Low Profile

by Nick Oldham

  It was a grim place, but Flynn knew he could put up with it.

  He had been given no rights, no phone calls, no offer of a lawyer and nothing to eat or drink, but he was pretty sure that was par for the course. He knew that Spanish cops still operated with impunity and dealing with a suspected double murderer clearly meant it was OK to deny rights, humiliate and rough handle him.

  Flynn didn’t care. He knew he could hack it.

  He raised his head as footsteps came along the corridor. Two people approaching. Flynn could already recognize the ones belonging to the gaoler; the other set he did not know, but guessed they belonged to the detective, Romero. The key went into the lock, the cell door creaked open.

  Flynn was right. Romero stepped into the cell. Flynn stayed where he was, just looked sceptically at his captor.

  ‘Señor Flynn – you have a complaint about the clothing we have provided?’

  ‘Literally, it’s shit up.’

  Romero tutted. He walked into the centre of the cell where the dungarees had been dumped and pretended to look at them, as if he hadn’t known what state they were in. Flynn guessed this might be an olive branch moment, the showing of some compassion.

  Romero’s face turned angrily from the soiled clothing to the diminutive gaoler. There then followed a heated exchange in Spanish that Flynn struggled to understand, although he got the gist. At the end of a short rant from Romero, the gaoler looked crestfallen. Romero turned back to Flynn and reverted to English.

  ‘You have my most apologies about this, it is not right. These clothes are disgusting and I will ensure they are replaced immediately.’

  Flynn continued to regard him unimpressed, not taken in by the sudden kindness.

  ‘Your welfare is paramount, Señor Flynn,’ Romero cooed.

  Flynn grunted and stifled what would have been a very loud guffaw.

  Romero threw the dirty dungarees at the gaoler, who caught them delicately and scurried away.

  ‘We need you to be comfortable, for interrogation,’ Romero said.

  One of Flynn’s eyebrows arched high. ‘Interrogation – or interview?’

  ‘Are they not the same beast?’

  ‘Hardly. Interrogation smacks of fingernails being pulled out – you know, like they did when Spain was ruled by fascists. Third World torture. Interviews search for the truth.’

  Romero considered Flynn and his words, then said, ‘Whichever is suitable.’ He gave Flynn a dangerous grin.

  ‘Never mind,’ Henry commiserated again. ‘You win some …’

  They were back in the MIR, in Henry’s office.

  ‘I’m just gutted,’ Woodcock said, still shaking from the exertion, but took a swig of tea from the mug Henry had made for him. ‘I’m certain it was him.’

  ‘Wonder what the hell he was doing strolling through Blackpool?’ Henry pondered out loud – again.

  ‘Christ knows.’

  ‘I’ll get someone to check CCTV footage,’ Henry said. Woodcock looked at him sharply. ‘Yeah,’ Henry conceded, ‘I know there isn’t much coverage where you spotted him, but there’s a rake of cameras all the way from the railway station into town. Maybe one of them picked him up.’

  Woodcock looked doubtful. ‘I’ll get that checked, if you want? After all, it was my mess.’

  ‘OK, that’d be good.’

  ‘So you didn’t get to see Archie, then?’ Woodcock said, changing the subject.

  ‘No; like I said, I’ll catch up with him tomorrow. One cop a day’s probably enough for him anyway.’

  The DCI nodded his agreement to this course of action.

  ‘Oh – everything wasn’t a total loss, though.’ He pulled out the camera he had taken from Lottie’s bedroom. ‘I rushed out with this, need to give them a receipt, mustn’t forget … it was on her desk in her bedroom.’ Henry switched it on and Woodcock came to stand by his shoulder. ‘Photos of her and Percy on a trip to Florida.’ Henry flicked through them. ‘Mostly just of each other, but there is one …’ Henry continued to flick through the images, also seeing some of high, remote looking cliffs that didn’t seem to look like Florida at all. When Jerry Tope walked in the two higher ranking officers glanced up, then returned to their task, paying him no real heed. ‘Here, this looks interesting.’ He held the camera so Woodcock could see the screen properly.

  ‘Lottie on a fishing boat?’ Woodcock said.

