One Dead Witness

by Nick Oldham

  He arranged to sell over two million dollars’ worth of I8-inch electric shock batons to a Middle Eastern buyer, knowing full well the end user was Iraq. Which, twelve months after the Gulf War, was a very naughty thing to do.

  Although he lived on a wire for several months after, there were no repercussions. No midnight raids by SWAT squads. No visits by men in black suits. Nothing. The surge of money was accounted for creatively and Kruger’s business went through the roof. He had never since, to his knowledge, made any illegal deals.

  All was well.

  Until now.

  Felicity, his ruthless, unfaithful ex-wife, had plucked it right out of the mist and slapped it across his face like a wet fish.

  Kruger rubbed his eyes. His knee began to ache. He recalled telling Felicity the story of his dubious deal one night early in their relationship, in the days when he confused lust with love. He had vowed her to secrecy. She had, of course, promised silence. Damn pillowtalk, he thought bitterly. It always ends up biting your ass.

  ‘What d’you want me to do?’ he asked with an expression of resignation on his countenance.

  Danny looked directly into the eyes of Detective Inspector Jack Sands, the man who was her boss. The man who had become her lover.

  ‘No, Jack, I really mean it this time. There’s no future for either of us in this ... unless you leave your wife, that is. You know how many times you’ve promised to do that and never kept your word.’ Her voice was shaking with emotion as she spoke, delivering a speech she had practised over and over again in the last few days, but which at that moment she struggled to remember. ‘You’ll never leave her, will you? I accept that now and that’s why this has to stop. Now. Whilst no one else knows, whilst we’re still in a position not to hurt people.’

  Sands stared blankly at her. Then he blinked rapidly as the meaning of the words sank in. As she finished, he sighed and closed his eyes. ‘But Danny, I love you,’ he pleaded pitifully. ‘It’s just the kids ... you know? I can’t walk out on them.’

  ‘In that case, you obviously don’t love me,’ Danny retorted rather cruelly. In truth she did not want to wreck a marriage, though on the other hand she thought she loved Sands deeply. It was a love that was tearing her apart. She knew it had to end now, once and for all. That was the best way for both of them. To be able to leave the relationship with some dignity, try to be adult about it, part as friends if that was possible in the circumstances. ‘So get dressed and go, please, Jack. It’s got to end now. It’s as good a time as any, with me getting promoted next week. We won’t be under each other’s feet all the time, won’t be in adjoining offices, won’t be able to look at each other all day, every day.’

  She clenched her teeth and hardened her jawline, feeling absolutely gutted by what she was doing.

  ‘But. . .’

  ‘No! Just get up and go,’ she said sternly. ‘It’s over. Accept it and then we can both get on with our lives.’

  Sands dressed silently and very, very slowly whilst Danny stood in one corner of the room in her dressing gown, cigarette in hand. It was all she could do to prevent herself grabbing him and dragging him back into bed.

  Dressed, he paused at the bedroom door, gazed back at her.

  She looked down at her fingernails, refusing to meet his eyes. That would have snapped her resolve in a second.

  Jack closed the door softly.

  Danny heard his footsteps descending the stairs. The front door opened and closed.

  She broke down and wept.

  And not many miles away, in a tiny bedroom in a sea-front hotel in South Shore, another female cried quietly to herself, but for a completely different reason.

  Claire Lilton was folded up into a tight ball, her arms hugging her knees, nightdress pulled securely around her. She rocked herself with the steady motion of a disturbed person. She had once seen Polar Bears in a zoo, not long ago on a school trip. She had watched one of the huge great beasts rock backwards and forwards whilst it stood there, trapped in its tiny enclosure. She had looked on in empathy because all she could think was, That’s me. That’s just me. Rocking, and can’t get away.

  God, how she hated the man. The stepfather who abused her right under her mother’s nose since coming into their lives two years before. The man her mother loved so much, who could do no wrong in her eyes. The bastard, the fucking two-faced bastard. Claire’s mother would never have believed it, even if she’d been told right to her face that her stepdad was doing things to her, making her do things to him, forcing himself into her until he jizzed, sometimes up her bum. Claire didn’t even know the words for some of the things he did to her, but she knew she was being ‘shagged’ because she had heard other, older girls talking about it, describing it. Saying how some of the lads did it to them.

