by Nick Oldham
‘Manchester?’ Henry ruminated, not hearing the rest of what Donaldson had said after that word. ‘Karl, there is one thing I do need to mention to you.’ Henry was still by the hotel-room window, watching Anger park up, get out. Jane Roscoe was with him and he squirmed slightly when he saw her climb out of the car, wondering briefly if Anger was fettling her. ‘Clown masks. . black van. . ring any bells?’
It was a cautious ‘Yep, why?’ from the American.
‘I’ve been upsetting people in Manchester. . result was I got forced off the motorway by a guy in a van. . a guy wearing a clown mask and driving a black Citroen van.’
Donaldson did not respond for a few moments, making Henry think the connection had been lost. He hated mobile phones.
‘You still there?’
‘Yeah. . Henry, I need to talk to you before I go snooping around with both barrels,’ he said decisively. ‘Where are you now?’
Henry told him. ‘You?’
‘M6 heading north, just before the M62 turn-off for Manchester. I’ll keep going. Should be with you in about twenty minutes, traffic notwithstanding.’
There was a knock on the hotel-room door. Henry finished the call and opened the door, revealing Dave Anger and Jane Roscoe standing in the corridor, both their faces set with cynical expressions and their non-verbals indicating impatience verging on infuriation. This told Henry that neither of them was a very happy bunny.
He greeted them warmly, holding back an urge to act like the lunatic they clearly thought he was. ‘Come in, please.’ They edged past him and caught sight of the man sitting on the bed in the adjoining room.
Anger turned to Henry. ‘Who the fuck’s that?’
‘A witness to a murder. . Keith Snell’s murder.’
Their faces changed dramatically, Henry saw with satisfaction.
To coin a phrase, Detective Superintendent Carl Easton was up to his neck in it, rather like standing in a midden.
The Sweetman trial had been bad enough and the fact that an outside force had been contracted to investigate was not great, but he had totally believed he could wriggle out of that one; what was now giving him more trouble than ever began when he received a phone call.
It came on a particular mobile phone, a number known only to a select few, so he answered it without hesitation. But the voice he heard and recognized within one or two syllables sent an icy spike down into his bowels.
The voice was calm and measured. It was Rufus Sweetman.
‘Hello, Carl, my friend.’
‘Who’s this?’ Easton demanded, reckoning he did not know.
‘You know who it is.’
‘How did you get this number?’
‘Contacts,’ Sweetman said smugly.
‘What do you want?’
‘My property back — that’s all.’
‘You got all your property back at court,’ Easton reminded him. ‘I gave it to you personally.’
‘I think you know which property I mean. . fell off the back of a lorry, so to speak.’
Easton gulped, fell silent.
‘Penny dropped?’ Sweetman inquired.
‘No, don’t know what you mean.’ He clicked the tiny red button on his mobile and terminated the call. He spun round to Lynch and Hamlet, his two detective sergeants, and stared at them, shocked.
‘Who was that?’ Lynch said. They were in Easton’s office at the Arena police station.
‘We’ve nicked Rufus Sweetman’s cocaine,’ Easton announced.
Hamlet whistled. ‘Way to go!’
Lynch said, ‘Effin’ hell.’
Easton raised his eyebrows. ‘He wants it back. .’ He smiled. ‘But he can’t have it.’ He had opened his mouth to say more when his mobile rang again. ‘Sweetman,’ he guessed, and answered it. ‘Yep?’
‘Put it this way,’ Sweetman’s voice said coldly. ‘All we want is our goods returned. . and if we don’t get ’em, one cop will die every day from now on. An innocent cop, that is, not a bent bastard like you.’
Click. Phone dead.
That had been two days before and no cop had died — yet.
One uniformed PC from the city centre was lying in intensive care after being approached by a man who asked for directions and then shot him in the lower gut, below the line of his ballistic vest; another officer had been treated for shotgun wounds to the arm after being ambushed in an alley by a masked gunman. Sheer luck and body armour had saved him.
Although the two incidents had not been officially linked, Easton knew they were. He also knew that the effect of the shootings was to terrify all patrol officers, all of them wondering who would be next to take a bullet.
