always lay tight across the revolver in his shoulder-holster. His compact Sig Sauer which he’d lost in the river had been replaced temporarily by a more bulky short-barrelled .38, which in comparison felt like a bazooka stuck under his arm. He would be glad when his new Sig arrived.
The smell of sweat, beer and cigarettes intermingled with the sound of raucous laughter, banter and loud music blasting from the video jukebox. Two huge screens hanging precariously from the ceiling showed the group Take That strutting their pectorals. It was a typical youngsters’ pub. A good place to buy and sell gear - drugs, that is.
Henry still couldn’t see his man but was sure he was in there somewhere.
Since he’d parked his Porsche some ten minutes earlier in one of the back streets behind the promenade, Henry, in a panic, had ditched his own car and tracked the man on foot.
On the face of it, the target seemed unaware that he was being followed. Unfortunately this indicated to Henry that he wasn’t up to anything unlawful - yet.
The only problem Henry now had was that his mini personal radio, strapped to his belt at the small of his back and wired up to a discreet earpiece, a tiny mike pinned on the collar of his windjammer and a transmit button on the palm of his left hand, had packed up. In other words the battery had lost its charge, the bane of every policeman’s life; and like most cops Henry hadn’t brought a spare. So he was alone without any immediate means of contacting the rest of his team. All they could do was pinpoint the Porsche and sit on it until the target returned. Henry knew they would do this as a matter of course, but he cursed his own stupidity and short-sightedness for insisting on working alone, just because he felt like Greta Garbo.
He circled the room feeling more and more ancient by the minute as he brushed past young girls who looked no older than his thirteen-year old daughter Jenny. He half-expected to see her face in the crowd.
Then he spotted his man.
Henry froze. He’d almost walked right up to him. He took a step back and a group of youngsters spilled into the vacuum he’d created.
The target was actually sitting in one corner of the room, in an area separated from the rest of it by a fancy wrought-iron, thigh-high railing. He was at a table together with another man and a woman. Lounging on the wall behind them were two casually dressed gorillas, whose eyes constantly scanned the room. Bouncers? Bodyguards?
Interesting, whatever.
Henry pushed his way to the bar. After an interminable wait he bought a bottle of Bud, declining the glass offered because it seemed to be the fashion to drink it straight from the bottle. Must be hip, he thought, and hiply took a cool, refreshing, fizzy swig. He then engineered a position by the edge of a slot-machine where he could see his target yet remain unseen himself.
The area the three sat in was like a total exclusion zone, even though there were two vacant tables. When a young couple innocently decided to sit at one of the tables, the gorillas swooped down from their tree and blocked the way menacingly.
Unwisely the young man remonstrated. He must have said a few harsh words; one of the gorillas responded by punching him hard and low in the stomach. Bent double with pain, he was quickly led away by his girlfriend. The gorillas loped back to their station.
The other people in the pub who’d witnessed the incident looked in another direction, not wishing to get involved.
Henry’s eyes narrowed. An over-the-top reaction for no reason at all, he thought. They were certainly a nervous crew behind that wrought-iron fence. But what worried him most was the glimpse of a firearm when the jacket of one of the bodyguards inadvertently swung open. A bulge under the jacket of the other told Henry he was similarly tooled up.
The detective’s attention moved to the man in the middle. He was obviously the boss.
Henry didn’t know him, his face rang no bells, but suddenly he found himself very interested.
He was quite a young man, in his early thirties, fit-looking with jet-black hair, a neatly trimmed moustache, a swarthy complexion and the dark, all-seeing eyes of a predator. His clothing was casual but expensive; Ralph Lauren polo shirt, beautifully cut chinos and loafers. No socks. A slim, understated watch was attached to his wrist and a chunky gold chain encircled his tanned neck. He was good looking, exuding an air of confidence, wealth and violence. It seemed to Henry that he would have looked more at home on the Costa del Crime, rather than here in Blackpool, the Costa del Shite ... because there was one thing Henry Christie did know about this man, simply by looking at him: he was a top flight criminal, a major player. Henry would happily have bet his next month’s expenses cheque on the fact.
Yet, despite the outward appearance of calm, something in his manner, a fraction below the surface, told Henry he was unsettled. His non-verbal signals betrayed him.
The girl who sat next to him was positively gorgeous - a black chick who looked young enough to be jailbait. One of her hands rested provocatively at the top of the man’s thigh and she stuck close to him as though superglued, laughing in all the right places. Her short, low-cut dress left little to Henry’s imagination and he soon found himself unconsciously trying to peer up her legs.
