by Nick Oldham
Instead, beer-loaded breath wafted into his face from Billy Costain’s mouth.
‘Cops’re after you — an’ so am I,’ Costain growled. ‘You were with my Rory when he got murdered, weren’t you?’
Mark gagged. The crook of Costain’s arm crushed his windpipe and he could not have answered if he’d wanted to. Costain bent Mark double in a chokehold and it was as if his head was trapped in one of those seaside exhibits where punters poked their faces out through some cartoon character or other. He gurgled. Costain held tight as Mark attempted to prise his head free — without success. Billy was a big, strong guy and he’d battled and held bigger brutes than Mark.
Without much of a problem, Costain fished out his mobile with his left hand and made the first of three calls to the police. The first was to Henry Christie, which the detective didn’t get because he was in the lift. Costain had pre-programmed Henry’s number and that of the MIR phone line into his mobile.
Mark continued to struggle valiantly, gouging and kicking, but old man Costain was impervious to his assaults and clung easily to the lad.
After he’d spoken to Alex Bent in the MIR, then to Henry, Mark had sagged with the effort of trying to escape. His energy drained out of him and he hung in the crook of Costain’s arm like a bonfire night Guy.
Henry tutted at his PR, but held his tongue. Comms had told him there were no patrols available to make to Shoreside, all were busy. Sorry. There wasn’t much Henry could say to that. If the town was lucky, there might be about four patrols out there firefighting, and Blackpool was a busy place for cops.
Bent screwed the CID Ford Focus through the gears and streets, and only a few minutes after leaving the cop shop he was turning on to Shoreside, then on to Shoreside Drive which was the main spine running through the estate.
Henry spotted Costain and the figure of Mark Carter about fifty metres ahead. Bent drew the CID car in alongside them. Both detectives climbed out, Henry with a triumphant grin on his face. He shone the beam of his penlight torch into Mark’s face as he looked up from the headlock.
‘It were only a matter of time before I caught him,’ Costain said.
Henry put his hands on his knees and looked at Mark. ‘Now then, young fella me lad, I’m going to ask Mr Costain to let you go free, OK? And if you even think of doing a runner, I’ll flatten you. Got that?’
‘Get this ugly git off me,’ Mark growled.
‘Only if you say you won’t run.’
‘I won’t bloomin’ run, OK.’
Henry raised his head to Costain and out of the corner of his eye he spotted a car cruising down the road towards them, but did not give it much credence. He gave Alex Bent a ‘Grab him’ gesture and the DS took hold of Mark’s right arm. Costain slowly released his grip when he was certain that Bent had got hold of the lad.
‘I found out who Rory was hanging about with,’ Costain said, sticking a roll-up into his mouth and lighting up. ‘Then it were just a matter of nabbin’ him.’ He chuckled. ‘Make a good cop, me.’ He inhaled then brew out acrid smoke.
‘What d’you want me for?’ Mark protested, still squirming in Bent’s grasp. ‘I’ve done nothing. This is not fair.’
Henry sighed. ‘Fair? Fair is a place where you go to ride on rides, eat cotton candy and step in monkey shit, and, as corny as it sounds, Mark, you can do this the hard way or the easy way. Whichever you choose, you’ll be coming with us.’
‘Oh yeah?’ Mark responded impertinently.
‘Don’t give me a hard time.’ Henry wagged at finger at him. ‘I need to talk to you about some serious crimes, don’t I? Not least of which are two street robberies.’ Henry gave him a pointed look.
‘Don’t know what you’re talking about.’
‘And the fact you’ve witnessed two murders, one being that of your mate, Rory.’
‘Crap. Still don’t know what you mean.’
The car that had been crawling along accelerated. Everyone’s head jerked in its direction as the engine screamed.
It was a Volvo. With the passenger side nearest to the kerb.
Henry ingested it all in a split second.
The big car hurtling towards them. Two dark figures in the front seats, both bulky, definitely male, their features unrecognizable because of the main beam of the headlights putting them in shadow. And the man in the front passenger seat leaning out of the fully open window with the evil black shape of a Skorpion machine pistol in his hands, aimed at the foursome.
