Big City Jacks

Thirteen

The first time Henry Christie had ever seen Tara Wickson he had been very impressed by her looks and had briefly imagined that she might have been ‘interested’ in him. A male ego thing. Then he had got involved with her and her family and their sordid, lawless affairs, and he had ended up covering for her. Not just a minor thing, but murder, and now it was coming back to haunt him. He had done something which, at the time, he had believed was the right thing to do. Now he regretted it, but was stuck with it because if he told the truth, his life as he knew it would be over. Anger, Roscoe and Lancashire Constabulary would descend on him like a pack of vultures. He would be torn to shreds and dumped.

It all came back to Tara, though. She was on a major guilt trip now. Henry should have been ultra-cool about it, used his interpersonal skills, kept his distance and dealt with it.

But instead he did a very stupid thing.

He slept with her.

Their discussion at the Imperial Hotel had gone round in circles, getting nowhere fast. Eventually Henry had looked at his watch and told her he needed to go. She looked disappointed, but nodded. She sighed and held Henry’s eye.

He felt something stir in him.

‘Just walk me to my room, will you?’

‘OK.’

Should have said no.

They rode the lift in silence, side by side, arm in arm. On the second floor she turned left and he followed her down the corridor as though he was in a trance. She stopped outside her room and faced him.

‘I did what I did because I thought it was right and proper,’ he reiterated his argument. ‘In the eyes of the law I have done wrong. I’ve perverted the course of justice, big time. If it comes out, I’ll lose everything,’ he concluded simply.

‘I know,’ she whispered. ‘I’m just having difficulty dealing with it. There’s no one else I can talk to about it, not even a professional counsellor. They have rules about clients revealing stuff about committing crimes that harm others, stuff like that. . a counsellor would be duty bound to tell the authorities. I can’t talk to my boyfriend or my daughter, or my mum. . there’s just you, Henry. Just you and me. We know the secret.’

He nodded, understandingly.

‘And I am grateful for what you did, even if I am having trouble with it.’

‘Yeah, yeah.’

There was a silent moment. She was standing in front of Henry, less than a foot away. Their eyes played over each other’s faces. Henry could smell her sweet aroma, could see the detail in her face, the fine hairs on her cheeks. Her skin looked wonderful, despite the tiredness in her eyes. Henry felt himself struggle for breath. She had kept the beret on, tilted to cover the head injury she’d received all those weeks ago. Slowly she removed it and turned slightly for him to see.

‘Healing nicely,’ he commented. It had been a hell of a blow, splitting her head open. She had looked more than a mess.

‘I owe you a lot. . my freedom for one thing, but I feel weak and helpless and on the verge of blowing it,’ she admitted. ‘And I just need someone who knows what I’ve been through to hold me tight, reassure me, and I can’t think of anyone else but you.’ She edged an inch closer to him and laid a hand on his chest, looked pleadingly up at him with eyes blue, moist, sparkling. Henry’s throat tightened. He had once imagined holding her, making love to her, but it had been just that: imagination. Sex with no strings. This was now very different, almost like blackmail, but the feelings were overpowering him and he could not resist sliding his arms around her, one around her shoulders, one to the small of her back, pulling her slim, taut body towards him, feeling her contours moulding themselves against his. Suddenly his blood surged, torrenting through his veins. She ground her hips into him; her head went back as a small gasp escaped from her lips. Then his mouth crushed down on to hers.

And now she was calling him again.

‘Henry, I need to speak to you. . please,’ Tara said over the phone.

‘Look, Tara, I’m sorry but I haven’t got time. I’m really busy.’

‘I know you are-’

Henry ended the call with one press of the thumb and felt more like a bastard than ever. He expected an immediate recall, staring at the display on the phone. It never came.

He veered away from his car and strode across the road to the pub on the corner opposite the station. He was urgently in need of a pint of Stella Artois.

‘I thought you said you’d fixed it? I thought you said you’d sorted it. . well, it’s plainly obvious that hasn’t happened, has it?’