  But not their fathers.

  Claire stopped rocking. Her eyes stared into the darkness. The rain beat down against her window.

  She also knew enough to understand she might have a baby - because that was how people got babies, by shagging - especially now she had started her periods.

  The thought terrified her.

  But what frightened her even more was the threat that, should she ever tell anybody - anybody - her stepdad would kill her.

  Chapter Three

  Trent was awake long before the cell lights flickered on the following morning. He had watched the darkness of the night slowly fade to the dull greyness of dawn and eventually the brightness of day. He saw these changes take place through his cell window from 4 a.m. onwards, lying there on his bunk with his hands clasped behind his head.

  His mind was very clear by the, time the key turned in lock and the screws barked to the residents that the new day had dawned.

  Trent had reached two conclusions.

  The first was that if he stayed in prison, whichever prison it happened to be, this or any other, he would continue to suffer at the hands of mad bastards like Blake and his cronies. His miserable life would be continually made worse. Therefore, in order to make his existence tolerable, Trent knew he had to do something to make everyone acknowledge he could not be messed about with.

  The second was that he’d had enough of being in prison. He promised himself that if the opportunity ever presented itself, he would escape. He needed to do this because he had vowed to bring retribution to the people responsible for putting him in here. There was no way he could even out that score with another eight years still to serve.

  The sooner the better for both ideas.

  And, Trent thought as the cell door was pushed open, if the two could be combined...

  The sea, the sex and the emotional turmoil of the day before had taken its toll on Danny Furness. She managed to rise at eight and slope into the shower, but hardly had the strength to dry herself, put on her make-up to the usual high standard and then eat breakfast. She did all three in a state of extreme lethargy.

  She drove into work with a jittery feeling in her belly. There were several busy days to go before her promotion and transfer to the CID, which meant it would be impossible to avoid Jack who, if he so chose, could make life very uncomfortable for her.

  She hoped he would be okay about the split. She knew, however, he had a stubborn, sometimes nasty streak to his nature. A smooth ride was not a foregone conclusion. . .

  . . .which was confirmed with a vengeance when she drove into the police station yard, found a parking space in the covered car park and spotted Sands in her rearview mirror just before she was about to get out of the car. He must have been lurking in the shadows, waiting for her to arrive. She snarled and swore under her breath. He wasn’t even giving her the chance to get into the office, for God’s sake!

  She pounded the steering-wheel in frustration, got a grip on herself and clambered slowly out of the Mercedes, mentally preparing herself for an unpleasant encounter.

  Sands stalked up to her, positioning himself between her car and the next one along, effectively blocking Danny’s path.
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br />   He looked far worse than Danny had ever seen him. His eyes were sunk in their sockets. His skin hung loosely off his cheekbones as though he’d lost weight overnight. His hair was in disarray, his suit crumpled as if he’d slept in it, which he probably had. He was a million light years distant from the normally immaculate Jack Sands, dapper Detective Inspector.

  For a fleeting moment Danny’s heart reached out to him. She had an urge to hug and squeeze him, tell him she was wrong, that everything was hunky-dory, that yes, she’d continue to be the other woman. The one he visited twice a week for sex - if he had time; the one who waited stupidly for his call, the one madly in love with him, dreaming of being his wife yet knowing for sure she never would be.

  The moment whizzed by and Danny found her will-power. Being on the pointed end of the eternal triangle was not going to be her future. Once again, she looked coldly at him.

  ‘Danny,’ he gasped, the smell of stale intoxicants on his breath, ‘don’t do this to me.’

  She shook her head. ‘No, Jack - don’t do this to me. Let me pass.’

  He drew himself up to his full height, almost six-three. He was a big, powerful man. Danny saw a look come into his eyes which made her shiver. That of a desperate man, capable of anything.

