Exit Wounds

by Aaron Fisher

  As his colleague eased the bereaved mother into the topic they wanted to discuss, Tony noted that perhaps Craig did serve some purpose here after all. The tiptoed dance required in order to coax information out of people mourning frustrated him and his blunt efficiency meant that it was one area of policing that he was less than proficient in.

  “In your statement you told the officers that you remembered a man watching Denise at her birthday party,” Craig said.

  Mrs. Sanders nodded. “Yes,” she said, speaking for the first time since Craig had started.

  Craig hesitated, giving the mother space in case she had something else to add. He sensed that just that one word had been a forced effort. “Do you think you could give me a description of the man please, Mrs. Sanders? If you’re okay to talk about it?”

  Lorna tucked her cardigan around her and under arms, clutching herself tighter, “Um, mid forties, maybe older. Short hair, almost bald, shaven short.” She paused, “I don’t remember what colour eyes he had sorry.”

  Craig shook his head, “It’s alright,” he noted the words she had used down in his own notebook, mentally noting that Tony wasn’t doing the same. He started again, “Do you remember what clothes he was wearing?”

  “Jeans... and trainers I think. He had one of those camouflage, army type jackets on. ...That’s all I remember,” she said before apologising again.

  “Would you be able to recognise him again?” Tony said, as Craig scribbled down the latest details.

  Mrs. Sanders looked up as did Craig, suddenly.

  She nodded, “I think so. Yes. I’m sure I would.”

  Tony stood up and reached into his inside jacket pocket. He pulled out five screen grabs from the CCTV. He had randomly selected four other men from the footage to show Lorna Sanders. If he showed her only the suspect then he could be accused of leading a witness.

  With no hesitation, Lorna pulled the suspect’s image out of the deck. “That’s him! That’s the man at Denise’s party! Where is he?! Have you arrested him yet?”

  “It’s still too early in our investigation to make any arrests but I want to thank your help, Mrs. Sanders,” Tony said, taking the photos back and returning them to his jacket.

  “But is he a suspect now? You must have something!”

  “We’re currently following several lines of enquiry. We’ll be in touch if we have any news.” It was a rehearsed answer. As standard issue as the biros on his desk, and it was all Lorna Sanders was going to get out of Tony Horton. He was already on his way out the door.

  An Abandoned Warehouse, Cardiff Bay

  Richard and Paul Russell were shown into another of the offices, this one considerably cleaner than the last. The floor was mopped and the windows blacked out by blinds. Square tiles covering both the floor and the ceiling. On the desk in front of them, were several computer monitors and towers. Dozens of cables and wires ran out from the towers’ backs, the majority meeting at a hub device on the wall. Whilst the desk was the same old, wooden design that was in the previous office, the chairs at least had been replaced by new comfier, swivel chairs.

  A skinny, black man with messy hair and wearing two pairs of glasses, one on top of his head and one resting on his nose, was crouched underneath the desk, fiddling away.

  “Thomas” Dean barked, as he entered the room.

  The skinny man jumped, almost hitting his head on the underneath of the desk.

  Paul snorted a little chuckle.

  Thomas crawled out and stood up straight as Giacometti moved forward.

  “Is everything ready?” Giacometti asked.

  “Yes. Yes sir.” Thomas replied, choking back a slight stutter. “We’re hooked up, but not as yet properly c-connected. We’re just coast-coasting at the moment. We won’t be detected as it stands we haven’t as yet breached anything.” He gasped when he had finished, almost out of breath.

  Giacometti nodded, “Good.” He turned to face Richard and Paul and smiled. “My friends, I have other business to attend to. I leave you now in the capable hands of my friend Thomas.”

  Thomas shifted his weight from one foot to another as Giacometti left the room with Dean following behind, who gave Paul one final sneer and then closed the door behind him.

  Richard stepped forward once the door was shut, “Thomas.”

  “You, you must be the Gillespie brothers. I’m the one who told Mister Giacometti about you two.”

