Hidden Witness hc-15

by Nick Oldham

  Mark did not even wait to see the result.

  The man screamed, reeled back. Mark ducked and launched himself to one side. And ran.

  It took four hours to complete the first post-mortem and even then the paperwork wasn’t done. It had been a gruelling job and nothing was overlooked. Every little detail was systematically recorded and commented on, but even so the result told Henry no more than he already knew — just in greater detail.

  Two bullets to the head causing massive brain trauma was put down as the cause of death.

  Massive internal trauma to the body consistent with having been struck and then run over twice by a car was also recorded. Injuries that would have been fatal without the coup de grace of the bullets.

  Henry looked at the old man’s brain on the dissecting board. It had been a horrible, grey, blood-mushed mess when O’Connell had removed what was left of it from the shattered cranium, the bullets having torn it to shreds. Now it was even worse after she had sliced her way through it and managed to recover some minute shards of the bullets.

  ‘The internal injuries would have killed him, but he was alive — just — when he was shot in the head,’ O’Connell said. She exhaled tiredly, eyed Henry. ‘I want to leave Rory’s PM until the morning, now. I want to do him justice and I don’t feel as though that’s possible at the moment.’

  ‘Not a problem,’ Henry said. He knew how she felt. Being up all night, then working through the day with hardly any sleep had drained them both. His mobile phone rang — as it had been doing all afternoon. He answered it. Jerry Tope was on the line saying he’d done Henry’s bidding and was ready with a PowerPoint presentation at Blackpool nick. Where was Henry?

  Henry checked his watch, not realizing the time — having had so much fun, of course. He promised Jerry he would be at the station soon. There was to be a murder squad debrief at eight thirty and he didn’t want to piss a lot of people off by being late. Another call came through as soon as he ended the one to Jerry. He glanced at O’Connell, who was watching him patiently. He opened his mouth to say something, thought better of it and answered the phone.

  ‘Just for your information,’ Alex Bent said. ‘Two items. Number one — there is a match between the hair and blood on the old man’s walking stick and Rory’s hair and blood; secondly the shoe print in the shit is also a match, so Rory was definitely at the murder scene.’

  ‘Rory is definitely tied to the old man,’ Henry confirmed out loud for O’Connell’s benefit, raising his eyebrows.

  ‘Affirmative,’ Bent said.

  Henry thanked him and hung up. ‘Now all we need to do is find out who was with Rory, then we could be on to a winner.’

  ‘I’ll get everything typed up, well, as much as I can within the next half hour, then I’ll email it to you,’ O’Connell promised.

  ‘That would be good. Thanks for this afternoon and everything else.’

  ‘Will you get chance for a drink later?’ O’Connell asked.

  He wavered. ‘Er, probably. Have to see how the debrief goes and what all this new information throws up.’

  ‘I’ll be at home. Waiting.’

  Henry turned to leave. His phone started to ring again. The caller display revealed it to be his wife, Kate.

  On the short journey back to the police station, Henry assembled his thoughts as to how he would address the team of officers — detectives, uniformed, specialists and support staff — who had been brought into the enquiry. He hoped he wouldn’t forget anything. On his arrival at the nick he abandoned his car in the underground car park, effectively blocking in two other cars, because he couldn’t find anywhere else to park.

  As he entered through the caged door that led through to the custody complex, two uniformed PCs were manhandling a reluctant prisoner in between them. He wasn’t being violent, just uncooperative and obnoxious.

  Henry held the gate for them and they nodded a thanks as they heaved the unwilling man between them.

  ‘I tell you, I was not going to do anything,’ the prisoner said haughtily, yanking his arm out one officer’s grasp. ‘We were simply going for a little walk, that’s all. I wasn’t going to hurt the little guy.’

  Much to their credit, neither officer responded to this as, even from the short exchange Henry had picked up, it sounded as though this man was possibly a child molester caught in the act.

  Having said that, one of the officers did propel him hard through the next door into the custody suite.

  Henry caught a glimpse of the side of the prisoner’s face. It looked red raw all the way across his cheek and chin, and extremely painful, as though he’d been scalded.