Easton knew he was sitting on a terrible secret, one he could only share with a few people.
Easton had been a corrupt cop for nearly all his service. He took bribes as a uniformed constable back in the ’70s, then later accepted backhanders for turning a blind eye or falsifying evidence to suit the circumstances. It was way back then he had started dealing in drugs through his prisoners.
All the while though, he kept an eye on his career because he wanted to combine crime-fighting with corruption — the challenge of a lifetime. Along the way he had carefully nurtured other cops and several of his contemporaries had retired with hefty Spanish bank balances after a few years of working alongside Carl Easton. He had nicknamed his team the Invincibles, because no one had yet beaten them. No one was going to, either, Easton believed.
Also along the way he had destroyed the careers of many criminals, sometimes by fair means, often by foul. He loved sending people to prison, particularly when he had engineered their guilt.
His goal had always been to run two careers in parallel. The cop and the criminal. Ridding the streets of the real bad guys, whilst stepping into their business shoes when they were getting kitted out in prison uniform.
And one of the crims he had most desperately wanted to put away was Rufus Sweetman — a guy who had been operating right under Easton’s nose for years on his city-centre patch. He had grown to hate Sweetman — the way he held a middle finger up at the law — and also to covet everything he owned: the apartment on the Quay, Ginny Jensen, the fabulous-looking girlfriend, the house in the Bahamas, the cars, the money.
Sweetman had gradually become an obsession. The man Easton most wanted to destroy.
And whilst this obsession had been simmering, Easton had chanced upon an amazing supplier of drugs. A man he never met, only ever spoke to occasionally by phone. Obviously a Spaniard or an Italian, but someone who supplied Easton with cut-price drugs with which he cornered a market consisting of young professionals.
How the man knew of him in the first place, he did not know.
Just a phone call from nowhere, two years earlier. This followed by delicate negotiations, Easton drawn by the prospect of drugs which often undercut other wholesalers by 50 per cent. The business had grown using ‘his staff’ as he called them — the band of corrupt detectives and uniformed cops whose pockets he had lined with cash. Easton’s principle was that each arrest, particularly of a professional person (and there were plenty) had potential. Some arrests led into massive drugs markets which produced hundreds of thousands of pounds worth of business.
And all the while, Sweetman hovered teasingly.
In the end Easton decided to bring him down in a way which would ensure that he was off the streets for a long, long time and would also bolster Easton’s own standing within the force, maybe even secure promotion. He fitted Sweetman up for murder.
The only thing was, there was no murder.
So Easton ‘engineered’ one.
The brutal death of Jackson Hazell, the unfortunate man who had fallen out big-style with Sweetman over a drug debt (something widely known in the Manchester underworld, and therefore by the cops, too). He had been kicked to death in an alleyway off Deansgate by three men, one of whom, it was alleged, was Sweetman.
In fact the three men who killed Hazell were Car
l Easton himself, Phil Lynch and Gus Hamlet, Easton’s core team. They planted some forensic evidence in Sweetman’s trash, even verballed Sweetman up; they coerced false statements out of people who owed Easton a favour, which placed Sweetman in the right place at the right time.
And, all things being equal, he should have been convicted.
But the phone calls changed all that, put everything else in doubt, and Sweetman got released.
On that day Easton’s team were acting on information from the mystery drug supplier. If they were interested, he said enticingly, there was a mass consignment due into Manchester from the continent. It was theirs for the taking, if they had the bottle. It would set them up for life.
Easton, whilst still at Lancaster Crown Court, had set his team of police officers, led by the murderous Lynch, to pull the job at Birch Services on the M62.
But what they didn’t know at that time was that the drugs belonged to Sweetman.
Now they had this knowledge, but it did not concern Easton too much. What did concern him was that cops were now targets of random attacks. At heart, Easton believed his first love was the service, despite his corruption, and he did not really enjoy seeing other officers hurt. That made him angry. It made him want to destroy Sweetman once and for all. At least if he did it, he would make sure that, if the body was found — which it would not be — it would be in Greater Manchester this time.