  Every muscle in Paul’s body tightened on stand-by and for once he thought he could sense his brother doing the same.

  “Rover said on the phone you were the best he knew for the job. How-How is he?”

  Paul slowly relaxed.

  “He’s fine. Great,” Richard replied, eventually, taking time to hide away his own relief. “Shall we get started?”

  “Yes, yes!” Thomas spun on the spot, unsure of where to head. Suddenly he dashed over to one of the chairs, pulling it out for Richard. “How much did Rover tell you about this job?”

  “Not a lot,” Paul said, pulling out his own chair.

  Thomas shrugged as he sat down next to Richard, “That makes sense. I didn’t exactly tell him much myself.”

  “We know that you want to gain unauthorised access to a server and you want us to write the code for a rootkit to obscure your presence on the system,” Richard told Thomas. He paused for a moment. Thomas’ stutter had calmed down since Giacometti and Dean had left.

  He’s more comfortable with people he thinks are computer geeks like himself, Richard thought to himself.

  Lowering his voice so that Thomas would do the same he took a calculated risk and probed a little further. “I have to say though Thomas, we thought today would just be an initial meeting. We haven’t even arranged our fee yet.”

  “Oh, it was supposed to be,” Thomas began, chatting happily as if he had known Richard for years. “But our schedule kinda got moved up a few notches. Big drama. I can’t go into details, but the end result is that we need access to this server today!”

  Thomas leant over and hit a button on one of the keyboards, lighting up a couple of the screens. “Now this is all pretty standard stuff here. You can start writing the code in this. I’ve been running a few diagnostics on breaking the firewall myself so I’ve gathered up a load of data on the server already if it’s any extra help. Not that I think you’ll need it from what Rover told me about you two.”

  Richard smiled back at him, giving Thomas the pat on the back he was looking for. Paul sat in silence. He didn’t have a clue what Thomas was talking about.

  Hawthorn Road East, Llandaff North

  “What the hell was that!?” Craig Hughes had stayed behind to calm down Lorna Sanders after his partner had left her near hysterical.

  Tony turned. He wasn’t sure why he had stuck around. Despite himself he supposed that he did feel a sense of loyalty to Craig.

  “Why didn’t you tell me you knew about this guy? And where did this photo suddenly come from?”

  Craig was upset. Tony had known he would be. Whilst he had no real ambition he had developed the notion that Tony and him were a team and now he felt left out. What could Tony say? He was being left out.

  “Don’t take it personally, Craig.”

  “Don’t take it personally?!”

  Tony made an attempt to shift the blame, “Things were moving too fast for me to fully update you. Colgan came to me with this lead. He asked me to follow it up. I’m just following his orders.”

  Craig bought it. He shifted his feet and slowly nodded. He couldn’t be angry with his friend for doing his job. “You got the image from the cinema cameras?”

  Tony nodded back.

  “That’s where I was gonna go next,” he bit his lip and shrugged. “Guess I got it the wrong way round.”

  Tony didn’t answer.

  “So what do we do now?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well we got a suspect, and we’ve got his mug shot. What’s our next move?”
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  Tony went to speak but Craig carried on, excitedly. “We should get the press involved! Get his face out there! Get this guy found!”

  Tony shook his head, “No way. This could still be coincidence. There’s no evidence this man has done anything wrong. The last thing we need is a witch hunt, or a lynch mob.”

  Craig threw his arms up in the air, “So what, we’re just gonna sit in the office, twiddling our thumbs?!”

  “You’re going back to the office. Carry on sorting though the victim’s backgrounds,” Tony said.

  “Come on, Tony! The press can lend us a hand here!”

  Horton looked at Craig over the top of his glasses, “Yeah, they’ve been a big help so far.” He headed back to his Audi.

  “Tony-”

  “Craig, go back to the office and get on with your assignment now,” Tony told Craig, this time adding, “That’s an order.”

