Hidden Witness hc-15

by Nick Oldham

Henry nodded in Jerry Tope’s direction. ‘How about our resident hacker? Could he be of assistance?’

  Donaldson looked around at Jerry who sipped his coffee thoughtfully and nibbled a custard cream. He knew the Intel unit detective was a skilled hacker and often searched the databases of other organizations without consent. He had once probed deeply into the FBI computer and delved much deeper than most hackers, until he had been discovered by the IT bods at Quantico and chased — in the cyber sense of the word — across the world. Donaldson had been given the task of investigating Tope and there could easily have been much embarrassing egg-on-face all around if the FBI hadn’t actually wanted to recruit Tope.

  So far, Henry had deflected their advances on behalf of Jerry, but he guessed that one day a financial package would come along and lure him away from Lancashire. Henry would hang on to him for as long as possible because he recognized a brilliant asset when he saw one, even if he was a glum sort of guy.

  Donaldson considered him whilst eating his half-cherry. ‘Nah, back burner… I’ll go and try again. It was probably just one of those IT gremlins.’

  ‘He’s there if you need him.’

  Henry and Donaldson watched Tope as he split apart his custard cream and began to lick the filling with the relish of an adolescent.

  Henry dropped Donaldson off at his house, gave Kate a quick wave — who, by rights, should have been sat at an airport now — then shot back to the police station. He had about an hour, he estimated, that he would put to good use by writing up the murder book and doing a spot of problem solving.

  Donaldson’s mobile rang as he walked through the door of Henry’s house. He answered it with trepidation as the caller ID told him it was Karen calling. Despite the caution, he tried to give his voice a pleasant lilt.

  ‘Hi, babe, where the heck are you?’

  ‘Love, I’m sorry, I couldn’t get away from work.’ Karen was a superintendent working for the Metropolitan Police but seconded to Bramshill, the grand former stately home in Hampshire now home to a broad spectrum of police training. She was head of the overseas development arm, assisting other countries to develop training packages for their high-ranking officers. She did sound contrite.

  ‘I really wanted to see you,’ Donaldson said sweetly. ‘I really got sidetracked up here.’

  ‘That’s OK, hon. These things happen.’

  There was something in her voice underneath the slightly syrupy tone that Donaldson picked up on.

  ‘When can I expect you?’

  ‘I’ll try and get up for lunchtime tomorrow, now. That OK?’

  ‘I’ll still be here.’ Donaldson had moved out on to the front step to take the call, looking through the front door down the hallway. Kate appeared from the kitchen wiping her hands on a towel, watching him on the phone.

  ‘OK, bye,’ Karen said hesitantly.

  The line went dead. Donaldson drew the phone slowly away from his ear. He could not work out the voice. Did she somehow know about his indiscretion? Impossible, he told himself. Unless crazy Vanessa had found out who Karen was and had contacted her to reveal the lurid details of the fling. One thing of which he was certain: if Karen knew, she would not hold back. He would get a full broadside and maybe this was the sweetness before the storm. Then again — maybe she was the one seeing someone else? He gulped drily.

  ‘Everything all right?’ Kate asked.

  ‘Yuh, think so. Karen will be coming tomorrow instead of today. Some hold up at work.’

  ‘Are the kids OK?’

  ‘Yeah, should be. They’re with Karen’s sister down in Southampton for a few days.’

  ‘So — are you going to remain standing on the front step, or are you coming in?’

  He smiled wonkily at her. ‘Any chance of a shower, and maybe a sandwich?’

  ‘I have pastrami, I have rye bread, I have crisp salad and I have mayo. I also have a power shower… tempting?’

  ‘God, yes,’ he gasped.

  ‘What do you want me to do?’

  Henry looked up from the murder book and his mass of notes. The bulky form of Bill Robbins was leaning on the door frame. ‘No luck with found property, I take it?’

  ‘Nope.’

  ‘Never mind, good idea, though. Have you had something to eat?’

  Bill shook his head.

  ‘Get something while they’re still open and then hang around will you? Not sure what’s happening to the star witness yet.’

  Bill nodded, pushed himself upright and left the MIR to catch a meal in the canteen.