  ‘Yeah – but the guy behind her in the shadow, in the cockpit or whatever they call the bit where the steering wheel is …’

  Woodcock peered at the image, pouted. ‘Nah … what about him?’

  Henry looked again. ‘I thought … dunno …’

  ‘Want me to look?’ Jerry Tope ventured.

  Henry held out the phone for him and he took his turn. Henry saw the subtle change in expression on the DC’s face. His eyes widened, then he looked at Henry. ‘I know who that is!’

  Henry waited for the revelation.

  ‘Do you?’ Tope said.

  ‘Just tell me,’ Henry said crossly.

  ‘Well …’

  ‘Don’t screw me about.’

  ‘If I was a betting man – which I’m not, but if I was – I’d lay good money down on that being Jack Hoyle.’

  The next pair of dungarees was straight out of the packet. As clean as they’d been made and straight from the factory, probably some grubby sweat shop in a Madrid back street. The only problem was that they were about three sizes too small for the tall, wide, muscular Steve Flynn. Years hauling in big fish such as marlin, with his feet jammed against the foot rail of the fighting chair in the stern of Faye, had built up his thighs to be wide and muscular in a natural way and he knew as soon as he started pulling the garment on that it was going to be a very tight squeeze. The material and seams almost screamed their displeasure. It did not help either that they were about six inches too short.

  Flynn knew this was just another move in Romero’s psychological chess game with him, another attempt to weaken his defences. First the transfer from Puerto Rico, manacled up in the back of a van, then the undignified strip search, then the seizing of his clothing, then the unhygienic cell in which he’d been left naked, then the clothing fiasco. Romero would have an answer for it all, if it came to it, but Flynn had pegged him as a slippery sod who would get away with maltreatment easily.

  Flynn knew the game: keep belittling, make ’em feel worthless, treat ’em like shit. But he didn’t care. He could ride it.

  Now he was having his fingerprints and photograph taken, having just had a swab of saliva taken from the inside of his mouth for a DNA profile.

  He smiled ingratiatingly at the digital camera as a uniformed cop snapped his photograph.

  Romero appeared at the door of the tiny fingerprint room. A quick-fire exchange took place between him and the cop, then the detective looked at Flynn.

  ‘I now wish to interrogate you,’ he said.

  ‘Interview, you mean,’ Flynn corrected him.

  Romero’s bulbous, sleepy Spanish eyes blinked slowly like a toad. ‘Semantics,’ he said. ‘I ask, you answer, and we see where it goes.’

  Flynn gave a ‘whatever’ shrug, then followed the detective.

  ‘OK, what have we got?’

  Henry posed the question to Jerry Tope. They were in his office with DCI Woodcock and a DI called Matterson.

  ‘Only had the chance to skim through things so far,’ Tope began unapologetically. ‘I’ve accessed Percy’s personal bank accounts – but please don’t ask me how, or even tell anyone, because we haven’t yet served the order for access.’

  Henry rolled his eyes. Tope was very adept at hacking into computer systems without their owners realizing it. It was a useful, though sometimes dodgy, skill. He was so good that the FBI wanted to poach him and already the newly formed National Crime Agency was sniffing around him. Henry was reluctant to let him go, even if he was a grouchy bastard and usually insubordinate. One day, though, a ‘can’t refuse’ offer would
come Tope’s way.

  ‘These are only his day to day accounts – a current account, a savings account and a business account relating to the shops. He may yet have more, be surprised if he doesn’t.’

  ‘First impressions?’

  Tope shrugged. ‘I’m not an accountant or businessman … I’ll hand this stuff over to the financial guys … but his current account looks healthy enough, a fair wodge in the savings account, but the business seems to be operating on a massive overdraft.’

  ‘How massive?’ Woodcock asked.

  ‘Quarter of a million, thereabouts.’

  Henry rocked his head from side to side. He was no businessman and hated being even fifty pounds overdrawn, so a quarter of a million seemed a lot to him, though maybe it wasn’t. ‘Speak to his accountant,’ he told Tope, who nodded, ‘armed with this information, but don’t let on you know … try to get a big picture of the business. Anything else?’