  An Abandoned Warehouse, Cardiff Bay

  Paul Russell swigged a gulp of orange juice to wash down the last of his bacon sandwich. He was struggling to look busy, and as he waved the mouse about a bit, clicking on various windows full of numbers and code he didn’t understand, he couldn’t help wonder if he could get solitaire up without Thomas noticing.

  Thomas rose suddenly from his chair and headed for the door “Well, I gotta few more errands to see to before all this kicks off. Best of luck.”

  “Before what kicks off?” Paul asked Richard once he was sure they were alone.

  “I wish I knew,” his brother replied quietly.

  Paul waited for a more explanative answer. When he realised one wasn’t coming he leapt out of his chair in frustration. “This is a gang fuck!”

  Richard rose up after him, whispering aggressively, “Will you keep it down?!”

  Paul turned to look at his brother, “We are in deep shit, Rich. We were just supposed to meet with Giacometti, find out what he wanted us to do, negotiate a price and get the fuck out of there. Remember? You kept telling me to stick to the plan? And now you’re the one who goes fucking off on one at the first chance!”

  “Giacometti wasn’t there! What was I supposed to do?!”

  “You were supposed to stick to the plan!”

  “And what? Tell Dean to piss off? There was no way I was going to let our only chance just drive off like that!”

  Paul shook his head, “We are being held by at least a dozen armed men and we have no way of contacting anyone else outside. We are stuck here, on our own.”

  “We’re not on our own. We’ve got each other,” Richard playfully punched his brother’s arm.

  “Oh fuck off.” Paul turned away.

  “We stick together and we’ll be alright just as long as you stop making stupid jokes and ordering bacon sarnies like it’s a bleeding cafe!”

  Paul laughed in spite of himself.

  Richard took a minute to enjoy the release of tension before he continued, “I know this isn’t going exactly as we planned-”

  Paul laughed again, not as genuinely as the first time.

  Richard finished his sentence, “But I need you to just hold it together, okay?”

  Paul snorted, “What do you mean ‘hold it together’? You make me sound like some kind of lunatic. That bit of paper doesn’t mean shit. They can say what they like, I know who I am and I know I’m not insane.”

  “I never said you were!”

  “Good. You had better get on with that, at least look like you’re working. I’m gonna have a look around. See if I can find something that looks like an escape plan in case we need one, which I have no doubt we will.”

  “You sure that’s wise?”

  “You haven’t done anything wise today so far, why should I?” Paul huffed as he slowly opened the door and checked the way was clear before leaving.

  M.I.T. (Murder Investigation Taskforce), Cardiff Branch

  Andrew Colgan sat in his office, rubbing his chin. He checked his watch, glancing down to the mobile phone on his desk for the fifth time that minute. To add a bit of variety to the mix he looked up to the clock on the wall for his sixth check.

  “Damn it, where are you?” he muttered.

  Just then his office door started to open. Colgan was about to yell to the intruder to knock first when he realised that it was the District Director, John Zeddemore.

  Zeddemore was in his mid thirties. He matched Colgan for height and build but his hair was black and combed back with a permanently wet look as though he had just got out of the shower. He wore a dark brown blazer over a pale green shirt and black trousers. His security pass hung around his neck and he looked out through a pair of thin-framed glasses.

  Colgan stood up and moved round his desk with his hand extended. “Good to see you again, John.”

  That was Colgan’s first lie of the conversation. It was never good to see Zeddemore. Thanks and congratulations were two words he didn’t know. If you did well, he said nothing. Thus as soon as he opened his mouth you knew you were up shit creek without a paddle. Zeddemore’s presence here alone was enough to set Colgan’s internal alarm bells ringing.

  “Likewise,” Zeddemore answered with little warmth. He shook Colgan’s hand. His grip was dry but cold.

  Colgan offered his superior a seat with his arm as he returned to his own. “So to what do I owe this pleasure?”

  Zeddemore waved a hand, dismissively, “Just showing my face. Let you guys know I’m here if you need me.”

  Colgan nodded. Bullshit.