  Henry closed the office door, not wanting any more disturbances. Better detectives than him had had cases seriously threatened by not keeping the murder book up to date. It was sometimes difficult to do, especially when things were happening, but there was never any excuse when the lawyers came into the equation, as they always did. And at the moment, Henry’s notes were in disarray. As he sat down he was immediately interrupted by a knock on the door, which opened without invitation as Rik Dean wafted in. Henry thought about saying something about manners, but bit his tongue.

  ‘Post-mortem carried out on Rory Costain,’ Rik announced brightly. ‘Only confirms what we already know — shot in the head, massive brain trauma, some lovely chunks of bullet recovered.’

  ‘We need to get them compared to the fragments recovered from Petrone, then the link will be conclusive, but I already believe it is. Can you fix that?’

  ‘I’ve already got it put through Scientific Support and a motorcyclist is on his way with them to the forensic lab.’

  ‘Good — and what about Billy Costain and Mandy Carter?’

  ‘The pathologist will do Billy this evening and Mandy in the morning.’ Rik checked his watch. ‘She wants to start in an hour and said she’d like you to be there for that one.’ Rik sneaked forward, bent slightly and wagged a finger at Henry. ‘And not just because you’re the SIO, I suspect. She spoke very affectionately about you.’ He raised his eyebrows and Henry half-thought he was going to say, ‘Nudge, nudge, wink, wink.’ Instead, Rik said, ‘You got something on the bubble with her?’

  ‘No,’ Henry said flatly, and if he could have, he would have sent Rik back to stand in on Billy’s PM, but he knew it was something he had to do — professionally and personally. ‘I’ll be there.’

  Rik did then wink. ‘Just remember, pal. One day soon we may be kith and kin, you and me, so we now need to set the ground rules of infidelity.’ Henry scowled at him. ‘Like, if I stray and you find out — zip.’ Rik pretended to zip-up his lips. ‘And vice-versa… a family trust thing.’ He looped his forefingers together and pulled, like they were links in a chain.

  Henry said tiredly, ‘My sister might be a doozy, but I actually think she’ll see right through you sooner rather than later, or, vice-versa, you’ll see through her, because she finds it equally hard to keep her panties on as you do your flies up. Don’t want to be a killjoy, but if you two ever get hitched I’ll show my ring-piece in Burton’s window.’

  ‘You can be very cutting, Henry.’

  ‘The truth often has a sharp edge to it.’ He looked down despondently at the murder book and closed it softly. He guessed it would be a midnight thing. ‘Fancy a bite?’

  Freshened and sated, Donaldson was back in Henry’s study looking at the laptop. He had a small lager next to him on the desk, which he sipped. It was cold and tasted wonderful with the huge sandwich he’d just eliminated.

  His fingertips rested on the keyboard, touching it lightly, but not pressing any keys. When the connection was made he went on to the FBI website and entered his password to take him on to the highly sensitive staff site. He was then asked a series of security questions to enable him to get further into the site and on to the databases he wanted to interrogate.

  Things seemed to be going well.

  He clicked on a folder named ‘C2’ and a prompt requested a further password from him, which he supplied, then hit ‘enter’ triumphantly.

  There wasn
’t even a moment’s hesitation before the screen flashed ‘ACCESS DENIED’.

  He cursed and tried again, thinking he might have entered an incorrect letter or digit, but the response was still the same.

  He watched the screen for a few moments, then picked up his phone and dialled his office at the American embassy in London. Even though it was now well past office hours he had every expectation that his shared secretary, a very busty sixty-year-old career FBI admin lady named Jacintha, would still be hard at it. Her family had flown the coop, her husband had popped his clogs (as Donaldson believed they said up north when someone had died) and her life revolved around work, a tiny south London garden and four smelly cats.

  ‘Cinth, it’s me, Karl.’

  ‘Hello, sir,’ she said primly. All the men were deferred to as ‘sir’, whilst all the women were given short shrift.

  ‘Cinth, I’m trying to log on to look at a file, but I can’t seem to get into it for some reason. Any idea why?’

  ‘Not in the least, sir.’

  ‘Could you possibly do a quick check with the IT guys? I really need access. Then call me back?’

