Nightmare City (54 page)

‘
It fucking well looks that way, doesn’t it?’ screamed Morton.
He took in a deep breath. ‘Seems we’ll have to sort Henry Christie
out properly this time.’

Chapter Twenty-Four

‘
I don’t suppose for one moment you’ll remember me, sir. .
.’

Before he had a chance to finish, the older man said, ‘Course
I bloody do, you’re Henry Christie. I don’t forget faces like yours
in a hurry.’

The former ACC of Lancashire Constabulary, Roger Willocks,
stood to one side and allowed Henry into the house. He pointed to
the lounge and Henry went in.

Henry could not fail to see the large number of sympathy cards
around the room, filling every available flat surface.

‘
I’m sorry, Mr Willocks. If I’ve come at a bad time. .
.’

‘
No, no, no, nothing of the sort. My wife died nearly a month
ago Cancer. Just haven’t got round to taking the cards down yet.
Seems such a final thing to do.’

He smiled sadly at Henry.

‘
It’s good to have a serving cop round. Most of my friends are
retired now and I don’t have any particular connection with the Top
Team now. Coffee?’

They chatted briefly about the good old days - which Henry was
glad to see the back of, actually - and Henry told him of the
sweeping changes which were taking place today in the
job.

Willocks was not impressed. ‘Glad I got out,’ he said. He put
his coffee down. ‘So, my lad, to what do I owe this honour? I don’t
suppose you’ve dropped by just to delve into the past, have
you?’

‘
Yes and no.’ Henry paused and gathered his thoughts together.
‘A few years ago you headed an enquiry into the North-West
Organised Crime Squad.’

Willocks’ face blackened over. ‘I’m not sure I want to talk
about it,’ he said stiffly.

‘
I need your help,’ Henry begged him. ‘Two police officers
have died within the last week, another has been shot, and another
is having his balls squeezed - and the thread through them all is
that squad. The more I find out about it, the less I like - and my
testicles are starting to hurt quite badly.’

Willocks’ gaze drifted around the cards in the room, all sent
in sympathy for his departed wife.

He laughed to himself and said, ‘Don’t suppose it matters now
she’s gone.’ He turned to Henry.

‘
You’ve only scratched the surface,’ Willocks commented, when
fifteen minutes later he had listened to Henry’s very edited
version of events. ‘Come with me, Henry, let’s go to my thinking
shed.’

He led the detective through the house and out into the garden
at the rear. The rain had stopped and the cloud had thinned
considerably. They walked down a path to the garage and entered it
by means of a door at the back. Inside it was dark and Willocks
pulled a light switch. A series of three spots came on, revealing a
workshop with lots of pieces of furniture scattered about the place
in different stages of renovation. A workbench was covered in tools
of all descriptions. Fumes which Henry assumed were paint-remover
or turps pervaded everything.

‘
Don’t light up, whatever you do,’ warned Willocks with a
laugh. ‘Leave the door open, it’ll clear. This is where I spend my
spare time. Buy crap, make it look good, sell at car boot sales. My
hobby,’ he said proudly.

Henry, to whom anything in the sphere of DIY was an anathema,
tried to look impressed. He sat on a newly renovated chair, while
Willocks perched on a stool.

‘
The NWOCS is a police unit which is out of control,’ the
former senior officer declared. ‘It’s like a private army and its
little Adolf Hitler is Tony Morton. It was a badly conceived set-up
in the first place, one of those knee-jerk reactions to a
particular problem which existed at that time in the mid-1980s. You
know the sort of thing - let’s set up a squad.’

Henry nodded. The police service’s answer to everything: set
up a squad.

‘
It has no parameters, no terms of reference, no rules by
which to work, and most importantly of all, no control. It stood
alone, ostensibly an offshoot of the Regional Crime Squad, but in
reality it declared UDI. There was no one to oversee it, probably
because no one thought it belonged to them. It did what it wanted
to do, and still does. It continues to have good results against
organised crime, but in reality those results mask something that
is very, very bad. This is because the man who championed its
formation and the man who runs it are corrupt and in co-hoots with
organised crime.’

Henry found himself becoming angry. ‘Well, why didn’t you do
something about it? It was your job, wasn’t it?’

Willocks smiled at Henry. He understood the detective’s
annoyance.

‘
I was asked to investigate when some doubt was cast about
unsafe convictions. I looked at a handful of people the squad were
responsible for convicting, and each claimed they had been framed.
Some lied, of course, but some told tales which began to hold
water. I delved. I was devious. I bugged places and people ... and
the more I did so, the more I uncovered - until I began to realise
that here was a group of police officers who were controlled by,
acted with and protected criminals - particularly Ronnie
Conroy.’

‘
What, everyone on the squad?’

‘
No. Most of them are pure, honest, good cops. But there is a
nucleus of officers who are corrupt. They all circulate around Tony
Morton. Never more than ten officers, I suspect, but because
they’re backed by Morton they carry the weight and control and
monitor what the clean officers do.’

‘
So, again, why didn’t you do anything?’ Henry accused
him.

‘
What did they do to you, Henry?’ Willocks asked, looking
directly at him, evading the question.

‘
What d’you mean?’

‘
You said they had you by the balls. You weren’t very
specific. What was it? Did they con you into taking a bribe? Set
you up with a woman and film it, then threaten to tell your wife?’
Henry coloured up and the wily old man knew he had hit a nerve.
‘Does that begin to answer your question, Henry? I fell foul of
them. I was naive enough to think I could pull a woman who was
almost three times younger than I was. In fact, she was only
fifteen. Looked nineteen. Acted thirty. And I did it, God, I did it
. . . then I saw the still photos, then I saw the video footage,
and then I saw the written statement complaining of rape and the
doctor’s testimony to go with it . . . And then I saw Tony Morton’s
face and thought about my wife. I caved in immediately.’