Henry, Mark, Bent and Costain were on the footpath, maybe ten metres ahead of where the CID car had been parked. Immediately behind them was a pair of semi-detached houses, both unoccupied and boarded-up.
Even then, a simultaneous thought in Henry’s head said, ‘Thank God for that. At least no residents will be caught in the shooting. No innocent person sat watching TV will get shot by accident.’
Henry knew they were about to be the victims of a drive-by shooting.
The car was closer now. It was a big, heavy estate, but no slouch. It was moving fast, now almost level with the CID car.
Henry twisted to Mark and Bent. With a yell, ‘Get down, get down,’ he powered into Mark, tearing him from Bent’s grip and drove him over the edge of the low wall that formed the boundary of one of the boarded-up houses. He heard the rake of gunfire, saw the flicker of flame from the muzzle of the Skorpion as the two of them went head first over the wall.
He saw Bent drop like a stone where he was. In another thought he hoped his colleague hadn’t been shot. But the same could not be said for old man Costain. He hadn’t reacted, other than to jerk his head from side to side, wondering what the hell was happening, his roll-up still between his lips.
There was a second burst of fire, a quick ‘Drrrrh’ sound and a line of four bullets sliced across Costain’s chest, flicking him like a demented puppet, driving him backwards.
Then a third burst. Henry kept Mark pinned down. The bullets ripped into the low wall that protected them and just above their heads. Henry felt them go by, their slipstream almost parting his thin hair. He knew that if the car stopped and the shooter got out, they would all be dead.
But the Volvo accelerated past and was gone.
Henry raised his head cautiously. He saw Alex Bent kneeling over Billy Costain. Henry crawled over the wall to them. Bent’s face rose, terrified.
‘He’s dead,’ the DS said, a wobble in his voice.
Henry bounced down on to his haunches. Costain had been wearing a white tee shirt, now soaked in blood. Amazingly, the cigarette was still wedged at the corner of his mouth, bent double but still lit, smoke rising from it. Henry removed it.
‘Are you all right?’ he asked Bent, who nodded.
Then Henry stood up and looked over the garden wall for Mark.
But the teenager wasn’t there.
ELEVEN
‘ Yeah, yeah, I’m OK, Don.’ Karl Donaldson paced the hotel balcony, his phone to his ear as he spoke to Don Barber, his boss. ‘We musta surprised each other. I don’t think he was expecting me and I got lucky and managed to trap him behind the hotel room door… yeah, an empty room opposite… no problem for a professional to get into… hmm, he’s been a busy guy, first Fazil, then the cop, then me. I just got lucky, as I said.’ Donaldson paused and listened. ‘Yeah, the locals have got cops crawling everywhere, but I doubt if we’ll see him again. No, I didn’t get a look and no he didn’t utter a word…’ He looked out across the harbour, breathed in the warm night air. ‘There’s two cops outside in the corridor now, so I’ll be fine… Yeah, still returning to the UK tomorrow, at least that’s my plan… No, I’ll do it, don’t send anyone else. I’ll liaise with the SIO up there… Yeah, the witness to Petrone’s murder intrigues me. I’ve no doubt there’ll be some connection with what’s going on here… OK, Don, see ya pal.’ He ended the call, breathed out, massaged his temples and mentally worked thorough his injuries. His head still had a lump on it the size of an egg and it throbbed, but the skin w
asn’t cut. His nose had stopped bleeding and wasn’t broken, thank God. Other than that, just minor cuts and grazes. It could have been far worse. He’d left sports fields with nastier injuries.
‘I need some of that.’ He spun quickly. A very pale and shaken neighbour was standing unsteadily on the adjacent balcony. ‘Something to ease the pressure.’ She rubbed her own temples. ‘You know what I mean?’
He gave a short laugh and realized that the incident had had quite the opposite effect on the woman than Donaldson had anticipated. Instead of wanting to get away from him, she needed comforting, to feel protected, to be wrapped up in someone’s arms.
Donaldson had been about to phone Karen, but decided he needed something more immediate than the voice of his wife a time zone away, as harsh as that might seem.