  ‘Tracked down the travel bookings for the flights to Florida and the Canary Islands and I’ve got into one of Percy’s email accounts … but all I’ve got from that are the flight reservations so far, nothing else of great interest at first glance.’

  ‘OK. Phone records?’ Henry asked.

  ‘The telephone unit’s on that now.’

  Henry glanced at the other two detectives. ‘Any thoughts?’

  Neither had anything to add.

  ‘OK, Jerry, that’s brilliant. Keep plugging away,’ Henry said, then leaned back and posed the question, ‘What d’you think to this Jack Hoyle thing? Do you think it’s something we need to follow up?’

  ‘Don’t know,’ Tope said. ‘He did disappear with a million quid, supposedly, and we still need to speak to him about that.’

  ‘Mm … he was Steve Flynn’s big mate and partner, wasn’t he?’ It was a rhetorical question, because both he and Tope knew the answer to it. Then Henry added naughtily, ‘Yeah, Steve Flynn, your mate.’

  Tope coloured up like beetroot.

  ‘You heard from him recently?’

  ‘No, no, boss.’ Tope coughed as though something thick was stuck in his craw.

  Henry didn’t pursue Tope’s obvious discomfort, but made a mental note not to forget and went back to the issue of Jack Hoyle.

  ‘So, Jack Hoyle – accident or coincidence?’ He dropped forward again. ‘I like coincidences,’ he declared. ‘I like them very much because coincidence is what usually trips up the bad guys, and Hoyle is definitely a bad guy. I have no doubt he stole that money way back and now he’s on a boat with two people who later end up dead. Coincidence my buttocks.’

  The interview/interrogation room was as grotty and unpleasant as all the other rooms in the police station.

  Flynn sat on a plastic chair screwed to the floor at a similarly affixed table, opposite Romero. He could feel the stitching in the dungarees stretching taut against his muscles, reminding him briefly of the Incredible Hulk. If he got angry enough, Flynn thought, he was sure he could burst out of the garment and probably turn green.

  Underneath the thick, slug-like moustache, Romero’s mouth twisted into a supercilious grin.

  Flynn eyed him blandly.

  ‘These are the rules,’ Romero said. ‘This is my police station and I say how things go. You will answer my questions, you will tell me the truth and admit to these murders and things will remain … pleasant.’

  ‘I think you need to explain to me exactly what you’re getting at.’

  ‘The English couple in the villa. You murdered them.’

  ‘Which couple?’

  ‘There are others?’ Romero said, rolling his eyes as though Flynn was being stupid. ‘The couple at the villa where you were arrested.’

  ‘I don’t think so.’ Flynn shook his head.

  Romero paused, then said, ‘How did you come about your bodily injuries?’

  ‘Which ones?’

  ‘All of them. The face, the eye, the chest, the stomach … you are extensively injured.’

  ‘I’m clumsy. I fell.’

  Romero gave a short shake of his head. His eyes never left Flynn’s. ‘I can see you are going to be awkward, Señor Flynn.’

  ‘You asked for the truth, you got it.’

  Now Romero sighed. ‘You are Stephen Alexander Flynn?’ Flynn nodded. ‘You live in a villa on Doreste y Molina – correct?’

  Flynn: ‘Correct.’

  ‘You work on a charter fishing boat and you are a former police officer from Lancashire in England, si?’

  ‘Si.’

  ‘And you came to Gran Canaria, say, eight, nine years ago after leaving the police on suspicion of stealing a large amount of money, si?’

  Flynn didn’t particularly like that. It riled him enough to make him say, ‘A suspicion never proven.’

  Romero gave a slight, ‘don’t care’ shrug. ‘Last night you had an altercation in Puerto Rico’s commercial centre with Scott Costain and his girlfriend.’

  ‘Is that a question?’

  ‘It is.’

  ‘Then yes, I did.’

  ‘What was that about?’

  Flynn knew he had to tell the truth but only the bits he wanted the Spaniard to know – otherwise things would get very complicated indeed.

  ‘I was annoyed by the way in which he had elbowed a client of mine out of the way by intimidating him, then taking his place on the boat. I learned how that happened from the original client last night.’