‘
They know how to intimidate, lie, cheat, cover their tracks.
They are very dangerous, completely ruthless.’

‘
Do you think they’d murder?’

They were back in the living room, chatting over a cup of
tea.

‘
Maybe, though I never uncovered it,’ said Willocks. ‘Wouldn’t
surprise me to learn that they’d murdered people to silence them.
Usually they’re a bit more subtle, like they were with you and me.
Put people into impossible situations, or pay them off, or frighten
or harass people, do whatever suits their circumstance - and don’t
forget the double-edged sword. They’ve got cops and criminals doing
the work for them. It’s bad enough being leaned on by a cop. Having
a criminal do it as well. . .’

‘
So that’s what I’m up against.’

‘
No, it’s more than that. There’s the political angle too with
McNamara. He’s very influential and can bring pressure to bear in
other ways.’

Henry blew out his cheeks. ‘You’ve blitzed me.’

‘
I thought I might.’

‘
How do they operate?’

‘
They facilitate crime. They allow Conroy - who is probably
one of the biggest and wealthiest criminals in the country - to
operate unmolested. In return they get paid big money from his gun
and drug dealing and all other sorts of criminal activities. And
Conroy gives them a succession of sacrificial lambs - sometimes
spectacular busts which boost the standing of the squad. Which is
why it has been allowed to continue for all this time. It gets
results but they are not as a consequence of police work, they’re
as a result of corruption.’

‘
I’m going to get them,’ Henry said firmly. ‘I’m not going to
allow them to beat me.’

Willocks looked sadly at Henry. ‘Don’t put yourself in peril,
lad. These men will not give up and they can destroy you far easier
than you them. You tell me two cops are dead, so if you make a
mistake and they find out what you’re doing, you could be dead too.
In the name of justice these people need to be stopped ... but for
God’s sake don’t do it at the expense of your life.’

Chapter Twenty-Five

The sky was very dark. Out across the Irish Sea, forks of
jagged lightning scorched down into the water. Henry drove back
slowly along the Promenade. Big spats of rain splodged onto the
windscreen, slowly and almost thoughtfully at first, then grew
heavier. Henry flicked on the wipers and headlights.

It was 2 p.m. He had eaten no lunch and his empty stomach
gurgled noisily in accompaniment to the thunder which suddenly
roared overhead.

He drew into the kerb opposite the Big One on the Pleasure
Beach and sat there with the engine idling. The car which pulled in
seventy metres behind him went unnoticed by Henry, for his
thoughts, black as the sky, dominated his whole being. They were in
a whirl of conflict and disbelief.

A police department out of control. Working alongside
criminals and bent politicians for financial gain, apparently
capable of killing people who got in their way. Or so it
seemed.

Yet what about the trigger to this last week’s events, the
murder of Geoff Driffield and others in the newsagents? What had
Driffield done to incur their wrath? Had he uncovered something and
had he told anyone else, or had they got to him before that and
silenced him?

Henry realised he might never know.

The thunder overhead seemed to rock the small car. The rain
was so dense, Henry could hardly see.

And now he was in the middle of all this corruption.
He
had been corrupted.
Fallen hook, line and stupidity.

He explored his options.

The first was to carry on with what he was doing and involve
the Donaldsons in a game which might get them hurt. Or perhaps he
should just accept his lot, concentrate on getting Rider convicted
and then plead to be freed from his obligation to them.

He rubbed his temple with forefinger and thumb. In his mind’s
eye he saw Morton, Conroy and McNamara looking pityingly down at
him as he made his plea. They would never willingly let him go. He
was too much of a prize. Another bent cop in their
pocket.

Yet Henry did not want to be a bent cop, was not a bent cop
and never would be . . . He slammed the gearbox into first and
accelerated out into the stream of traffic. There was no way he
could allow his life to be compromised and dominated by people who
had an illegal hold on him.

He would fight them.

But he knew he could not do it alone.

Five minutes later he was parking in the rear yard and walking
towards the police station. He dashed up to his office and took a
piece of equipment from a drawer in his desk, and after checking it
worked, he went down to the custody office, avoiding any meetings
with his friends from the NWOCS.

It was unusually peaceful in the charge office. The afternoon
Custody Sergeant lounged in a chair behind the custody desk. Henry
knew the Sergeant well, but she seemed distant and slightly wary of
him.

‘
You OK, Sal?’

‘
I’m
OK, Henry,’ she said,
emphasising the ‘I’m’.

Henry shrugged off her attitude; he couldn’t be bothered. He
asked to see Rider.

She made an entry in the custody record. ‘Use interview room
two, will you?’

‘
Sure.’

Henry waited in the room until a tired-looking, slightly
bedraggled Rider was steered sleepily in.

‘
I’ll lay it on the line, John,’ Henry began without preamble.
‘I want to know everything you know about Ron Conroy’s criminal
activities and corrupt connections with the North-West Organised
Crime Squad, and anything else you’ve got on him. The more I know,
the more evidence I gather, the more chance we both have of getting
out of this by the skin of our teeth.’

‘
You’re asking a lot, mate. What do I get in return? Charged
with murder, then iced by Conroy at some non-specific time in the
future?’

‘
No - you won’t get charged.’ Henry shook his head. ‘I’ve
decided that if you do what I ask, tell me what I want to know,
then I’ll stick my neck out for you. I promise that you will not be
prosecuted for the murder of Charlie Munrow.’

‘
Do you have the authority to make that promise?’

‘
Probably not - but believe me, John, if I have the power to
fabricate evidence to convict you of a crime, then I also have the
power to get you off a charge. But I believe that if you come
across, I’ll be supported one hundred per cent by the people I go
to with the information.’