  ‘Yes sir, no problem.’

  Donaldson exited the programme and went on to his email. Two unread messages vied for his attention with little red flags, both from a Scandinavian lady who was becoming a nuisance. He knew he should really have deleted them without reading, but curiosity urged him on. The messages were actually blank, so he clicked on the attachments.

  ‘Oh… my… God,’ he said as he opened them. The photographs had obviously been taken by Vanessa herself — he hoped. They were detailed self-portraits of a particular part of her anatomy, held apart by her fingers in such a way that made him cringe.

  ‘Not even a gynaecologist…’ he started to say and deleted the photographs. He sat back and felt a little less fresh now. ‘What have I done?’ he asked himself.

  His mobile phone rang.

  ‘Karl, it’s Don Barber — what’s happening up there?’

  ‘Erm…’ he began, choosing his words carefully, ‘we managed to get hold of the witness, who is now in custody in Blackpool,’ he answered, trying to get his mind back on track.

  ‘Is the lad any use at all?’

  Donaldson blinked. ‘Hard to say at this stage. Definitely saw the murderer, saw the killer’s face and a photo was even taken on a cellphone…’

  ‘What did the photo show?’

  ‘That’s a good question, Don — because the phone’s missing. The witness who got murdered lost it whilst running away from the scene. So far it hasn’t turned up, which is a pisser.’

  ‘Yeah, yeah.’

  ‘The police artist is going to spend some time with the witness tonight, so we’ll see what comes out of that. Don, I can’t seem to log on to some files I want to see. I wondered if you were having problems down there?’

  ‘No, it’s all working correctly far as I know.’

  ‘Not what…’ Donaldson started to blurt, about to say, ‘I heard’, but he stopped himself for some reason.

  ‘What’s that, buddy?’ Barber asked.

  ‘Nothing… hey, speak later, yeah?’ Donaldson ended the call and sat pensively, mulling things over. He looked at his mobile phone and shook it, but his mind drifted back to the close-up shots he had received from Vanessa. ‘Hell, I wonder if she wants me to send shots of me back to her?’

  Henry ate a hearty tea, meat pie, chips, peas, gravy, mug of tea and another sticky bun. A real copper’s feast and it tasted amazing. He had reached a stage in his life where, more often than not, he was reasonably careful about what went into his mouth, but every now and then an unhealthy meal or a fast food breakfast was just what the doctor ordered. The type of food he’d survived on in the eighties, and he always remembered having a stained tie from the juice that ran out of hot chip shop meat pies and always caught him off-guard. It was a long time since he’d eaten such a pie, but the memories lingered fondly.

  He told Rik and Bill Robbins, who was still in the canteen, to hang fire, then he went down to the CID office to see how Alex Bent was faring with Mark Carter. Bent was standing at his desk, placing some paperwork on it, having just come back up from the custody suite. Henry asked him how it had gone.

  He answered thoughtfully. ‘OK. I’ve got the robbery stuff out of the way. He’s having the Goth and the girl, no problems, and the attempt on the old man. And the shed break. Says he dumped the bike behind those shops near where Katie Bretherton lives. He’s been fingerprinted, photographed and DNA’d, now he’s just having some scran. A social worker’s been with him, but he’s gone out for some food, too. Told him to come back in an hour.’

  ‘How is Mark?’

  ‘Not good.’

  ‘I need to get back to the mortuary, so if you can carry on with Mark, that’d be good. I take it you’re getting on reasonably well with him?’ Bent nodded. ‘In that case, get a witness statement starting from the point where the old man gets hit by the car and up to the present, if you can. Include as much as you can.’

  ‘I might not have time to get everything in it tonight. It’ll be a long one — and the e-fit guy is here, too.’

  ‘Do what you can, Alex. I’ll pop down and see him on my way out.’

  Mark had only ever been in a cell once in his life before, other than the one at Preston. That had been at Blackpool nick, too, and as he looked around the one he’d been placed in, he realized this was the same one. That was when he’d been locked up for shoplifting, the time when he’d gone off the rails following the death of his sister and he’d ended up running with a bad crew then. A bit like now, he thought as he looked at the sickly cream-flecked walls with obscenities carved into them along with names such as ‘Kev’, ‘Rocky’ and ‘Moose ere 12/4’. Mark knew Moose, a bit of a no-brainer from Shoreside. Big, dumb and harmless, unless you laughed at him. Then he punched your lights out with frightening efficiency.