  Then, they were gone, and in a few minutes the prisoner would be in the sausage machine that was Blackpool’s custody system, just one of over twelve thousand prisoners passing through each year.

  Henry clamped the door shut and made his way along the tight corridor and smacked the palm of his hand on the lift-call button.

  ‘Oh yes, Fazil’s definitely dead… hell, these Malts wouldn’t know security if it jumped up and bit their asses.’

  Karl Donaldson sat on one of the sunloungers on his hotel room balcony. With his left hand he held a bag of crushed ice, wrapped in a towel, on to the back of his head. In his right, the mobile phone was to his ear. He alternated holding the ice pack with picking up the triple measure of whisky he’d assembled from three miniatures in the hotel room minibar. Two Black Label and one Jack Daniel’s. An unusual but effective mixture.

  ‘I can’t believe it. I’d only been gone a matter of minutes before I decided to turn around and speak to him again.’ His head pounded from the blow he’d received, arcs of pain pumping out like circles in a pond. Fortunately, his nose hadn’t been broken and the bleeding had been easily stemmed, although the two cotton wool balls jammed up his nostrils did make him look ridiculous.

  ‘You’re damned lucky you didn’t buy it, too,’ Don Barber said.

  ‘Don’t tell me.’ He made a puzzled face, wondering why he hadn’t ‘bought it’ as Barber succinctly termed it. ‘Guess something musta spooked ’em and they were happy enough with Fazil.’

  ‘How in hell did they get into the freakin’ cop shop anyway?’ Barber demanded yet again.

  ‘Like I said, they’re way behind with security over here — and that’s where the accomplice came in — one of the gaolers. The desk sergeant obviously saw what was happening and got killed for his troubles.’

  ‘How did they escape?’

  ‘When they hit me, they went out through an emergency exit that’s usually chained up, but wasn’t in this case — they took the keys from the sergeant’s key ring. Bastards.’

  ‘Damn… and no video evidence?’

  ‘None… the gaoler must’ve fixed that too, tampered with the recording equipment.’

  ‘What a mess,’ Barber said.

  ‘Means we’re running outta witnesses,’ Donaldson said.

  ‘Yeah… you’re certain Fazil was the gun-dropper?’

  ‘As can be.’

  ‘Then he got what was coming to him… I know it ain’t the perfect scenario, but there’s some justice in it. And he wasn’t coming across to you, was he?’

  ‘But I’m still way behind the American,’ Donaldson moaned. ‘Fazil was a helluva good lead.’

  ‘You’ll get to him,’ Barber reassured him. ‘That’s why I put you on him, because I know you’ll nail him sooner or later.’

  ‘Whatever…’

  ‘Hey, don’t sound so despairing. A bad man’s bit the dust, let’s not mourn,’ Barber tried to sound upbeat. ‘And you’re still alive.’

  ‘OK, OK, I get the message… ahh!’ A jolt of pain crackled through his head. He took the ice pack off his head and took a mouthful of the whisky mix. There wasn’t much left in the glass.

  ‘What can you tell us about the killer?’ Barber asked.

  ‘Not much. Biggish guy, mask on, gloves on, overalls, I think, didn’t even make the weapon, whi
ch seriously annoys me, other than it was revolver with a silencer, probably a. 38, so no ejected shells. And he’s probably got one sore face, because I managed to land a good one on him.’ Donaldson thought he heard Barber sigh at the other end of the line. ‘Sorry, Don?’

  ‘Nothing, pal. You sure you’re OK?’

  ‘Positive. Heck of a sore head, that’s all. And pissed off. I should’ve realized the danger, though, but I’m still trying to work out why Fazil was important enough to take such a risk to nail him. Real heavy stuff.’

  ‘Shit like that happens. We deal with desperate people, Karl.’

  ‘Oh God, do we!’

  ‘What are your plans?’

  ‘Ugh… tidy up here, make peace with the locals who are running around like headless chickens. Finish my statement for them, then I want to get back to Lancashire… see where, or if, Petrone’s death fits into all this.’

  ‘I can deploy someone else to that if you like?’

  ‘No. I know them up there, especially the guy in charge of the investigation. We go way back and he always needs my help.’

