by Nick Oldham
It was over in a second. Reeve’s body lay sprawled out on the polythene, the back of his head virtually removed by the bullets, a sea of hot blood lapping around him.
Dakin regarded the body a few moments prior to turning slowly and walking towards Cathy Diamond. She sat rigid, terrified. She’d dropped her nail file and polish at Reeve’s revelations and her hands hadn’t moved since.
As Dakin approached her she shook her head desperately. ‘It’s not true, Lenny. It’s not true.’
He leaned across the desk, grabbed her by the hair and pounded her face repeatedly into the desk top, his anger overflowing. When he’d finished his frenzied assault her features had been mashed to a gory pulp. She was barely conscious, moaning. He let her head drop onto the desk.
He looked at the gunmen, pointed at her and cocked his thumb like the hammer of a gun, then left the room.
At the end of its journey the boat berthed back at Bayside. Ritter was last off, pausing long enough to ensure that no one was waiting to give him a reception. He watched the girl walk towards the shopping complex. He’d made no effort to speak to her further during the remainder of the trip, though he had watched her, wondering who she was, why and how she was involved with Corelli. Then he wondered how and why he himself was involved. Easy answer. Greed.
He glanced up at the replica of the Bounty moored further up the quay, the one used by MGM for the film Mutiny on the Bounty. Quite appropriate, he thought wryly.
Once on the quayside he made his way into Bayside, twenty-five thousand dollars richer. One step closer towards a prosperous retirement which he proposed to take as early as decency would allow. His fund consisted currently of an apartment in the Caymans, a small boat, and three hundred thousand dollars which was earning steady interest in the Cayman Islands. As soon as it reached the half-million mark he’d retire with a good pension, the interest on the capital, and hit the Caribbean. It was all worked out.
He failed to notice a happy couple sat on a low wall near to the waterfront. They were very much engrossed in each other and the picnic they were sharing.
As Ritter walked smartly past them the woman looked up purely by chance.
Puzzled, she said, ‘Isn’t that..?’
‘ Who?’ said the man.
‘ Naah, can’t be. What would he be doing here?’
‘ Who?’ asked the man again.
‘ I’m sure that was Eamon Ritter.’
‘ Well, so what? Maybe it was, maybe it wasn’t,’ said the man, doing what he thought was a passable imitation of a Jew.
She burst into a fit of giggles, her big fat shoulders shuddering with laughter. It was nice to be in love, laughing at things that would have been blatantly unfunny otherwise. She took a huge bite of her pastrami on rye sandwich, the mayonnaise dripping delightfully down her double chin.
Chapter Fourteen
Four days later Hinksman was discharged from hospital into the eager hands of waiting detectives.
The doctor said he was fit to detain, but must be allowed frequent rest periods and breaks during interviews, and must take his medication as and when prescribed. If he felt faint, complained of dizziness or was physically sick, the police surgeon should be called out or he should be brought back to hospital immediately. The impatient detectives raised their eyes to the heavens, but there was no way they were going to jeopardise this one by breaking the rules. For a start, too many cases had been lost in recent years by over-zealous cops bending the law and secondly, Hinksman was accompanied by his solicitor.
Hinksman was taken under armed escort to Blackpool Central police station.
Around the perimeter of the station were armed patrols who had been detailed to guard the building twenty-four hours per day whilst Hinksman was held there. Their MP5s were clearly visible, held openly across their chests for everyone to see and be warned. The police were taking no chances on this one.
At the station he was presented to the custody officer, who, after hearing the circumstances of the arrest, authorised Hinksman’s detention to secure and preserve evidence and to obtain evidence by questioning. He booked him into the computerised custody system and gave him his rights: the right to free legal advice, the right to have someone informed of his detention and the right to consult a copy of the Codes of Practice.
Because he was with his solicitor, Hinksman did not choose to exercise his other rights at that time.
Fifteen minutes after arrival at the station he was taken to an interview room where the first of a series of taped interviews began. On and off, with breaks, the interviews would last all day.