  The key rattled in the door, which then creaked open. Henry Christie stood there. Mark said nothing, couldn’t even be bothered to sneer at him any more. He was too tired.

  ‘How’re you doing?’

  ‘Great.’

  ‘I thought I’d tell you what happens now.’

  ‘Not interested, Henry. I’ll go with the flow. Big picture is that I’m going to end up in institutions until I’m eighteen — that’s if I live long enough.’

  ‘We’ll discuss protection later. I just wanted to know how you were, that’s all.’

  Mark raised his chin and looked squarely at the detective. ‘As if you give a shit.’

  What stung Henry was that Mark was probably right. When he had met the lad before to investigate his sister’s death, Henry had seen a good chance to use Mark to nail a big time drug dealer nicknamed the Crackman. He had played on Mark’s vulnerability to get him in a position from where he could feed Henry information that would lead to the mystery dealer, and, in a skewed way, it had been a successful job. But along the way Henry had made some promises to Mark that he didn’t keep, and that was partly why Mark had veered off the path and been drawn into Rory Costain’s feral lifestyle.

  But, like most cops, Henry shrugged off most of the guilt. There was only so much that could be done for people and, at the end of the day — a phrase Henry hated — he wasn’t Mark’s keeper. His mother was, and she’d failed. His big brother had a part to play, too — and he’d failed. Problem was, Mandy was all Mark had and now she was gone, so Mark’s future, particularly the next two years, looked very shaky indeed.

  Henry’s reassurances wafted over Mark’s head. It was obvious he didn’t believe a single word that came out of the detective’s mouth. ‘We’ll look after you.’ ‘We’ll sort you out.’ ‘You’ve nothing to worry about.’ ‘Honest.’

  Bollocks.

  Even Henry didn’t believe himself.

  All he really wanted from Mark was a statement and a good description of the murderer, then hopefully, if things got that far, for Mark
to pick the guy out of a line-up. And then give evidence at court. If it got that far. A lot of ‘ifs’, the main one being ‘if’ an arrest was made. But the bottom line was that Mark was the main witness so far and he was expected to make a statement that would put his life in greater danger than it already was. On top of that he had to deal with his mother’s murder, probably at the hands of the same person who had killed Rory and the old man. Not forgetting Billy Costain.

  And Mark was sixteen. He was afraid, even if he didn’t show it. He had no familial support. He did not trust the cops because they’d shafted him once before, and he was a troubled teenager with all the usual hormonal issues to deal with.

  It was a very big ask for a very young boy. And, in truth, Henry wasn’t completely sure how to deal with it. So after getting a very big flea in his ear from Mark, he made his way across to the mortuary where, it seemed, the bodies were stacking up. As he drove, his hands dithered on the steering wheel.

  Karl Donaldson continued to try and log into the files he wanted to inspect without success, each time thinking this would be the occasion he got through. A bit like hitting the side of a TV in the hope that the picture would come back. It never did, of course.

  Finally, seething, he picked up his phone again, which spookily, rang as his fingers closed on it.

  ‘Mr Donaldson, sir, it’s me, Jacintha.’

  ‘Hi Cinth.’ It was his shared secretary.

  ‘You asked me to speak to the IT guy about your little difficulty.’ The words ‘little difficulty’ came out and sounded like she was referring to erectile dysfunction or something.

  ‘Yeah, I’m still struggling,’ he said, as though he did have that condition.

  ‘Well, the guy I spoke to was really shirty with me and told me it was none of his business.’

  ‘Why would he say that?’

  ‘I don’t know. I told him I was making the enquiry on your behalf.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘He just said that your access had been denied.’

  Donaldson’s whole being missed a beat. ‘What does that mean?’

  ‘He wouldn’t say.’

  ‘Access denied?’ Donaldson said, his voice rising. ‘Who can deny me access to files I have a right to see?’