Hidden Witness (15 page)

He stood back to allow a CSI videographer to get into a better position to record the post-mortem as O'Connell busied herself with the complexity of removing the old man's crushed ribcage. It was a bit like removing pieces from a Roman mosaic.

Henry checked his watch: three p.m. Would that make it five in Malta? he thought fleetingly, wondering what his old mate Donaldson was up to in the Med.
Concentrate.
It was more than likely he would be tied up in the mortuary for about the next five or six hours, because it was planned to do Rory Costain's examination immediately after the old man and both would be fairly long drawn-out tasks. As lead SIO, Henry had a responsibility to be present, even if it tied him up for a considerable period of time. Had the case been less complex he might have delegated the job over to a deputy, but he realized he needed to know absolutely everything about these deaths. So while it went against his natural instinct – he would have preferred to be out and about – it was something that had to be done.

He settled down for a bit of a marathon, but that didn't mean he was unable to direct ops from the mortuary. He fished out his phone again and dialled directly to a number in the Intelligence Unit at HQ.

‘Ullo,' came the sullen voice at the other end of the phone.

‘Jerry, it's Henry Christie.'

‘I know,' the detective constable replied. He could obviously see Henry's number on his phone display.

‘Aren't you happy to hear from me?'

‘Ecstatic.'

Henry chuckled, allowing Jerry Tope his moodiness, even though he was a mere DC and wasn't showing Henry any respect. He let him get away with it because Tope was a whizz at his job of intelligence analysis – and, unbeknown to many, also a super-duper computer hacker. The latter was a skill that had almost got him into hot water a few times, but it was something Henry was happy to use for the benefit of law and order.

‘What can I do for you?'

‘Firstly, as of this moment, you have been co-opted on to my murder squad. I want you to run the intelligence cell . . . I assume you know what I'm on about?'

‘Yep.' Jerry knew all about the double murder in Blackpool. He was expecting a call from Henry and was only surprised it had taken him so long.

‘First job . . . I want to give you a name and I want you to do some research on it. Then I'd like you to get across to Blackpool for seven tonight, ready to debrief the squad at eight thirty with what you've got.'

‘Unph . . . fire away then.'

That done, Henry then called Alex Bent for any updates. Henry had appointed the DS as the Major Incident Room Manager so that nothing happened without Bent knowing. Henry had briefed the quickly assembled murder team at one that afternoon, and all the deployments of staff – controlled by Bent – had been based on the fast track actions that needed to be taken within the first twenty-four hours of an investigation. There was a wide range of headings for these enquiries, such as – identify suspects, exploit intelligence, scene forensics, witness search, victim enquiries, possible motives and others. Each had a pair of detectives working on them.

‘Anything new?'

‘Not as yet. How's the PM going?'

‘Only just begun . . . but I have had an interesting phone call . . .' Henry related Karl Donaldson's news to him and he could hear the scratch of Bent's pen as he jotted down the details, then added that Jerry Tope was now doing some background. ‘If this is the guy,' Henry said, ‘we're probably looking for a basic flat somewhere near to where he was hit. What do they call it when Mafia members go to ground? Going to the blanket, or something? Can you get more uniforms into that area, if possible?'

‘Will do.'

‘Anything further on the missing witness?'

‘No. I spoke to Billy Costain again, but he hasn't got anywhere as yet.'

‘Right.' Henry sighed. ‘Forensic links? Footwear? Dog shit? Hair and blood?'

‘Nothing back yet . . . but if the information about the ID is correct, that gives us a tremendous boost, doesn't it? Will you just repeat the name again, so I've got it right?'

Henry did. ‘Rosario Petrone. Got that?'

Mark Carter spent the day being chased by shadows. Everywhere he went he was followed. Suspicious, accusing eyes tracked his every move. No one was who they seemed. Everyone was a killer. Car drivers only stopped at zebras to watch him cross, so they could mow him down. Anyone with a collar turned up was a gun-toting assassin.

He moved through his usual haunts in the resort. The huge, impersonal amusement arcades, the cheap cafes, shops where he'd shoplifted on many occasions. He never stopped anywhere long, afraid if he did, they would move in on him.

He had never been more afraid in his life, at least for his own safety. It had been a different kind of terror when he'd found his sister dead from a drug OD on the kitchen floor. A different kind of horror when his brother came home bleeding after being shot by rival drug dealers.

He did not know what to do. Part of him wanted to go to the police. It was an option he spat out vehemently. The past had taught him to steer clear of the manipulative, self-serving bastards who cared only for arrests and fuck everyone else. They use you, they discard you and there is no way they can protect you.

He had to look after himself.

It took a full day of mulling over, but in the end he decided he would simply drop off the end and disappear. In Blackpool that would be easy enough. Thousands did it every year. He'd just be another statistic.

‘I want to talk to you.'

Mark was in a cafe, sipping strong, sweet tea, making his mind up. And he'd committed the first cardinal sin of a fugitive. He'd lost focus, been consumed by his own thoughts and forgotten that he was a target. He looked up slowly at the young man in jeans and a sweatshirt.

Mark made to move, but the guy gripped his shoulder and sat him back down with firmness. Mark stared at the face. Was this the killer he'd seen? It wasn't. That man's face was imprinted on the hard drive of his mind, never to be erased.

But who was this?

‘Who, me?' Mark sneered.

‘Yeah.' The man flicked open an ID card quickly. There was a passport-sized photo on it and it all looked official. There could have been a Lancashire County Council logo on it. ‘Truant patrol . . . I want your name, age, date of birth and name of school – and I want to know why you're not there, sonny.'

‘I'm off sick.'

‘You don't look ill to me . . . you need to come with me. My car's out back.'

Mark rose cautiously. Maybe the guy was who he said he was, maybe he was the killer's wheelman, the one who drove the Volvo that ran the old man down and had also tried to flatten Mark in the foot chase after Rory had been killed. Or maybe he was just a pervert preying on vulnerable kids. God knew there were loads in this town – pervs and kids.

As he stood, his fingers were still wrapped around his mug of tea. Without hesitation, Mark flung the tea into his face, almost a mugful of burning hot liquid that Mark had been tentatively sipping and blowing on. It went into the guy's face with a searing splash.

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?'