A Time For Justice (4 page)

Henry walked up the drive to his new home on the outskirts of
Blackpool. He’d recently part-exchanged his old home for this
‘executive’ one - new, soulless, on an unfinished estate of similar
houses.

The front door opened.

His daughters stood there, mute and fearful, as they watched
his approach. It was too much for the youngest, Leanne, aged nine;
she broke cover and dashed to meet him, clinging to his legs. He
rubbed her hair, bent down stiffly and picked her up, almost
squeezing the breath out of her.

‘
Daddy, Daddy,’ she said in his ear. He could feel the wetness
of her tears on his cheek.

‘
You should be in bed.’

Mummy said I could wait up for you.’

His wife, Kate, appeared in the hallway as he reached the
front door.

She had been crying too. Henry thought she looked very
beautiful in her sadness.

‘
They said you’d been hurt but were all right. They told us to
stay here and wait for you,’ she explained, shrugging her
shoulders.

Henry nodded. Leanne slid down him, but clung to his
hand.

‘
We saw you on telly,’ his eldest daughter, Jenny said. She
was thirteen, dressed somewhere between a punk and a Sloane Ranger.
Henry noticed she was wearing one of his shirts.

He was puzzled. ‘Telly?’

‘
Yeah, pushin’ that reporter into the mud. Deserved it, he
did.’

‘
He was only doing his job, I suppose,’ Henry
admitted.

They all stood and eyed each other.

‘
Oh, Dad!’ Jenny burst out suddenly. ‘It must have been so
awful.’

Her arms went round his neck and she sobbed into his chest.
‘Those poor kids.’

‘
It’s all right, lovey, it’s all right.’ He patted
her.

He reached out for his wife’s hand and drew her towards him.
He was dying to get hold of her and squeeze her tight. Tighter than
ever before. So tight ... God, he needed her ... tight, tight,
tight.

Chapter Three

As usual after a kill, Hinksman was in a state of euphoria. He
drank too much in several pubs until he found himself sitting at
the bar of a strip joint near the Winter Gardens complex in
Blackpool.

He was happy. He’d negotiated two and a half million dollars
for Carver and the Englishman, and he knew - because he’d checked -
that the second third of the money had already been wired into his
Cayman Island account and, as per his instructions, immediately
redeposited in Jersey. Tomorrow one half of it would be in
Switzerland. Corelli was an honourable man. That’s why he liked
working for him. Honourable and generous - but noisy!

So, one more kill and the balance of the money would be
deposited. Then, unless Corelli had anything urgent for him, he’d
take some time off. Get out of the gangsterland rat race and travel
a little. Australia seemed a good idea. Maybe he’d buy another
house - or an apartment. Miami beckoned. He could buy an apartment
in the same block as Don Johnson. Perhaps they’d become pals. Yeah,
that sounded good.
Me
and Don Johnson getting legless, snorting together, scoring
together, racing our Ferraris down the Keys.

Hinksman smiled at the thought.

He looked around the club. It was a seedy, smoky place, well
attended by a cross-section of humanity. Drinks were cheap but the
strippers were past the first flush of youth. There were many
similar places in the States and Hinksman felt comfortable in these
surroundings.

For a while he watched the strippers then became bored and
concentrated on getting drunk. He wondered if there was a drug
dealer in the place.

Just before midnight there was an interval and people
gravitated to the bar. Hinksman, who disliked being crowded,
withdrew to an empty table.

Within moments he was joined by a woman who sat boldly down
without an invitation. Hinksman thought he recognised her and when
she introduced herself it clicked.

‘
Hello, luv,’ she said in broad Lancashire. ‘Me name’s Jane.
Did y’like me act?’

‘
Ahh,’ he said, remembering. He lied, ‘Yes, very
much.’

He’d seen her prance onto the small stage, thought she had
flat feet and no rhythm and had turned back to his drink without
watching her remove any items of clothing.

He looked closely at her now. Thirty going on forty, with
crow’s feet around her heavily made-up eyes, a multitude of broken
capillaries on her cheeks that no amount of foundation would
conceal and a slight double chin. No doubt she’d once been
good-looking, he mused, but time and her profession had taken their
toll.

‘
Drink?’ he asked.

She smiled. Hinksman wished she hadn’t. Her teeth were crooked
and discoloured.

‘
Luv one. Champers?’

‘
You can have white wine,’ he said.

She shrugged happily and beckoned a waiter.

When the drinks came she said, ‘Thirsty work’, put the glass
to her lips and swigged three-quarters of it in one. Hinksman
winced.
She’s
so
goddamned vulgar,
he thought.
What the
hell, I need some stress relief

‘
You a Yank?’ she asked.

‘
What of it?’

‘
Y’all alone in town?’ she leered in her best, mock-American
accent. He nodded.

She tilted her head. ‘Well?’

He nodded again. The deal had been struck.

‘
Forty quid,’ she said, businesslike.

He nearly choked on his drink. He wondered how much Danny
Carver’s whore had cost - God rest what was left of his splattered
soul. A little more than forty pounds sterling. Even so, Hinksman
quibbled. She was probably riddled with disease.

‘
I wouldn’t pay that for a good-lookin’ broad. Twenty-five.
Take it or leave it.’

Unoffended, she bargained.

‘
Thirty-five.’

‘
Twenty-five. ‘

Seeing it was his one-and-only offer she accepted it with good
grace. ‘OK - but up front.’

‘
And anything I want.’

‘
So long as I don’t get hurt. I’m not into that.’

‘
Deal ... waiter! A bottle of champagne to take
out.’

