Collusion

75

Lennon waited alone in the kitchen. A constable from Carrickfergus lingered uselessly in the corridor outside the flat while a sergeant took statements from the residents on the floors below. Everyone who could be spared was at the scene of DCI Gordon’s murder. The best the Carrickfergus station could do was send their one patrol car, which had been on traffic duty looking for drunk drivers, to the apartment block. Lennon got there before them and came straight up to find the door blown in and the place empty.

Worry and fear quarrelled within him like feral cats. He couldn’t keep his mind in one place long enough to plan a course of action. He phoned the station again, looking for CI Uprichard. When the duty officer finally answered the call, he told Lennon yet again: Uprichard was too busy, just wait there, secure the scene until a team from D District could be assembled.

‘I can’t just wait here,’ Lennon said. ‘He has my daughter. The same man you had in custody three hours ago.’

‘I understand that,’ the duty officer said, ‘but an officer has been murdered here. Everybody who can be contacted is being brought in. Besides, you know Carrickfergus is D District; we can only send men if it’s an emergency. Otherwise you’ll have to wait for a team from Lisburn.’

‘Emergency?’ Lennon said. ‘What the fuck are you talking about? This is my daughter. The same man who killed Gordon has her.’

‘But he doesn’t have her there,’ the duty officer said.

Lennon had no answer for that, no words to express his frustration.

‘To do any good, you need a proper MIT and forensics to go over the apartment,’ the duty officer continued. ‘Forensics are tied up here for the time being, and Lisburn will get an MIT over there as soon as they can. I’m sorry, sir, that’s the best I can do at the moment. Now, if you’ll excuse me, it’s bedlam here.’

Lennon hung up. He paced a single circle around the small kitchen and stopped at the sink. He ran the tap, splashed water on his face, dried himself on his sleeve. He walked out through the living room and into the hall. His Glock lay on the floor. It hadn’t done Marie any good. He stooped and picked it up.

The constable shuffled his feet and coughed in the doorway. Wallace, his name was, and he watched Lennon with nervous deference. He didn’t look like he’d been long on the job, most likely a probationer paired up with the older sergeant to learn the ropes.

‘Should you lift that, Inspector?’ His face dropped as Lennon gave him a hard look. ‘I mean, it’s evidence at the scene, isn’t it?’

Lennon patted his shoulder as he stepped past him to the corridor. ‘You’ll go far, Constable Wallace,’ he said.

The lift doors slid open and Sergeant Dodds stepped out. He reviewed his notebook as he walked.

‘Anything?’ Lennon asked.

‘Nothing useful,’ Dodds said. ‘Only three other flats occupied. All of them heard the gunfire, and two of them called 999. Everyone locked their doors and kept their heads down till they heard our siren. Nobody saw anything.’

Lennon had expected nothing more. ‘All right,’ he said. He walked towards the lift. ‘An MIT from Lisburn will be here when they have the people gathered, and forensics when they can get away. Wallace, you stay here. Dodds, you wait downstairs at the entrance. Don’t let anyone use the stairwell if you can help it.’

Dodds followed Lennon into the lift. ‘And where are you going?’

‘To see a man.’

‘What man?’

‘Just a man,’ Lennon said. He prayed Roscoe Patterson was on drinking form tonight.