The legal process had begun.
Chrissy woke up about 10 a.m., which was quite early for her. She worked behind a bar in a hotel in Fort Lauderdale which stayed open until 3 a.m. She never generally hit the sack until gone four which wasn’t as bad as it seemed because Kovaks often finished work late (or early, depending on your viewpoint) and they often met tired, yet horny, in bed and indulged in great pre-dawn sex, which set them up for a long morning’s sleep.
That particular morning, though, Joe Kovaks was on office hours.
He’d left the apartment at 7 a.m. and Chrissy had the bed to herself.
Two things had woken her.
The first was her bladder, the second the thump of some mail coming through the door.
She slithered out of bed and took care of the first problem before traipsing naked down the hallway to sleepily retrieve the mail.
It was a package addressed to her from National Geographic, the size and weight of one of their excellent magazines. Which was all very nice, except she didn’t subscribe to it.
She frowned, slipped a finger under the flap and started to open it.
Sue was walking down a corridor in the FBI Field Office in Miami, clutching a batch of mail underneath her crossed arms. She was smiling sweetly to herself and humming as she contemplated love, life and happiness. And more particularly, Damian’s penis. Eamon Ritter was striding purposefully down the corridor in her direction.
‘ Good morning,’ she said pleasantly to him.
He responded with a grunt; didn’t bother looking at her.
‘ Did you go for a sail around the bay?’ she asked as they passed, shoulder to shoulder.
‘ What?’ he said, stopping in his tracks.
‘ Yesterday,’ she went on innocently. ‘It was my day off. I went down to Bayside — saw you walking up from the waterfront, near to the Bounty. Just wondered if you’d been for a sail around the bay.’
He looked coldly at her and shook his head. ‘No,’ he said. ‘You’re mistaken!’
‘ I’m sure it was you,’ she persisted naively. ‘In fact, you were wearing that suit.’
‘ I said you’re mistaken.’
‘ Oh,’ said Sue, belatedly realising from his tone of voice that he wanted her to be mistaken. ‘Yes, I must be. Sorry.’
He gave her a look which made her shiver, then turned and stalked away.
She watched him for a mesmerised second or two, disgusted at his abruptness, and went on her way towards Organized Crime with the mail held more tightly to her bosom.
‘ Yeah, they’ve been interviewing him all day,’ Donaldson said on the phone to Kovaks. It was 4.30 p.m., British time. ‘But he’s said nothing whatsoever. Exercising his right to silence, apparently. Won’t even state his name for the tape.’
Kovaks sighed. ‘Only to be expected,’ he said philosophically. ‘Is he represented by a lawyer?’
‘ Yeah. They call ‘em solicitors over here.’
‘ An appropriate name. What’s his history?’
‘ Connected to big-time local crims. Haven’t got any further with him, though.’
Sue trundled into the office with a wave for Kovaks. Only a couple of other agents were in the room, sat at their desks, jackets off, deep into compiling reports. She distributed the mail around various desks, concluding with Kovaks’. ‘Thanks,’ he mouthed over the phone call and put his
hand to his lips, forefinger and thumb-tips touching, indicating that a cup of coffee wouldn’t go amiss. She nodded and made her way to the machine in the corner.
Kovaks slotted the phone in between his shoulder and left ear, leaving his hands free to deal with the mail.
‘ So what’s your role now?’ he asked Donaldson.
‘ Background. Working with a Detective Sergeant called Henry Christie…’
‘ Ain’t he the one who arrested Hinksman?’
‘ Yeah. Seems a good guy, but his nerves are shot to hell. We’re putting together everything I know that’s of value for the investigation over here. How’s Whisper’s murder enquiry coming along?’
Kovaks was sifting through his mail as he talked. He flicked to one side a couple of envelopes which he knew contained intelligence bulletins, and opened another which contained a letter requiring a quick response. He finally came to the biggest envelope — one from the National Geographic.
‘ Wall of silence,’ he told Donaldson. ‘I’m not happy with the doctor, though. He’s a creep and I don’t trust him. So, are we going to extradite Hinksman?’