Dave Anger could not disguise the look of utter contempt as he regarded Lawrence Bignall, a corrupt cop for whom things had turned out very badly indeed. Bignall was on the edge of the bed in the hotel room. Anger and Henry were on the two chairs in the room. Roscoe leaned against the interconnecting door, arms folded, listening to Bignall chatter away. He was talking as if it was just a friendly discussion with mates over a drink, not a life-changing revelation which would have massive implications for the rest of his days.
He shrugged. ‘Second divorce, second time of being taken to the cleaners, basically left penniless. Ended up in a shit-hole rented flat, no dosh, plenty of debts. . I was ripe for the picking.’ He said this as though that was OK. He eyed the detectives nervously. ‘Sounded like easy money. Deliver this, deliver that, don’t fucking ask questions. Fifty quid, hundred quid. Do it once and walk away, that’s what I should’ve done. Do it twice or more and they have you over a barrel. You’re fucked.’
‘Who’s they?’
‘The Invincibles they call themselves, like I said. Carl Easton and his crew of jacks. Lynch, Hamlet, Rogerson, Spooner. . all that lot. Been together for years. Some retire, others come on board. . like Lynch. He was always unstable as a PC, but he was just the right sort. No conscience. . They rule the city centre.’
‘Tell me about Keith Snell,’ Henry said.
‘Nobbut a little shit. Snouted for Lynch. Then Lynch started usin’ him for deliveries. . trouble was he wasn’t trustworthy. The little shit peeked and got greedy. Fatal error. Put cash in front of someone like that, it changes ’em. Makes ’em avaricious.’ He paused for effect. ‘Did a runner with twenty-five grand, stupid idiot.’
‘And got killed for it.’
‘Yep. Thing is, Lynch actually gave him a chance to give it back. Locked him up about, what, ten days ago? Gave him a chance to hand it over. . yeah, honest. . but he buggered off with it, scarpered to the big lights of Blackpool, which is where we found him.’
‘How did you find him?’ Henry wanted to know.
‘Paid a visit to his bird. .’
‘Grace?’
‘Yeah. . she wouldn’t tell us anything, so Lynch pasted her bad. Then we nearly caught him with Colin the Commando, but he legged it in a stolen car, even though Lynch took a pot shot at him. He gave Colin a smacking, too.’
Henry’s eyes narrowed as he mulled over the words, recalling the bullet imbedded in the back seat of the stolen Ford Escort. ‘Go on,’ he urged, glancing at Anger, who was enthralled by all this.
‘Then we got a call from a guy in Blackpool. Gave us where Snell was.’
‘Who phoned you?’
‘No idea. . Lynch knows. . anyway, we tootle into Blackpool and find him in some dive. He takes a pop at us with his shotgun and I get an armful. Lynch gets him in some backstreet somewhere. Then we drive him up to Deeply Vale and set him on fire. Well, Lynch did. I was bleeding to death in the car. . and the rest is history.’
‘Why Deeply Vale?’ Anger said.
‘Because he thought he was dumping him on GMP, so Easton could then control the subsequent investigation.’
Henry allowed himself an inner smile of congratulation as he thought back to his ruminations at the murder scene, wondering why the body had been left there. There is always a reason why a body turns up where it does.
‘Tell me about the guns,’ Henry said. ‘What’s the history of the gun used to kill Snell?’
‘It was his.’
‘Whose?’
‘Snell’s.’
‘Snell’s gun?’
‘Yeah. He’d used it on an armed robbery months ago, one he’d got locked up for, but never got charged with. The gun got took off him — and others that were found at his pad. They’re in the property store at Arena, guess they’ll be destroyed eventually. I just sneak them out of the store and return them as necessary.’
‘How do you manage that?’ Anger asked.
‘Got a duplicate key to the store and safe.’
‘Jesus!’ Henry uttered. ‘So he got killed with his own gun?’
‘Yep, ironic innit?’
Anger was visiting the toilet. Henry and Roscoe were in the room adjoining the one Bignall was in. He was relaxed now that he had got a weight off his chest and he was feeling safe being looked after by trustworthy cops.
Roscoe eyed Henry with some reverence. ‘You done good,’ she admitted grudgingly.
