by Nick Oldham
‘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 Citroën, 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, Señor 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 voilà! 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.
‘Do we need to run with this together?’ Henry asked. ‘One thing could lead to another here.’
‘Yeah,’ Donaldson said, ‘I do.’
‘There’s one person I need to see before doing anything, though,’ Henry said, telling Donaldson who it was. ‘But I need a lift – I’m carless.’
They finished their drinks and strolled back to Donaldson’s Jeep in the hotel car park. ‘Y’know, pal . . . it was a good thing Snell’s body was dumped in Lancashire, otherwise Easton could well have been able to cover it all up.’
Henry guffawed. ‘Didn’t I tell you?’
‘Tell me what?’
‘The body was in GMP.’
‘Eh?’
‘Yep – definitely GMP.’ He stopped and regarded Donaldson. ‘Only by a few feet, admittedly, but it was on their patch. I know the ins and outs of that place like the back of my hand. I stole it.’
‘Why?’
‘Cos I wanted a meaty murder to show that bastard Anger I could do a good job, that’s why.’
‘You son of a bitch.’ Donaldson slapped Henry hard between the shoulder blades and they continued to walk to his car.
‘I knew no one would know the difference – except that PC who was convinced it was on GMP, but I’m sure he won’t really be too bothered.’
Donaldson laughed heartily as he clambered into the Jeep. Henry dropped in next to him. ‘Now you need to tell me about your Spanish jaunt.’
Had he been Spiderman he would have been climbing the walls. However, he was not, but that did not prevent him from trying. He felt like they were closing in on him, inch by dreadful inch; that the ceiling was dropping, going to crush him.
Troy Costain rushed to the cell door and hammered on it, the inspection flap rattling metallically but staying firmly shut. Tears streamed from his eyes as he begged, ‘Let me out, you bastards! You fuckin’ twattin’ bastards. I can’t stand this. It’s giving me a shedder. Please,’ he screamed, hammering louder.
Suddenly an eye appeared at the peephole. Troy jumped backwards into the middle of the cell, where he stood shaking and sweating.
The cell door swung open to reveal the figure of Henry Christie, still clad in the tracksuit he had set off in that morning.
‘Henry – thank God you’ve come,’ Troy bawled, sinking to his knees. ‘You know I can’t stand being locked up. Get me out of here, please. I’ve done nothing. What’s this shit? Conspiracy to murder? What the hell does that mean?’
Henry stepped into the cell. His face was hard and unforgiving. He took hold of Troy’s chin and tilted his face up whilst he bent down so they were eye to eye. Henry spoke quietly.
‘A friend of yours came to see you to ask for help, didn’t he?’
‘What?’
‘He came in a stolen car, didn’t he?’
‘I don’t know what the—’
Henry snapped Troy’s head further back. ‘Don’t lie, Troy, don’t ever lie, OK? Somehow that car ended up in Roy’s hands and then he killed Renata . . .’
‘What?’ Troy interrupted. ‘Is that what this is about? Conspiracy to murder?’
‘No . . . that’s not what this is about,’ Henry almost whispered, his eyes wild with menace. ‘Your friend was on the run, wasn’t he? And somehow the people who were after him found out where he was, didn’t they?’
Icy realization dawned slowly over Troy’s face.
Henry smiled dangerously. ‘Do you know what they did to your friend when they found him?’
Troy’s head, held by Henry’s hand, shook slowly.
‘Killed him. Shot him. Murdered him. And do you know why? Because you told them where he was, didn’t you?’
Troy was like a statue now. Henry released the hold on his head.
‘Therefore you conspired to kill him.’
Henry let go of him
and Troy rose shakily to his feet, moved back and sat down heavily on the bench bed. ‘No, I didn’t do it for that.’
‘You must have known they would kill him,’ Henry said harshly. ‘I now want the telephone number you called to drop your mate right in this, and I want the name of the guy you spoke to . . . then, maybe, we can start talking about where we go from here. Understand, Troy? You are in the biggest trouble you have ever been in – ever.’
‘My mobile phone is in my property. It’s one of the last ten numbers in there. The guy’s name was Phil – and that’s all I know,’ he wailed. ‘Honest. Keith had twenty-five grand on him and he told me how he’d got hold of it when he was drugged up. I thought I’d be able to get a backhander for telling them where the cash was. I didn’t mean to get him killed.’