‘ All in good time.’
Kovaks picked up his letter-knife and slid it into the top of the envelope. He was already looking forward to a free magazine.
‘ We’ll let the Brits go through their legal process first,’ said Donaldson. ‘They’ve got enough to stitch him up and convict whether he says anything or not. We’ll try and get him after that. Anything new on Corelli?’
‘ Naw…’ The knife went in as if it was cutting butter. ‘Still waiting for permission to tap his house down in Key West. I think he does a lot of business down there.’
Sue appeared in front of him, holding two plastic cups of steaming coffee.
The envelope opened as the knife came out the other side. Kovaks saw the wires immediately. He shot out of his seat, dropped the phone, shouted, ‘Oh Jesus shit — BOMB!’ and threw the envelope across the room where it smacked on a wall and dropped to the floor. He flung himself at Sue and forced her to the floor; out of the corner of his eyes he saw the other agents in the room drop instinctively down out of sight, taking flimsy protection from their desks. The coffee Sue had been holding went everywhere as Kovaks landed on top of her. She was too surprised and winded to say anything other than, ‘Ungphf’
Nothing happened.
Kovaks rose slowly to his knees. ‘Keep down,’ he warned the others. He peered over the top of the desk at the envelope which lay innocently on the floor. Two wires poked out of it. Shaking, his heart pulsating to the point of bursting, he reached for and picked up the phone which dangled on its wire over the edge of the desk. He could hear Donaldson shouting at the other end. ‘Joe, Joe! You OK, Joe?’
‘ Yeah, yeah,’ he breathed. He looked down at the prostrate figure of Sue who hadn’t moved. Her dress had ridden up to reveal her plump thighs and skimpy underclothes. ‘I think I’ve just opened a letter bomb — but it didn’t go bang. Speak to you later.’
He slammed the phone down.
‘ I think we’re OK, people,’ he announced. ‘If it was going to blow it would’ve done by now.’
Gingerly the other two agents appeared from hiding. Kovaks held out a hand to Sue and heaved her into an unladylike sitting position, legs akimbo. She grinned her lop-sided grin at him and said, ‘You don’t need an excuse to throw me to the ground and leap on me, you know.’
He chuckled with a slightly hysterical undertone, but before he could confound her with an off-the-cuff witty remark, the phone on his desk rang out. He answered it. ‘Kovaks.’
‘ Agent Kovaks?’
‘ Speaking. ‘
‘ Broward Country Police here, Fort Lauderdale. Sheriff Tomlinson.’
‘ Yep?’
‘ You live up here with a lady called Chrissy Strand?’
‘ Yep — why?’ Kovaks asked cautiously. His eyes flickered to the envelope on the floor.
‘ I’m sorry, but I’ve some bad news, sir. She’s in hospital. Some kind of explosion at your apartment this morning… We think it could’ve been a letter bomb. It went off in her face.’
It was a one-room apartment over a row of sleazy shops near to Flagler Street in downtown Miami. In one corner of the room a baby cried itself hoarse in a cot. It was poorly cared for, a scrawny child, its growth stunted perhaps for ever by lack of proper feeding and loving attention. Its diaper stank and probably hadn’t been changed for twelve hours. It was soiled and wet. Underneath, the baby’s skin was red-raw and sore. And the baby was hungry, but it couldn’t have kept anything down because of a recurring stomach infection.
But it hadn’t always been this way.
In another corner of the room lay the baby’s mother on a low camp bed with a thin mattress and brown, stained sheets.
She was a black girl, nineteen years old.
She hadn’t always been this way.
Not many months ago she had been beautiful, big and full of life.
Now she lay there half-listening to her baby’s screams of anguish.
But they were noises that only vaguely registered in her ears. They were miles away, of no consequence. What was immediate was that her head was swimming and she was in a different, crack-induced world.
She was on a high, but it wasn’t all that high. She needed some more. The last hadn’t taken her far enough up. She’d seen the peak she wanted to conquer in the distant mist, but it had remained just out of reach. So she needed a lot more, but for the moment this would have to do.