He nodded. ‘There’s a helluva big bath in my room,’ he said, ‘and I don’t know about you, but I need a long, hot soak, maybe accompanied by a glass of whisky. Maybe accompanied by you, too.’
Her eyes came alive.
He moved across and helped her to negotiate the frosted glass panel that divided the two balconies. She fell into his arms with a little squeak and a gasp as he caught her and pulled her to his chest. Her chin rested on his wide body and her eyes danced at him. She hugged him tight and his senses responded instantly with a surge of blood. She moaned as he bent to kiss her, then picked her up. She was light, easy to carry. He took her through to the bedroom and laid her gently on the unmade bed.
The soak, he thought, would have to wait. He tore off his tee shirt, and she unbuckled his belt skilfully and released him.
And in that different time zone, two hours behind Maltese time, Henry Christie, Senior Investigating Officer, was coordinating a third murder investigation with the help of the Force helicopter, Armed Response Vehicles, uniformed patrols, and trying to placate an irate wife.
‘Look, honey, I’m really, really, really sorry…’ The line went dead. He almost chucked the phone against the wall and he made a strangling motion with his hands, tightening on something.
‘Henry,’ came a commanding voice. At that moment Henry was facing the back wall of the office in the MIR. He spun to see the somewhat bedraggled figure of Lancashire Constabulary’s chief constable filling the door widthways. Bobby Big-nuts, no less.
Grim faced, Henry greeted him. ‘Boss.’
‘You lost the witness,’ FB accused him. His opening gambits were often confrontational and without preamble.
Henry could not stop himself glaring. ‘At least he’s still alive, and if he’s still alive we have a good chance of bottoming this mess.’
‘Mess being the operative word.’
Henry continued to glare.
‘It looks like time we brought in New Scotland Yard,’ FB teased him. The myth of bringing in ‘the Yard’ to help solve cases was just that. A myth perpetuated by second rate forties and fifties B-movies, but it cut like a dagger into Henry. ‘Maybe this thing’s beyond you,’ FB went on nastily.
‘Not long ago you were telling me I had to miss my holiday,’ Henry started to fume, the Scotland Yard jibe really annoying him.
‘That was before you got some poor bastard killed, even though the guy is no great loss to humanity.’
Henry ground his teeth. He was feeling just a little bit delicate. He could feel his head starting to shake as he spoke. ‘Let me tell you what we’re dealing with here, Bob. A hit man, or men, have taken out a Mafia godfather who was lying low on our patch. These killers have then murdered someone who witnessed their crime, and now they’ve tried to do the same to a second witness and in the crossfire have killed an innocent man, great loss to humanity or not. At the same time they almost killed me, one of my officers and the second witness. I — we — are lucky to be alive.’ Henry’s whole being churned at the words. He shook as he spoke. ‘These are ruthless killers who will stop at nothing to remain free because they are frightened of being identified.’
‘You still want to go on holiday?’
‘Actually going on holiday sounds like a damned good option at this moment. And until some bastard took a pot shot at me, I would have gone away, believe me, Bob, I would’ve, whatever you said. But not now. Now it’s stepped up a notch… and if you’ll just excuse me.’ He stood up and barged past the astonished chief, rushed into the corridor and headed to the nearest gents, where the combination of fear and anger bubbled up and made him throw up into a washbasin.
‘Oh hell’s teeth,’ he said, looking at himself in the mirror over the washbasin after he’d emptied his guts. He washed away the vomit, then splashed his drained, exhausted face, and tried to get a measure of control over himself. He leaned on the basin with both hands and stared at his reflection, not liking what he saw. The harsh light in the gents made him look old and haggard. And afraid. He swore again.
The door opened behind him. Alex Bent stepped in.
‘Alex,’ Henry said.
‘Boss?’
‘You OK?’
‘I just did that in the ladies, couldn’t make it this far.’ The DS looked as pale and sickly as Henry. It was one thing to be dispatched to a murder scene, something else completely to be part of one, and both men were emotionally screwed by their near brush with death. They regarded each other wordlessly and blew out their cheeks, and then it was done. There was work to do, killers to catch, and to get into any touchy-feely navel-gazing would only be counterproductive at that moment.