‘Troy – you are the scum of the earth,’ Henry said with disgust. ‘And while we’re about it, you can tell me where Roy is . . .’
Henry left Troy in mental agony in the cell at Blackpool nick, booked out his mobile phone from the property bag in the custody office and tabbed through the numbers Troy had recently called. With the business card that Phil Lynch had given him, Henry soon found that the number Troy had called was indeed that of the corrupt SPOC. Matching the numbers sent a spurt of adrenaline through his system, as the case against Lynch was getting stronger and stronger. It would be a good springboard into the rest of the inquiry into Carl Easton’s corrupt team of big city jacks. Henry returned the phone, then ran up to see Rik Dean in the CID office. He thanked him for picking Troy up and asked him to confiscate the mobile phone, which could provide valuable evidence in the murder investigation. He told Dean that, for the moment, Troy was going nowhere, and gave him the whereabouts of Roy Costain. It would be a nice arrest for Dean.
Henry dashed back out to Donaldson, who was waiting for him in the car park, and they drove to Henry’s house.
Kate was all over Donaldson like a bad rash, so relieved to see him alive, and once this show of affection was over, Henry almost having to prise them apart, she prepared a quick meal for the both of them. They devoured it, Henry got changed and within twenty minutes they hit the road again, heading speedily across the county to Rawtenstall, Henry’s mind now filled with the prospect of an arrest followed by a protracted investigation and lots of arrests. He was going to be busy for quite some time.
It was a closed briefing. Henry, Karl Donaldson, Jane Roscoe, Dave Anger and the ACC Operations, now acting chief in the absence of FB. Henry had decided not to invite Carradine, just to be awkward, but nobody seemed to notice. The show had been well and truly handed to Henry – who had now formally returned to work from sickness.
They met at Rawtenstall police station, hijacked the inspector’s office once again, imported a few extra chairs into the cramped space and scrummed down behind closed doors.
‘There is good evidence against Phil Lynch regarding the murder of Keith Snell.’ Henry glanced at Roscoe. ‘Although Lawrence Bignall is still being interviewed, he’s put enough down on paper to put Lynch right in the frame. There are other circumstantial bits of evidence to support what he says and as far as I’m concerned, we’ve enough to arrest him now. But, at the same time as we arrest him, I want us to get into the safe in the property store at the Arena police station and seize the guns belonging to Snell.’ He paused, taking a breath. ‘Those actions will open floodgates, I guess. These could sweep us to the murder and attempted murder of Colin Carruthers, me and the chief. It will also open up links to the job on the M62 where twenty illegal immigrants died in the back of a truck, and from there on, a lot of international stuff – hence the presence of Karl, here, from the FBI.’
‘How do you want to play it, then?’
‘We need to get Lynch sewn up tight. I want everything done to the nth degree – forensics, house searches, clothing, all vehicles he’s had access to gone over by CSI, and I want to find that damned Citroën van. We’ve already got a lot of this information from Bignall, so my view is we need to act on it quickly. Once Lynch is nailed to the wall, we can go for the others.’
Henry saw nods of agreement. It was a plan and he was open to suggestions, but none came.
‘I take it this is OK with everybody?’ A murmur of assent came back. He would have liked to see a little more enthusiasm, but there you go. ‘Right, let’s work out some of the logistics.’
Henry and Donaldson drove out towards Manchester in an unmarked police car. Jane Roscoe sat quietly in the back as Henry whisked them down the M66. Why he had let her tag along with him he wasn’t certain. Maybe it was to further demonstrate to her that he was an OK guy.
‘It has to be better to pick him up at his home address,’ he was saying. ‘That way we keep a lid on it. None of his mates need to find out until it’s too late for them – hopefully. He lives alone, so there shouldn’t be anyone there to blab. It would be nice to keep him under wraps for some time at least.’
The journey did not take long, Henry exiting the motorway at Bury, where Lynch lived on a newish estate in the Walshaw area. Henry had a good idea where it was, especially after refreshing his mind from an A-Z map book he found at Rawtenstall nick.
‘Everybody happy?’ Henry beamed sitting at the wheel. He was buzzing, but there was no response from the other two, though he knew they were keyed-up for action. Even Donaldson, who would have to remain on the sidelines whilst Henry and Roscoe did the work of making the arrest. ‘Soon be there,’ he promised, as though to kids.
Henry reached a road where he could not quite be sure whether he should turn off first or second left.
He got it wrong, but it was just as well.