  ‘Only if you’re up to it, but don’t overdo it, OK? If it’s eyeties versus eyeties, let’s not get too involved, eh?’

  ‘I hear ya.’

  Their conversation ended. Donaldson groaned as he stood up, unsure whether it was injury or old age — or possibly a combination of both — and a lifetime of law enforcement. He stood by the balcony railings overlooking the harbour and noticed, peeking over the frosted glass panel separating his balcony from the next one, that the sliding doors into the room were open. Gentle jazz music filtered out. He edged along until he could see on to the balcony, also empty, although there were signs of recent activity on the lounger and table. An empty glass, a half-full bottle of wine, a paperback book, cigarettes and a lighter. Donaldson’s eyes honed in on the cigarettes and something moved inside his chest. A yearning. He’d been a light smoker in his teens, but hadn’t had a cigarette for many years and was very much against them — usually. But there and then, with a bad head, in a horrible situation, he found he had an irrational need for a cancer stick.

  A movement caught his eye. He glanced up, moving his head a little too sharply, causing him to emit a muted howl.

  Still clad in her bikini, the forward Scandinavian lady stepped out through her net curtains on to her balcony. There was a wry smile on her face.

  ‘Spying on me now?’ she admonished him. Then she saw he was holding the ice pack to his head. ‘My, what happened to you?’

  ‘Long story, ma’am,’ he replied, quickly pulling the blood-soaked cotton wool out of his nostrils and dropping them on the floor. ‘But I wonder if I could trouble you.’ She regarded him with deep misgiving. ‘I know, I know.’ He held up a hand to reassure her he wasn’t the sick pervert she thought he was after seeing the photographs on his laptop. ‘I’d really love a cigarette. Been a bad day.’

  ‘O-K,’ she said unsurely, but took the pack, shuffled one out for him and one for her. They were Superkings and as he inhaled the smoke spread into his lungs with a deeply pleasurable sensation.

  He exhaled deliciously. ‘First one in twenty-five years.’ He held the cigarette between his first and second fingers and pointed it at her. ‘I’m not going off the wagon, though, even though this is absolutely wonderful and I thank you kindly, ma’am.’

  She too was smoking and regarded him through a cloud of her own.

  He took another deep draw and as he exhaled this time it was with a growl of pleasure. Then he looked at his neighbour. ‘Sorry for freakin’ y’all out earlier,’ he said in his best Yankee drawl.

  ‘Yes, I was freaked.’

  ‘OK, understood. My name is Karl Donaldson and I’m an FBI agent,’ he said, not even beginning to understand why he was telling her this, because he did not need to, nor should he have done really. ‘The photos you saw were of a dead guy, obviously, and I was asked if I could identify him.’

  ‘You’re an FBI agent,’ she asked in disbelief.

  ‘Really, I am.’ He didn’t wish to explain exactly what he did in the Bureau because that made things complicated. Everyone sort of understood the concept of an agent.

  ‘What are you doing in Malta?’

  ‘Interviewing a witness… that’s where the bad day came in.’ He showed her the ice-packed towel, then tilted his head. ‘Hit on head

  … long story. See it, touch it.’

  She reached across the partition and felt his scalp and the quail egg-sized lump on it. Her fingers withdrew quickly.

  ‘Ooh, the witness did not like you?’

  ‘Something like that.’ He took another drag, enjoyed it, then said, ‘I think that did the trick. And you are?’ He knew she had introduced herself at their previous encounter, but that hadn’t gone too well and he couldn’t quite recall the name. Then it clicked. ‘Vanessa.’

  ‘Vanessa Langstrum.’

  ‘What are you doing in Malta?’ he asked. The combination of alcohol and cigarette smoke was having an effect on his social skills. Normally, he was pretty shy and reticent with women, but for some reason he wanted to talk to this one.

  ‘I’m a photographer on assignment for a Scandinavian woman’s magazine.’

  ‘Nice,’ Donaldson said. He swayed slightly. Despite his bulk, he wasn’t too good at holding his drink. ‘Care to step around and maybe we could restart our relationship?’ He gave her a very childish smile.