  Suddenly she felt queasy. Her legs almost buckled.

  ‘Jack, it’s over. I’m sorry, but it’s best for both of us.’ She tried to sound reasonable. She ducked to one side and made to walk through the narrow gap between Sands and her car.

  His arm shot out, preventing her passing. He side-stepped smartly to block her with his body.

  ‘No,’ he croaked. He was on the verge of either tears or hysteria. ‘It’s not over. Not unless I say it’s over. I love you, Danny. You can’t just end it like this. I need you.’

  ‘More than you need your wife?’ she rejoined bitterly.

  ‘I’ve told you why I can’t leave her,’ he hissed.

  ‘Then it is over, isn’t it? Don’t be a fool. Let me pass. We both have work to do. This is just silly.’

  They were the wrong words to say. Some inner demon overtook Sands as these last words left Danny’s mouth. He seized her coat by the lapels and rammed her painfully back against the Mercedes as though she was a prisoner he was trying to subdue.

  Danny’s literal knee-jerk reaction floored him. He emitted a howl and doubled over. His hands shot down to nurse his groin. Danny pushed past and walked smartly away whilst he supported himself on the boot of her car with one hand, the other gingerly massaging his balls.

  Then he spoke the words, which for Danny, finally nailed the coffin lid on their relationship.

  ‘You fucking bitch!’

  As the day wore on, Trent’s thoughts about combining an escape from prison with a revenge attack on Blake became all-consuming. He could think of nothing else. Escape and revenge, escape, revenge.

  But how, he wondered.

  As he strolled around the prison, ignored by virtually everyone, a few ideas seemed to slot into place as he thought long and hard about the problem.

  Blake and his two colleagues had blighted Trent’s life ever since their arrival as inmates eighteen months earlier; they had done the same to every other sex-offender in the place. They had systematically rooted out all the ‘pervs’, as they referred to them, and made their whole existence a misery on a grand scale.

  For some solace, and so they could exchange information on Blake’s intentions and movements, the pervs banded together. About eight of them formed a sort of club, though Trent tended to keep his distance from them. Apart from holding them in a kind of contempt, he didn’t want to be seen to be too pally with them because he actually felt superior.

  But that morning, Trent purposely sought one of them out - an insipid worm of a man who had been convicted of a series of indecent assaults on boys in the local authority children’s home where he was Head Warden and the deaths of two of them. His name was Victor Wallwork.

  Trent found him sitting alone at breakfast, shunned by the other inmates who were eating at that time. He sat down next to him and spooned sugar into the grey, lifeless porridge in the bowl in front of him. It looked more like wet cement than food.

  Wallwork did not acknowledge Trent. He munched toast, slurped loudly out of a mug of tea, his unfocused eyes stuck somewhere in the middle distance.

  Between mouthfuls of his own stodge, Trent said through the side of his mouth; ‘They got me last night, the bastards. Blake and his crew. Bastards!’ He spat out the last word.

  ‘I know,’ grunted Wallwork. He shifted uncomfortably on his chair.

  ‘You next,’ Trent informed him casually.

  Wallwork choked on his tea and toast. He broke into a paroxysm of coughing and spluttering whilst he tried to clear his throat. He turned to face Trent. At the best of times Wallwork’s face had a deathly-grey pallor. Now, what blood there was had seeped away into his boots leaving him ashen-white.

  ‘True. I heard ‘em talking after,’ Trent whispered. ‘I heard your name. “Gonna get some of his own medicine” I heard’ em say. Mentioned your name, Vic.’

  Wallwork could not even get his mouth to form and project a single word. His lips opened and closed a few times, making a popping sound like a fish out of water.

  ‘They buggered me until I bled,’ Trent continued, laying it on thick.

  ‘When?’ Wallwork managed to croak. ‘When will they come after me?’

  Trent shrugged. ‘Could be any time. Suddenly they’ll be there.’

  Wallwork closed his eyes hopelessly.

  ‘We need to fight back,’ Trent said. ‘We need to make a stand, otherwise our lives won’t be worth shite.’