  “How’s the Blind Lover case going? Any new leads?”

  Colgan frowned, “Is that what we’re officially calling him now?”

  “We’re not ‘officially’ calling him anything. But since everybody else seems to be,” Zeddemore shrugged. “It helps to avoid confusion. Besides, we’re just chatting after all.”

  Zeddemore gave a smile that made Colgan’s back stiffen in his chair. He’d been bollocked about this case repeatedly for the last eight months. Nobody was happy that this had gone on for as long as it had. The papers were looking for someone to blame and the bureaucrats were always looking for people to point at.

  The District Director was attempting to seem casual. He was never casual. In many ways his ruthless efficiency reminded Colgan of Tony Horton. Hell, there was even a fairly recognisable physical resemblance. Zeddemore was an older, dark-haired Horton, just as ambitious and just as blunt.

  “You said this morning that you had a lead on a possible suspect? How’s that panning out?”

  There was an uneasy silence in the room. Zeddemore was playing with him. He knew it. Colgan knew it. He hadn’t said anything to his superior about any new leads this morning or any morning for the past month. This was Zeddemore showing him that he could keep no secrets. Zeddemore always knew everything.

  Almost everything.

  “I’ve assigned an officer to investigate.”

  “No clues to the leak then?” Zeddemore asked. He was referring to the person who had given classified information to the media, but it just as easily could have been about whoever had blabbed to Zeddemore.

  Colgan shook his head, “Somebody’s talking.”

  “And somebody’s going to pay for it.”

  Colgan nodded, absently.

  Zeddemore’s warning was clear. Find out who was leaking information to the media. Now. Someone has to take the fall. Either they are punished, or you are. “Who did you pick?” he asked eventually.

  It took Colgan a moment to realise that they had switched back topics. “Tony Horton.”

  Zeddemore nodded, “Horton, I remember him. Driven, calculated, ambitious.”

  Are you describing Horton or yourself?

  “Can he be trusted?”

  Colgan shrugged, “Well if he can’t, we’re about to find out.”

  An Abandoned Warehouse, Cardiff Bay

  After all the trouble Dean had gone to make sure they weren’t followed, the lack of guards posted outside their room was suspicious. It was an oversight
made by people that so far didn’t seem like the mistake-making kind and it made Paul nervous. For all he knew there weren’t guards outside the room because Giacometti wanted to see if Richard and he would try to leave or look around. They could be watching him right now.

  Fuck it, Paul said to himself as he quietly made his way along the suspended walkway. If they were watching him, he’d soon know about it when they came running with their Kalashnikovs. He’d decide what to do if and when it happened.

  There were a few other offices on the upper floor. Paul thought about checking them but then changed his mind. It was unlikely he would find anything of interest in them, and besides the two he had been in previously had no windows that looked outside the confines of the congregated steel. No escape route there, just another dead end.

  The clean storehouse was far too crowded on ground level for Paul to venture down unseen. It was a labyrinth and looking down over the edge he could see no obvious path of exit.

  Paul decided he was better off heading back into the first depot they had entered. He walked slowly but casually back along the metal catwalk.

  Don’t draw any unnecessary attention. Act like you own the place, and people generally tend to think you do.

  Even after seeing both sides, the stark contrast between the two storehouses lost no impact. The door hadn’t been locked when Giacometti had led them through but for some reason Paul had half expected it to be sealed shut this time. Maybe he was just being paranoid.

  As people busied themselves underneath him Paul didn’t break one stride to stop and watch. He kept moving, only flicking his eyes down occasionally to see between the metal beams if anyone had reacted to his presence. Everyone was too busy doing something. Crates and boxes were being loaded into vans at one end, and taken off at another. Nobody stopped or slowed, it was like watching a hive of ants hard at work.

  Thomas had said something was going down today and from what Paul saw, he wasn’t wrong. Reaching the end of the catwalk he discreetly crouched down in a corner behind some wooden boxes and the outside wall of one of the upstairs offices.