  ‘And it became a fight?’

  ‘He started it,’ Flynn said petulantly.

  ‘According to eye witnesses in the Irish bar, you were seen to drag Mr Costain bodily out into a side alley.’

  ‘Did they see him punch me first in the bar?’ Flynn fibbed. ‘I dragged him out so there wouldn’t be a problem inside.’

  ‘So you fought outside?’

  ‘Yes, we did.’

  ‘Hence your injuries?’

  ‘Some of them. Like I said, I fell. But as regards Mr Costain, I bit off more than I could chew.’

  ‘Por qué?’

  ‘He was a better fighter than me.’

  ‘But he is much smaller than you.’

  ‘Better at it.’

  ‘So the police come, the fight is broken up and you are sent your separate ways?

  ‘Correct.’

  ‘But you still haven’t finished with him, have you, Señor Flynn?’

  ‘I’d had my say.’

  ‘And this morning you visited him and killed both him and his girlfriend.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘You brutally murdered them. Shot them to death.’

  ‘I think you’ll find I didn’t.’

  ‘I think you did. If not, why were you there?’

  Flynn swallowed. It was a good question, yet to tell Romero the whole truth could end up very badly for Flynn and he certainly didn’t want to go down the road of telling him everything that had happened. To claim he had been kidnapped and had then killed two of his captors, then escaped by stealing a Lamborghini that he trashed. When those two deaths were discovered, Flynn hoped there would be no route to him, but to give the cops a lead would be suicide. He hadn’t killed Costain and Trish and he was sure the police had no real evidence to prove otherwise, but to give them two other deaths instead would just be silly.

  ‘OK – I went there because I was still mad,’ Flynn admitted. ‘They were dead when I got there and I’m sure your scientific people will be able to pinpoint their time of death. I have an alibi for every moment since last night’s fight. I don’t have a gun. You won’t find any gunshot residue on my hands from firing a weapon.’ He held up his fingers and hoped he’d washed his hands thoroughly enough since handling the gun last night in the villa. He also hoped that the cops, having seized his Nissan Patrol, hadn’t searched it properly and found his hidden Bushmaster. It wasn’t the type of gun that had killed the couple, but it would show that Flynn did have access to a weapon and would muddy the waters for him. He knew he had to keep his story tight.
‘I simply didn’t kill them. I found them dead, that’s all.’

  Romero listened patiently, unimpressed. ‘How well did you know Mr Costain?’

  ‘Before yesterday I had never met him in my life.’

  ‘You are a liar. Convincing, I admit, but a liar.’

  ‘You have the truth before you,’ Flynn said.

  ‘Will I have to beat the truth out of you?’ Romero threatened in a low voice.

  ‘Now that would be interesting,’ Flynn said and looked deep into the Spaniard’s eyes. ‘Do the Spanish police really still beat confessions out of prisoners?’

  ‘Only if they have to.’

  Henry spent some time completing the murder policy book, although he couldn’t keep his mind from wandering back to the photograph with Jack Hoyle in the background.

  The Jack Hoyle/Steve Flynn incident had been nothing more than a mere blip in Henry’s career. One of those fairly unpleasant but mundane things a senior detective might be asked to investigate to assist the Professional Standards Department, which was the modern guise of the Discipline and Complaints Department. Or the ‘Rubber Heel Squad’ – the cops who investigated cops. It had been a fairly messy affair, with lots of counter-allegations being made, and in the end nothing was proved, not even that the million in missing money even existed.

  Because of it, though, Flynn and Hoyle left the job under a cloud.

  Flynn had come to hate Henry, but the two of them had crossed paths a few times since and a tolerable truce ensued between them, although under the veneer Henry still actually had little time for Flynn. He believed the police service was much better for Flynn not being in it.

  Hoyle had left under similar circumstances, then faked his own death, and consequently Henry had had no encounters with him since. Flynn had claimed that he had tracked his ex-partner to the United States where he was working on a fishing charter boat, but Hoyle had managed to do a runner, or so Flynn alleged. Henry had only Flynn’s word on that.