Lynch stood there white-faced as he was dressed down by the top boss of the drug-dealing organization for which he worked.

‘You told me you’d dumped that body in Greater Manchester.’

‘I thought I had. In fact, I was sure I had. I misjudged.’

‘This could cause us problems.’

‘I know, I fucking know.’

‘Have they identified him yet?’

Lynch shook his head.

‘Only a matter of time,’ the boss said. ‘Only a matter of time before they start crawling round us. . and as if we haven’t got enough shit to deal with.’

Lynch hung his head and mumbled, ‘Our tracks’re covered.’

‘Son, they better fucking had be.’

Lynch expelled an unsteady breath.

‘And what about your chum, PC Bignall? How much does he know? How far can he drop us in it?’

‘He won’t say owt.’

The boss eyed Lynch. ‘His colleagues’ll be all over him like a rash when he wakes up. They’ll very much be wanting to know how the hell he managed to get shot, won’t they? He’ll be weak and vulnerable and I’ll lay you a pound to a pinch of shit, he’ll blab. Do we need that? Do we fuck!’

‘What’re you suggesting?’

‘Finish what you should’ve done in the first place.’

‘Kill him, you mean?’

The boss did not respond, but he did not need to. His look said it all.

‘Kill a cop?’

Silence.

‘You’re saying I kill a cop?’

‘I’m saying he’ll be one less thing to think about.’

The pint of Stella was ice-cold. Beads of condensation dripped down the outside of the glass. It tasted wonderful. Ice-cold in Rawtenstall, he mused. He took several large gulps and within seconds half of it had disappeared down his throat. Then he checked himself. He could easily have sunk it all, but then he would have wanted another because he would not really have appreciated the first. One, though, was all he was going to have. The length of the journey home saw to that. He moved away from the bar and found an empty table, surveying the pub as his mind churned.

He was annoyed with himself. He had been given a very meaty murder, one with which he could re-establish his reputation as long as he concentrated on it, did all the right things and got a result. The necessity was concentration. A job like this demanded 110 per cent and already he was failing in that department. His personal life was cutting that back to about 70 per cent.

Shit. Another misjudgement. Firstly in that he had covered up a crime and now because he had slept with Tara. Somewhere in his brain was a self-destruct button marked, ‘Press Me — It’ll Be All Right.’ His teeth ground together. It was bad enough having to deal with Tara’s guilt not having had sex with her; now it was a million times more difficult. And on top of that was his own guilt. Once again Kate had been betrayed. He had been desperately trying to change, keep a lid on his behaviour, but as the saying went, ‘A bastard never changes his spots.’ He could not help but want to have sex with other women.

About three-quarters of the pint had gone when his phone rang again. The words ‘Number Withheld’ on the display made his heart sink. He almost pressed the ‘C’ button, but reluctantly he answered.

‘Henry Christie,’ he said cringingly.

‘Henry — John Gornall, Forensic Submissions.’

‘John — hi.’ Henry instinctively checked his watch, but did not make any comment. ‘What’s happening?’

‘I stayed on because ballistics said they’d get back to us today and I was curious. Couldn’t wait until tomorrow.’

‘They got back to you, then?’

‘Yep.’ He sounded pleased. Henry waited. ‘It’s only a phone call from them, remember, but the paperwork will follow.’

‘Fine.’

‘About the bullet we dug out of that stolen car in Blackpool?’

‘Yeah.’ Henry tried not to come across as disheartened. He was expecting something about two bullets dug out of a burned corpse’s back.

‘Interesting stuff. . the bullet we found in the back seat of that car was fired from a gun used in a building society robbery in Manchester about six months ago.’

‘Oh, that is interesting.’

‘The scientist at Huntingdon said it was recently fired, too. . so it hasn’t been in the car all that long.’

‘Is it linked to any arrest?’

‘They don’t have that information but there are some case number references to a job in GMP, so it shouldn’t be too difficult to get that info.’

‘Go on.’

‘The bullets were thirty-eights.’

‘Right, good.’