In the taxi Hinksman handed Jane a slim wad of five-pound
notes. She stuffed them away in one practised movement, then moved
a hand to his lap. As she unzipped him, and bent her head to the
task, he suddenly yanked her upright by her hair.

‘
Wait,’ he said.

‘
Ow, that fuckin’ ‘urt,’ she wailed, rubbing her head. He
glanced sideways at her and smiled.

She shivered. She didn’t like the look in his eyes at
that
moment
.
She thought he had the eyes of a
madman. Suddenly she had serious doubts about the wisdom of this
transaction.

‘
This couldn’t have come at a better time,’ Karen Wilde said
to the Chief Constable. ‘The way we handle it is very
important.’

She was being very matter-of-fact, despite having removed her
blouse and bra. She eased her skirt down her thighs and folded it
neatly over the back of a chair, brushing a hair off. She stepped
out of her knickers and stood there naked but for stockings and a
suspender belt - totally impractical and uncomfortable, but the
Chiefs favourite. As she unpinned her blonde hair and shook it out
of the constricting school-marm bun, she went on, ‘If we play it
right - media-wise and result-wise - this could be your final
stepping stone to the Inspectorate.’

‘
Maybe,’ said Dave August.

‘
You’ve got to take control of this, make it yours, grasp the
nettle.’

‘
Maybe,’ he gasped.

He was lying completely naked on the single bed in the
en-suite room which adjoined his first-floor office at
headquarters. It was a room specifically designed to be used by the
Chief should he or she need to work long hours or stay the night.
Previous Chiefs rarely used it, preferring the detached police
house which was in walking distance within the headquarters’
grounds. However, August had never even furnished the house. It
might have encouraged his wife and kids to stay and he liked to
keep them at arm’s length - in the house he owned in
Cheshire.

Karen walked across the small room and sat astride the Chief.
She wriggled provocatively. He gasped again.

‘
The biggest crime since Lockerbie,’ she mused, ‘and it’s
happened on our patch. It’s got great potential.’

‘
And so have you,’ he breathed. ‘Now c’mon, stop thinking
about it for a while. That’s an order, you scheming little
minnie.’

She took no notice.

‘
Just suppose,’ she pondered out loud, ‘you put me in charge
of the investigation.’ She wriggled.

‘
But you’ve only ever done short secondments to CID. You’d be
way out of your depth. And I need someone of at least the rank of
Superintendent to head it.’

‘
I’ve given that some consideration,’ she smiled.

‘
And ...?’

‘
That Detective-Super from commerce branch is on long-term
sick. I could become Acting Superintendent ... and anyway, running
it wouldn’t be that hard. Just a case of being a good manager. It’s
all done by computer these days.’

Before August had a chance to reply, she kissed him. Wet.
Long. Lots of tongue. She swayed her hard nipples across his chest
then ran her hand his
belly, grasping him
firmly.

‘
How about it, boss?’ she asked, rising for air. ‘Can I? The
media will love me.’

August chided himself. He wished he was big enough to say no.
But she was bargaining from a position of strength.

‘
Would you take a fuckin’ look at that, man!’ whistled Agent
Donaldson.

He dabbed the button on the hand-held remote control and
rewound the video tape taken from one of the overhead cameras on
the M6. Then he played it forwards one frame at a time. Even so,
the explosion was so fast and devastating that the camera didn’t
really take it in. It wasn’t designed to do so.

In one second the car was moving down the middle
lane.

In the same second a huge flash filled the screen and the car
was gone, replaced by chaos, death and confusion, with no
discernible gap between the scenarios.

He and McClure watched it a few more times,
mesmerised.

The picture quality wasn’t that good. The tape had probably
been reused a million times. But it showed that the car was
definitely a Daimler. And no doubt Danny Carver was in the back of
it.

The Technical Services Unit would spend time enhancing the
tape. They promised wonderful things. The picture would be made
clear with pin-sharp images and using their electronic wizardry
they’d able to enlarge selected segments of the screen. That way
the number on the registration plate could be read and the faces of
the people in the car might be identified (but don’t hold your
breath, they said). And TSU could also speed up the tape to
‘mega-fast’ (their description) and that way the explosion could be
watched and analysed, conversely, in slow motion, bit by bloody
bit.

With a
phtt
the screen on the TV fizzled out to blank, and Donaldson
handed the remote back to the Control Room Inspector.

He and McClure left the Control Room together and walked
across car park at the front of the headquarters
building.

‘
This certainly cocks the job up,’ McClure said.

‘
A peculiarly British understatement, I would say,’ remarked
the American. ‘But you’re right, with Carver in pieces I’m back to
square with Corelli - and it was going so damned well.’

‘
All may not be lost,’ said McClure airily.

‘
How d’ya mean?’

‘
Well, if you’re right and this has Corelli’s backing, then
all we need to do is catch the killer, put him under pressure and
we could have a lever to get to Corelli through him.’

‘
You make it sound so simple.’

‘
What about the guy you saw at the hotel?’

‘
A glimpse of
someone I may have
recognised isn’t exactly evidence that he’s a killer, even for
British justice.’

‘
It’s a start though, so don’t forget that face. Think hard
about it and keep it in your mind’s eye. I’ve got an
idea.’

‘
Which is?’

‘
Tell you later,’ said McClure as they reached their car. He
leaned for a second on the roof. ‘If this is down to Corelli, then
it shows what an evil bastard he is.’

‘
Evil?’ Donaldson laughed briefly. ‘In the last two years
Corelli’s put at least eight of his rivals out of business - that
we know of
.
Another three are still missing, presumed dead. There’s no
evidence to link him, of course, just hearsay and bar talk. But
they’re down to him and he stays whiter than white. You’ve heard of
the untouchables? He’s fuckin’ totally untouchable.’