She closed her dry eyes and ran her hands down her naked body, quivering with the sensation in her head.
Once her body had been beautiful, desirable.
Now she was thin and wasted. No one, no man, could possibly want to make love to her. Her bones stuck out hard and cold, her thin legs looked like they had rickets, her once large firm breasts were shadows of their former selves. Her nipples, once rich and scarlet, were pitiful and lifeless.
All she retained was her mouth.
That was still sensual, her lips thick and moist.
And that was how she made her living, with her mouth. She was good with it — the very best. Last night forty customers queued up and testified to the fact. At fifty dollars each that made two thousand dollars, and it wasn’t her best night by any means. All she got though was a measly two hundred, a hundred and fifty of which went straight back to the man for dope.
And the baby cried in the corner.
The mother sat up, desperate for more. She searched frantically for some in her bag. There was none, but she already knew that anyway.
Then the door opened and two men came into the room.
One was THE man.
‘ Oh God, thank God,’ she breathed in relief, not even beginning to wonder why they’d come, just pleased with her good luck. ‘I need it, man, I need it. I’ve got fifty dollars left here.’ A hand slid under the pillow and came out clutching a wad of crumpled dollar bills.
The man crossed to her.
With the flat of his hand he smacked her hard and accurately across the face. ‘Get the fuck out of here — now — and take that little piece of Whisper-shit with you.’
‘ I don’t understand,’ she whined, holding her face. ‘What’s going on? What’ve I done? I need it, man. Please!’
‘ You’re being evicted. He’s decided,’ said the man, pointing upwards as if to heaven, ‘that he don’t like bitches in any way connected to people who talk to the law. Now, nigger, get your clothes on, you skinny, ugly bitch, collect that thing and get out. From this moment on, you’re a homeless person — and you can thank Whisper for that.’
Joe Kovaks had a four-hour wait before they let him in to see Chrissy. Part of the time he was accompanied by Sue who plied him with sweet black coffee from a nearby dispenser and machine-gunned him with small talk, which included her minor clash with Ritter. Everything went in one ear and out the other before eventually starting to irritate him. In the end
he told her — not unkindly — to go, explaining that he needed to be alone.
She understood and left reluctantly, only to be replaced almost immediately by a young detective from Fort Lauderdale who got Chrissy’s personal details from him, then a statement. It was like getting blood from a stone. Kovaks didn’t feel very much like talking. He wanted to sit and brood. He spoke in angry monosyllables where he could and didn’t feel any remorse or empathy for the detective. Fuck him, he thought. Just fuck him.
All Kovaks wanted to do was see Chrissy. Until then, he wasn’t interested in making anyone’s life easy. What the fuck were they doing with her?
When the detective left, muttering and bearing a statement a rookie would have laughed at, Kovaks sat there alone at last… but only for a short time. In less than five minutes a nurse turned up and asked him to accompany her.
He dropped the stub of his cigarette into his cold coffee, and stood up on quaking legs. He wanted to see her, yet he didn’t. He wanted, yet dreaded, the moment. With this conflict battling inside him, he followed the nurse.
For the first time in his life he was totally shocked and speechless as he stood at the door of the Burns Unit and looked at the pathetic charred figure of Chrissy Strand, the woman he had definitely grown to love.
In truth he couldn’t see all that much of her. There was a spaghetti-like mess of tubes running across and into her body and arms. A suit that looked like it was made of a combination of plastic and tinfoil covered her upper torso and a sheet was drawn up to cover the part of her body from her stomach downwards. A hairnet, rather like a shower cap, was on her head and the whole left side of her face was concealed by gauze. Her hands and arms were covered with plastic bags.
He gasped in horror as he saw her blackened hands, burned like an overcooked joint. He held onto the door jamb for support.
She looked awful and the expression on his face registered his shock and disbelief. His Chrissy.
At least she was unconscious and pumped full of drugs for the moment. For the moment.