‘And the guy down in Huntingdon has also been working on the slugs found in the back of the victim in Deeply Vale.’

‘Has he something on them, then?’

‘Oh yes. . the gun used in the robbery is the same one which fired the bullet into the car. . is the same gun which fired bullets into the back of our unknown victim.’

Henry took a nanosecond or two to digest this. ‘The bullet in the stolen car, and the bullets in the back of our dead man, come from the same gun. Is that what you are saying, John?’

‘Yes.’

‘And the gun was used in a robbery in GMP six months ago?’

‘Yes.’

Henry sank the remainder of the drink as soon as he finished this call. He looked up at the big-screen TV hanging down in one corner of the bar, showing Sky News. The scrolling headlines made Henry reach for his phone again.

North Manchester General Hospital, once known as Crumpsall Hospital, is huge and old. It is a complex warren of corridors and Lynch found that he could wander unchallenged. It helped, he assumed, because he had his ID pinned to his jacket and anyone who displayed any sort of ID was deemed to be kosher.

Lynch knew the hospital well, had been there on numerous occasions for various matters over the years and knew exactly where he was going.

He walked swiftly, businesslike, and found the ward he was looking for, not too far away from the outpatient department.

It was late in the day and staff were sparse on the ground.

Excellent.

At the entrance to the ward, he paused and peered down into it. On the right was an office, beyond that was the first of two private side wards, then, further on, the public ward.

He knew Bignall’s exact location. The problem was getting to him without being spotted. He assumed the night-shift staff were in the office, a fact confirmed by a laugh and the door opening. A nurse stepped out, said something to one of her colleagues in the office, turned and walked into the ward.

Lynch dropped back into the shadow of the corridor. He watched the nurse stroll down the ward, checking on patients, sharing jokes, smiling, being professional. His eyes narrowed as he waited for his moment.

Henry tabbed through the phone book in his mobile until he found Karl Donaldson’s number and pressed the call button. The connection was made more or less immediately and he heard the unmistakable tones of Karl’s American drawl.

‘Hi, pal.’ Donaldson sounded weary and far away.

‘Karl — how’s it going? I’m really sorry about calling you at this time of night. I heard about the death of the lorry driver, but I’ve been so busy tied up with my own life, I just forgot to phone. It was really bad news.’

‘Yeah, pal, thanks. I thought it could’ve been the opening to the Spaniard, but it didn’t happen. One o’ those things, I guess.’ He pronounced ‘things’ as ‘thangs’.

‘Philosophical.’

‘That’s life, baby. I hear you’ve been landed with a big, nasty murder.’

‘Yeah, gangland thing, I reckon. Not made too much progress yet, but I think things’ll begin to move tomorrow. But what’s your way forward, re the Spaniard?’

‘Just doin’ some shakin’ down.’

In the background Henry heard music and laughter.

‘Where the hell are you?’

‘Espana, babe. . out where the sun shines three hundred and twenty days each year.’

* * *

The nurse completed her round of the ward and returned to the office, failing to notice the figure of Lynch in the darkness, lurking silently. He waited, then stepped across the corridor and into the mouth of the ward. The door to the office was on the right. He crept close, listening hard. A patient on the ward coughed horribly. Lynch could make out the murmur of voices in the office. He crept nearer. The top half of the door was clear glass. He took a chance, sidled up and peered in with one eye — quickly — before flattening himself against the wall. Two nurses were in the office, sitting, talking.

He bent down and crawled past the door, rising back to his full height as he passed. The next door on the right was the private room in which Bignall was ensconced.

A troublesome thought entered Lynch’s head as he reached for the handle. One of those thoughts in which something worries you, but you cannot put your finger on exactly what. He turned the handle and opened the door slightly. His eyes searched the dark room. The dark room! The private room which the nurse had not checked on her round. Why not?

The empty room.

The bed was made up, neat and tidy, bedclothes pulled tight, awaiting the next patient.

Because Bignall was not there.