  The MIR was silent. The lights were lowered, the hush respectful as DC Jerry Tope took centre stage at the front of the room. He set up his laptop, wirelessly connected to the ceiling-hung data projector. For a few seconds it looked as though technology was going to let him down as the screen turned blue and the words ‘NO INPUT DETECTED’ came up.

  He pressed a couple of buttons and the screen came to life with the photograph of a man — short, grey-haired, sitting at a street cafe, leaning across the table pointing at someone who was out of shot. The man looked angry. In front of him was a large cup of coffee and in his left hand was a walking stick.

  Tope positioned himself so that he could see his laptop screen without having to crane his neck to look at the projector screen behind him and the audience in front.

  ‘Let me present our victim: Rosario Petrone,’ he said. The eyes of all the assembled officers flitted between the screen and him. ‘Although we have yet to have a formal ID, information suggests that this is the man who was murdered last night in Charnley Road. Comparison between the photographs of the dead man and photographs I have acquired are pretty conclusive — plus, this.’

  He pressed the enter button and the next slide came up.

  ‘The photo you’ve just seen is one of a series of surveillance shots taken by an anti-Mafia task force in Naples — and this is a blow up of one section of that photo.’

  And indeed it was. It showed, in quite good detail, Rosario’s left hand, his fingers gripping the walking stick. ‘The head of the walking stick in this shot is the same as the walking stick found at the scene of the murder… so I have no doubt that Petrone is our victim.’

  He picked up the remote mouse and right-clicked. The next slide came up — showing the first slide again of Petrone at the cafe table. Tope held up the walking stick that had been found at the scene, which, back from forensic analysis, was in a long, thin plastic cover, just to emphasize his point.

  ‘So, who is Rosario Petrone and why did he die?’ he posed the question dramatically. ‘Why,’ he went on, ‘did the head of one of the most ruthless Mafia families in Naples, otherwise known as the Camorra Mafia, end up dead on a Blackpool street?’

  Everyone sat and listened earnestly.

  ‘But I’ll come to that later,’ Tope said, easing the tension in the room, rather like the evil quizmaster with everyone in the palm of his hand. ‘First off, I think it might be useful to give some background on the Camorra, so it’ll give you an idea of what we might be dealing with…’

  The next slide was s
imply entitled ‘Camorra’ and had a series of bullet points under it, which came in with the special audio effect of gunfire, a simple device that seemed to please Tope no end. He spoke over the prompts.

  ‘The Camorra is like the Mafia and is based in and around Naples in Italy. Its activities include drugs, protection rackets, smuggling people and goods and the production of high quality fake goods in factories in the area previously mentioned. Murder levels are horrendously high in the areas it operates in and to put that boast into perspective, the Camorra have been blamed for…’ With a flourish he jerked the remote mouse at the screen and a figure ‘4’ appeared thereon, accompanied by a gun shot, then three zeros — ‘0’, ‘0’, ‘0’ — each with their own sound effect. ‘Four thousand deaths in the last thirty years, mostly in that geographical region.’ The next slide, mercifully appearing silently, showed a map of Italy with the Campania region highlighted.

  ‘Da-da-daah!’ one of the detectives in the audience said dramatically, causing a ripple of laughter.

  Tope shot the offender a look of stern disapproval. ‘Hm,’ he muttered, not impressed. This was his show. ‘Anyway, the Camorra have probably been in existence since the 1700s and they’ve always operated in a decentralized way, meaning their structure has always been flatter than the hierarchical structure of the main Mafia clans. Because of this, the Camorra clans are always at each other’s throats, but they are more resilient when their top men are arrested, or go into hiding.

  ‘The 1980s saw the number of clans increasing and today, if Wikipedia is to be believed, with over a hundred clans and over six thousand members, they outnumber the Sicilian Mafia. Rosario Petrone is — was — the head of one of the most ruthless clans of them all. No prizes for guessing its name… the Petrone clan.

  ‘This lot produce fake luxury goods in their factories in Naples, they traffic thousands of people across the world each year, they control unions in Naples — particularly in public service facilities. They deal drugs, prostitution, money laundering and kidnapping. They are huge and are reckoned to turn over about a billion Euros each year