As he flew past the road end he should have turned into, a car drew up to the junction.
‘That’s him,’ Henry snapped, recognizing Lynch at the wheel. He held back the urge to duck down behind his steering wheel and kept going without swerving.
Donaldson eyeballed Lynch, getting a good, if quick, look at his face. ‘I recognize him,’ he said. ‘He’s the guy that gave me the hard stare from the back of the Citroën van on the motorway.’
‘Nice one,’ Henry said, watching Lynch in his rear-view mirror. He pulled out of the junction and turned right, going in the direction Henry had just driven from, towards Bury town centre. ‘Need to turn this bus round.’
Following a vehicle on a one-on-one is tricky. To effectively surveil someone travelling on four wheels generally requires at least four cars and, if possible, a motorbike. Henry was kicking himself for failing to anticipate this situation, but then again, he thought reasonably, it’s impossible to cover all bases with the limited resources available. But he had not expected to have to follow his target, and this made him twitch a little nervously. Judgement again? He took a breath . . . go with the situation, keep assessing it and do your best, he told himself, gripping the wheel firmly. Then pick the best opportunity to lift Lynch.
‘Wonder where he’s going?’ Donaldson speculated.
Henry slotted in three cars behind, hoping to hell that Lynch was such a confident bastard that it would never occur to him he was being tailed. If he started to use anti-surveillance tactics, Henry would be stuffed at the first junction.
He led them into Bury town centre. Henry had problems staying with him here. Having to hang back all the time meant either missing lights or running them. Henry ran plenty, unscathed more by luck than skill, and stayed with Lynch, who wound through the town and dropped on to the A58, going in the direction of Heywood and Rochdale.
‘Doesn’t look like he’s going to the office,’ Henry said.
It was just after eight p.m., getting darker, making following even more of a problem. Henry often had to rely on recognizing the rear light cluster of Lynch’s motor.
All three were now getting jittery.
So much for a plan.
As for Lynch, it never entered his head he was being followed. For a start he thought he had done the job on those simpletons from Lancashire. Even t
hough the two cops in the car he had forced into the ARMCO barrier had survived, it had given the Invincibles the chance to regroup and put a better game plan together. Sure, the cops from Lancs would come back, but then the gates would be firmly closed and they would find nothing. The chief constable was hospitalized, the DCI was off sick and Carruthers was now really dead as opposed to just brain-dead. A good job, well done.
Now all that remained was to sort Rufus Sweetman and his cocaine – and that is what he was en route to pull off.
Easton had arranged a meet at a uniquely brilliant location, ostensibly to hand the consignment of drugs back and therefore stop the random shootings of innocent cops. But Lynch knew that no handing over would ever take place. Secretly everyone knew that there would only ever be one outcome, but because the stakes were so high, they were all prepared to take the risk.
Someone was going to die and Lynch was damn sure it would not be him.
He checked his rear-view mirror as he pulled on to the roundabout under the M66. Damn sure . . .
They travelled through the small town of Heywood, then bore right towards Middleton.
‘All the best places,’ Henry said.
‘I don’t like this,’ Donaldson said.
‘Nor me,’ Roscoe chimed in. ‘Something’s happening.’
Henry knew what they meant. That inner voice of the experienced cop, wittering in your earhole. He was hearing it, too. Over his shoulder he said to Roscoe, ‘Give Dave Anger a call, tell him where we’re up to.’
She nodded.
Henry was now only one vehicle behind Lynch. Traffic was light on the road and maintaining invisibility was getting more problematical. ‘He’ll clock us soon, if he hasn’t done already . . .’ Then Lynch’s brake lights came on and he turned off the main road. Henry could not follow. He had no choice but to drive on and stop after a further hundred metres.
‘I know what’s down there . . .’ He looked quizzically at his American friend. ‘It’s the Big City.’
That was its affectionate nickname – the Big City. It was housed in a massive warehouse on the edge of an industrial estate on the outskirts of Heywood, not far from the noise of the M62 at Birch Services. And although it was known as the Big City, it was actually more like a small town. It consisted of a main street, shops on either side, with side streets and alleyways shooting off this main drag, some leading into small squares, others to dead ends. Most of the buildings were merely shells, constructed of plywood, held together by four by two, some were merely frontages like a Wild West film set. Some of the buildings had stairs in them, leading up to first-floor landings and windows, from which rioters could pelt police lines.