Karl Donaldson tugged at the unbuttoned collar of his short-sleeved shirt and blew down the front of it, cooling his chest. He was sweating, feeling lines of moisture dribbling down his body, pooling in uncomfortable places.

Although it was almost midnight, Spanish time, the evening heat on the Costa Blanca remained oppressive. He took a sip from his chilled mineral water — memories of overindulgence still lingering — and continued to gaze down the road from the terrace of the restaurant at which he sat. From there he could see the arched entrance leading into the Ciudad Quesada, that being a sprawling estate of villas which had spread rapidly over the last few years to accommodate some of the massive investment in property in the area. It was about five kilometres inland from Torrevieja and Donaldson knew that his informant lived in a huge house on the estate.

Donaldson was more desperate than ever to nail Mendoza. The man was at the very top of Donaldson’s hit list. The American realized that his interest in Mendoza was becoming unhealthy to the point of obsession, but he remained determined to bring him down and his whole organization along the way. Donaldson could trace it all back to the death of Zeke, the undercover FBI agent whom Mendoza had cold-bloodedly had murdered, Zeke the agent that Donaldson had been controlling. Donaldson had taken it personally and, one way or another, Mendoza would soon be history.

He had already partly revenged Zeke’s death. Verner, the man who had actually put the bullets into Zeke’s brain, had been eliminated, taken out by Donaldson. . and now all that remained was to do the same to Mendoza.

It had come to that.

Donaldson’s nostrils flared at the thought of the man. He could picture the bullet blowing out his brains.

Then he sniffed.

But that would not happen, as much as he dreamed about it.

Donaldson actually wanted to destroy the Spaniard by legitimate means if at all possible, to see him go through the legal process, to watch his face as he was sentenced to life behind bars.

Which is where the informant came in. The man had appeared from nowhere and offered up his services, something that occasionally happens, and gift horses should not be put down too quickly.

He was high up in Mendoza’s organization, fulfilling the role of business manager. It was his job to explore new openings, to seek out and explore new markets, to crush rivals if necessary and develop more profit for the boss man. He had been forging new connections in England in the last few years.

The informant was no angel. A couple of years earlier he had ordered a hit on a Manchester criminal, the kill being carried out by Verner. It had been whilst the body of the criminal was being disposed of that Verner had been surprised by two surveillance cops whom he had also murdered and buried. So the informant was very much implicated in the deaths of two cops, a fact which troubled Donaldson, but one which did not prevent him from going for the bigger picture: Mendoza.

Maybe when Mendoza had tumbled he would try to deal with the informant, but in the meantime he needed him.

‘Do you require anything more?’

‘Si … agua mineral, por favor.’

The waiter nodded and trundled back to the bar.

What the hell am I doing here? Donaldson demanded of himself.

He had jumped on a plane to Alicante on a whim. No particular plan in mind, more just a determination to get to grips with the informant, wring the guy’s neck and say, ‘What the fuck is going on? Why give me false information about the truck full of immigrants? How did someone else come to stop the truck and get away with the drugs? That cannot have been an accident.’ The questions tumbled through his mind.

In fact he had a million questions to ask, but wasn’t really sure whether turning up out of the blue on the guy’s doorstep would lead to any direct answers. All previous meetings had been in neutral territory — Holland, France — never in Spain itself and certainly never near Mendoza.

But desperation makes a man do foolish things.

The water came. It tasted good.

It was time to contact Mr Lopez.

Even before he knocked he could tell there was no one in. The flat was in darkness — only to be expected at this time of day — but there was something about the place which said to Lynch, Empty.

He put his shoulder to the front door, eased a bit of weight into it. It did not move. Standing back, he raised his foot and slammed it just under the Yale lock. The door moved. Twice more he flat-footed it and on the second blow the flimsy door broke and clattered open.

Lynch stepped into the darkened hallway, standing there, listening to the quiet.

Experience told him the place was devoid of life. His senses were not picking up the vibes emitted by human presence.

He went into the living room and switched on the light. He did not do this cautiously because he had nothing to fear.