  Wallwork snorted derisively, but there was a touch of hysteria in his voice. ‘Yeah, like sure. They’d kill us if we did anything.’

  ‘Are you at the farm today?’

  ‘Yeah, why? What’s that got to do with it?’

  ‘Plenty.’ Trent sounded mysterious. He laid his spoon down, turned his face close to Wallwork’s and lowered his voice a couple of degrees to no more than a hoarse whisper. ‘We need to sort those bastards out once and for all and you can help me by bringing something back with you.’

  ‘Oh, like a pitchfork, you mean? Don’t be stupid. We get searched going out and coming back. I don’t want to lose my privileges by being caught with something I shouldn’t have.’

  ‘You’d rather have eight inches up your arse, would you? Probably followed by a broom-handle?’ Trent’s voice grated ferociously. ‘’Cos I’ll tell you now - it hurts. It fucking hurts. If you want to do anything about them, you’ll find a way of bringing what I want back in . . . won’t you?’

  Danny was tied up that morning with the bane which afflicts all police officers: paperwork.

  For once, though, she was uncomplaining about it, kept her head down and tried not to look up when Sands came into the office for any reason. Out of the periphery of her vision she couldn’t help but notice him banging about, making everyone else’s life a misery. However, he studiously ignored her, for which she was grateful.

  She guessed he might try to tag onto her at lunch, so when the chance came and he was otherwise engaged, she slipped out of the office and made her way to the canteen where she collected a sandwich and sat down opposite the man who was destined to be her next boss, Detective Inspector Henry Christie.

  ‘I heard about your problems yesterday,’ Henry said to her, partway through the meal. He was eating a light salad. It looked like he was on a diet.

  Briefly Danny was puzzled. How on earth did he know about Sands? Then it dawned on her. He was referring to Claire Lilton.

  ‘Oh yeah. Little cow.’

  ‘You did well. You’ deserve a commend,’ Henry said genuinely. ‘I hear some poor sod got blown off the prom in Morecambe, so you were lucky.’

  ‘I should’ve let her drown.’

  Henry laughed, changed the subject. ‘So - next Monday? You’ll be with us?’


  ‘Can’t come quick enough. Really looking forward to it,’ Danny said with sweet expectancy. Working for Henry Christie, it was said, was a great pleasure. She knew his CID team was well-motivated and got results. She was eager to be a part of it.

  She bit into her tuna-mayo sandwich - granary bread, no butter or margarine, no salt, light mayo. Having her back to one of the canteen doors meant she didn’t notice him come into the room so it was consequently a surprise when Jack Sands sat down next to Henry, bearing a plate of spaghetti Bolognese. He glared at her and his expression morphed into an evil smile. She attempted to respond with a pleasant greeting but it stuck somewhere in her throat.

  Henry glanced quickly between the two of them. He immediately picked up the tension. It was like a crackle of static. His brow creased. Something was not quite right, the vibes informed him.

  He nodded at Sands and they fell into an easy conversation to which Danny strenuously declined to contribute.

  The phone on the other side of the room rang and was answered by an officer nearby. He clamped his hand across the mouthpiece and called across: ‘Danny - for you.’ He held up the phone.

  She couldn’t have left her seat any faster, Henry noted.

  Danny took the call, hung up and returned to the table where she collected her shoulder bag. ‘Someone at the desk to see me.’

  Henry watched her leave, then glanced sideways at Sands whose eyes fixed on the door she had gone through, like he was in some sort of trance. His face had become hard and angry.

  Henry speculated whether the rumours were true about Sands and Danny having a ‘liaison’. Maybe they’d just had some sort of lovers’ tiff, he thought.

  Trent’s next target was another member of the small clique of sex-offenders, a man called Coysh who had been virtually conscripted by Blake to be a manservant - for him and his team. Coysh had willingly accepted this role of ‘fetch-me, carry-me’ because it kept him reasonably safe from the gang rapes organised by Blake. Even so, he had been subjected to a couple to keep him in his place and he was often ritually humiliated by Blake. Just for sport.