But this was no girlfriend. Everything about her screamed hooker; expensive hooker. And she looked uneasy, too. Her brown eyes never stayed still for an instant. Her shoulders were taut. She was very, very nervous.
Henry finished off his Bud and returned to the bar. This time he had a less fashionable bottle of non-alcoholic lager which tasted bitter after the slightly sweet American brew.
As he glanced casually around the room, Henry spotted another man watching the trio. He was mid-height, with blond hair and a moustache. Pretty nondescript, though he looked vaguely familiar. A moment later the man had gone. Henry thought nothing of it, resumed his position by the bandit and took a long drink from his bottle. Ugh. All the flavour brewed out with the alcohol.
He was about to make a phone call into the Blackpool Communications Room for them to pass on his present position by radio to his team when the three got slowly to their feet.
They were on the move.
Henry swore.
The boss man nodded to his gorillas. One of them took the lead, forging a way through the throng. The three slotted in behind with the other gorilla taking up a position at the rear, his right hand hidden underneath his jacket. They went out of a door at the rear of the pub. Henry gave them a few moments, then followed.
Karen answered the door in her bath-robe.
She’d had a long hot soak and a shower. Nothing could shake the sense of disaster in her mind, but at least she was now clean and ready for bed. She’d just rolled the quilt back on her double bed when the doorbell rang.
She was tempted to ignore it, but found she couldn’t.
Dave August stood there, swaying slightly. His official car, the Jaguar, was parked with one wheel on the kerb, unattended. Obviously he’d driven there by himself. Yet he smelled of alcohol. His eyes were watery and bloodshot.
‘What the hell do you want?’ Karen asked.
‘To explain?’ he said meekly. Then: ‘Oh, come on, Karen. You owe me that at the very least.’
‘Do I?’ she asked resolutely.
‘Look, can I come in, or shall we continue to conduct our business in public?’ He was having a little difficulty stringing the words together.
She considered slamming the door in his face then relented, allowed him to enter.
She followed him into the lounge. He knew the way. It was a beautifully furnished room, much money having been spent on the tasteful decor.
August turned to her as she came in behind him. ‘Karen,’ he began, his arms outstretched.
‘Not so fast, David,’ she told him coolly. ‘You said you wanted to explain something. If you think you’re going to get a fuck after the way I’ve been treated, you’re well off the mark.’
August backed off. ‘Very well,’ he conceded, tight-l
ipped.
He plonked himself loosely down on the plush sofa and crossed his legs. She perched on a chair-arm. Her robe fell open, revealing her thighs. She quickly pulled it back and covered up, though not before August had seen.
‘Well, I’m waiting,’ she said at length.
‘I ... I don’t really know where to begin,’ he stuttered. ‘Look, could I have a drink?’
‘I think you’ve already had enough.’
‘Please. ‘
Karen sighed impatiently. She fixed him a large whisky, dropped an ice cube into it and handed it to him. ‘Thanks,’ he said. Most of it then hit the back of his throat. ‘That’s better.’
Karen’s mouth twisted into a line of disapproval.
‘You know I’m suspended, don’t you? Barred from entering any police station in the county. Even had to hand my warrant card in. I feel so humiliated!’
August nodded. ‘Yes, I know. I sanctioned it.’
‘You sanctioned it? I don’t believe this.’ She stood up and paced the room. ‘I should’ve realised.’
‘I was under pressure to do something. Can’t you see, after all that’s happened?’ he pleaded.
‘From Fanshaw-Bayley, no doubt.’
August dropped his gaze and stared at the gas fire, confirming Karen’s words. ‘I’d been backed into a corner. I had to do it. I didn’t want to ... I just had to.’
‘You’re the fuckin’ Chief Constable, for God’s sake. No one can make you do anything you don’t want to. You’ve simply kow-towed to FB and the CID again, haven’t you? You weak-kneed bastard.’
‘It was nothing personal, honestly Karen. Purely professional.’ He pronounced it ‘perfeshinall’. ‘I have to distance myself from you.’
Karen had had enough. ‘Get out, Dave. Now. I don’t want you or any other copper in my house.’ She began to sob. ‘Just get out and stay out!’
He stood up, exhibiting all the classic signs of a drunk: unsteady on his feet, eyes glazed, speech slurred. And like a drunk, reasoning wasn’t part of his make-up.