‘Let’s get a coffee, have a chat,’ Henry said, ‘and do a bit of hypothesizing — if there’s such a word.’
‘Coffee’s filtering as we speak.’
They left the toilets and bumped into Rik Dean in the corridor, last seen taking a statement from the clothing store manager.
‘Guys,’ Rik said. He looked concerned. ‘How you doing?’
‘The bullets missed us, so we’re OK,’ Henry said bravely. ‘Billy Costain wasn’t so lucky.’
‘I’m only glad I didn’t go out with you,’ Rik said. ‘I’d no doubt be on a mortuary slab now. I take my life in my hands every time I go out on a job with you,’ he said to Henry. This referred to the unlucky run he’d had in the past when he’d been stabbed once and shot twice, whilst Henry remained more or less unscathed.
‘We’re heading for a coffee. Join us?’ Alex asked.
Rik waggled the sheets of paper he was holding. ‘Yeah, and I’ll go through the salient points of the shop manager’s statement if you like.’
The coffee was good, dark, rich. Henry had it black, no sugar, and it hit the spot. He settled himself down in a chair opposite Alex Bent’s desk in the main CID office and rotated his neck to ease the massive tension in his muscles. He felt like a block of steel and desperately needed to wind down, but doubted if that luxury was something he’d get to enjoy.
Alex was behind the desk and Rik had pulled up another chair alongside Henry. The rest of the office was deserted.
From inside his jacket pocket, Henry’s mobile vibrated as a text landed.
‘One sec,’ he said. Checking the phone he found the message was from Keira O’Connell. It read: ‘IM STILL UP. COMPANY?’ Henry’s eyes narrowed, lips pursed thoughtfully as he speculated whether or not the pathologist was a rabbit-killer. The prospect of ‘popping’ around to see her was still very appealing, especially after the argument he’d just had with Kate, but he would only want O’Connell for one thing and wondered if that would be enough for her. If it wasn’t, then he’d find himself with problems, not least having shagged a woman who knew how to dissect a human body with precision. He would also have to explain why she hadn’t been turned out for Billy Costain’s death. Henry had requested another pathologist be called instead. He deleted the message. ‘OK, Rik, just run through what you’ve got first.’
‘To be honest, not much. The shop was opened about twelve months ago, staff were taken on through a jobs agency and Mario Casarsa, as they knew him, was in charge. He did all the wholesale buying, telling staff
it was all genuine stuff at knock down prices because he claimed he had “contacts”.’ Rik emphasized the last word. ‘No one questioned him, they did a good trade and he paid them slightly above the going rates. He was a good boss — apparently — but according to the manager, no one got close to him. And no one knew where he lived. His habit, usually, was to arrive mid morning and leave late. On the day he died, he did that and was still there when the staff left. The manager said he usually left around the nine o’clock mark, from what he knew. When he didn’t show the morning after he wasn’t too concerned, until he heard the radio later in the day and guessed it could have been Casarsa… Petrone.’
Henry scratched his head as he listened to Rik’s exposition. ‘So, it looks like he locked up and started to make his way home on foot. Two lads who wanted to rob him then accosted him?’ Henry looked from one detective to the other. ‘Yeah? Possibly? Which could account for Rory’s hair on the walking stick. Y’know, get back you little rascals, or I’ll whack you, and then he did? And then he got run over and shot in front of them.’
‘What I don’t get,’ Alex said, ‘is why these guys are so intent on plugging witnesses.’
‘Fear of identification,’ Rik said,
‘OK, I kind of get that, but even if Rory and Mark actually saw the killers, it was night-time, street lighting was pretty crap, there could have been obstructions, lots of movement, bad weather. Even the best witnesses would struggle in court, R. v. Turnbull and all that,’ Alex said, referring to a stated case regarding the identification of suspects. ‘Any good defence barrister would tear that evidence apart, and, and,’ he went on excitedly, ‘if the killers are Camorra hit men, surely all they need to do is disappear back to Naples and the chances are we’ll never find them.’
Silence. All three detectives considered this.
‘But supposing Rory and Mark got something better than just a view?’ Alex suggested. ‘Mobile phone? Digital camera?’