‘Just doing my job, ma’am.’
Roscoe shook her head. ‘Is there anything more to uncover in the Tara Wickson dog’s breakfast, or have I misjudged you?’
‘You decide,’ Henry said.
The toilet flushed and a damp-faced Anger came out, obviously having had a wash. He wiped the palms of his hands down his trouser legs, then looked expectantly at Henry and Roscoe, waiting for something. They looked expectantly back.
With a jerk of his head, he beckoned Henry to follow him to the far end of the room near the window, where he spoke in hushed tones. ‘This is going to be a massive job. Big implications.’
‘Yep,’ Henry agreed.
‘Needs a careful plan.’
‘Yep.’ Henry suddenly realized that Anger was drowning here, did not know what to do.
‘So,’ the superintendent said, ‘what I propose is this: over to you, Henry. It’s your baby, sort it whichever way you want. Hang back for a while, or wade in, whatever you feel is appropriate. Just plan it, justify it and I’ll back you to the hilt.’
Henry’s surprise could not be held back. ‘Are you sure?’
‘Absolutely. . you’ve worked hard on this one, you got the break, you get the glory. If you need any authorizations, I’ll sort them. . how does that sound?’
He did not want to dance up and down with glee. Instead he said, ‘Good.’
‘It’s a two-add-two job,’ Henry admitted. ‘I upset Lynch and his mob. . ha, the Lynch mob,’ he chuckled at his own wit, ‘and someone forced me off the road. Coincidence. . don’t think so. . but, the van was a black Citroen, don’t know the number, and it was being driven by a guy in a clown mask. Ring any bells?’ he asked for the second time.
Karl Donaldson did not need to consider. The vivid memories of the M62 robbery were still with him. ‘Same crew,’ the American said. ‘Gotta be.’
‘Or just a coincidence?’
‘Nahh, screw that, definitely same crew,’ Donaldson said. ‘To bring you up to speed, my trustworthy source, Senor Lopez, set Easton up to steal the coke — part of his master plan to cut off Mendoza’s legs. The drugs’ve been bought with borrowed Mafia money,
just another nail in the big man’s coffin. His plan is to somehow retrieve the coke and set up his own show. Mendoza has been dealing with Sweetman for a few years, apparently, and all the time Lopez has had his head together with a guy called Grant, one of Sweetman’s top men, with a view to stepping in at some stage, getting rid of Mendoza and running the show.’
‘How do you know all this?’
‘Lopez blabbed, thinking I was on my deathbed.’
‘Why didn’t Lopez just kill him, or something? Isn’t that what they usually do? Far easier than this bloody chess game.’
Donaldson shrugged, open-handed. ‘Search me, but Easton is involved somewhere along the line. . just another pawn, I guess.’
‘So Lopez and Grant want the drugs and want to get rid of Sweetman and Easton, too.’
‘Yeah. . I think the drugs are the key. It’s a very big consignment and anyone who gets his hands on it will become very rich. He didn’t say it, but the way I think Lopez will play it will be to reckon that Mendoza lost the drugs. .’ Donaldson was thinking hard. Then he had it. ‘I know what it is,’ he proclaimed. ‘If you ask me, he’s going to try and outsmart the Mafia too. . that’s it! He gets the drugs, sets up his own network, cuts the Mafia out by saying Mendoza never recovered the dope and voila! He’s rolling in it! What do you reckon? You’re the hypothesis guy.’
‘Could be, could be,’ Henry said non-committally.
‘You never get excited about anything,’ Donaldson moaned.
‘Don’t you believe it. But what happens to Mendoza and Sweetman and all the others?’
‘That could well be where the bullets in the head come in.’
Donaldson had arrived at the Holiday Inn Express at the same time as Bignall was being loaded into an unmarked police car and driven away to be extensively interviewed by Roscoe at a safe house. It was likely he would end up in Witness Protection, depending on how much they could squeeze out of him. Anger had also left with Roscoe, whilst Henry and Donaldson walked over to the newly constructed Walton Fox pub, next to the hotel. They were drinking coffee at a table outside, watching the busy A6 traffic.