The room was empty. As he looked round it, his mouth evolved into a sneer underneath his nose. Tatty second-hand furniture, a portable TV, fast-food wrappers tossed around, the stale reek of beer, cigarettes and chips. The room of a financially stretched middle-aged man who had made too many wrong decisions in life. Wrong wife. Wrong mortgage. Wrong everything. . but a man ripe for the picking. A desperate man who needed money, whatever the source.

It looked as though he had not been back from the hospital.

So, a man on the run, maybe. A man who had made another bad decision. A man deep in trouble.

A man who would definitely die.

‘This is dangerous. This is not how we make contact. This is out of order.’ Lopez hissed the words down the phone into Donaldson’s ear. ‘I cannot speak.’

‘I need to see you,’ the American insisted.

‘No.’

‘Yes.’

‘I cannot.’

‘Yes you can,’ Donaldson said. ‘You wouldn’t want Senor Mendoza to find out about our little relationship, would you?’

Heavy silence.

‘This is outrageous,’ Lopez said angrily.

‘You bet your ass,’ growled Donaldson.

‘Where are you?’

Donaldson told him.

‘Here? In Spain? You fool. Have you lost your head?’

‘Meet me in an hour,’ Donaldson said.

Lopez apologized profusely as he returned to the interior of the restaurant in Torrevieja. The business had closed for custom that night and now three people sat at a table in the centre of the room, picking at a range of tapas.

Mendoza was one of the three. He scowled at Lopez. ‘Who the hell was that?’

‘No one, no one,’ Lopez said, trying to display an air of nonchalance. He took the spare seat at the table, unable to maintain eye contact with Mendoza. His boss sniffed, annoyed, and turned his attention to the other two men seated with him.

One was an old Italian, white-haired, deeply lined face, his rugged, weather-beaten skin burned almost black by the Sicilian sunshine. He had hard, grit-grey eyes and a jaw set firm. He was not a big man, but his presence could be felt at all times. He exuded power and danger.

The other was a much younger man, his grandson. Maybe twenty-two years old, fresh-faced, but had obviously inherited the tough eyes of his older blood relative and just a little bit of his aura. That was something he would grow into, rather like an outsized sweater that would one day fit him perfectly.

The older man sat back and sipped the red wine, his face screwing up at the harsh taste. ‘How long have we been working together?’ he asked Mendoza.

‘A long time.’

‘We have done good business over the years.’

Mendoza nodded. ‘Very good.’ Lopez watched him closely, saw he was very nervous, as he should be. A visit from these men was a rare occurrence.

‘But lately things have not been good for you.’

Mendoza shrugged. ‘Nature of the business.’

The old man shook his head. ‘No, no, no. There is no such thing as the nature of the business, my friend, it is the nature of the man.’

Mendoza’s eyes hooded over defensively.

‘First there was the issue of the money owed to you by the man in England. He failed to pay his debt and because of that, you failed to pay your debt to us.’

‘But I dealt with him,’ Mendoza blurted. ‘And the debt has been transferred to his brother.’

The old man shook his head again. ‘A debt which now rests with a man who is in prison awaiting trial for murder. What are the chances of recovery?’ he asked cynically.

Mendoza reddened, squirmed on his seat, said nothing.

‘And then the issue of our operative, Mr Verner. . a man who was rather good at killing. He was on loan to you and he, too, is now dead.’

Mendoza started to say something. His mouth opened and closed soundlessly. His eyes looked as though he was being hunted.

‘Someone, somewhere, knew he was about to deal with an issue for us and, as I understand it, they were lying in wait for his appearance and they killed him.’

‘But not before he had carried out his task,’ Mendoza argued weakly.

The old man held out his hands, palms forward, a calming gesture. ‘The issue is, Carlos, that he was ambushed. That someone knew where he would be at a certain time and place. He was not killed by accident or coincidence. . do you see what I’m getting at? Do you visualize the picture I am attempting to paint?’

Suddenly Mendoza’s mouth dried up as a fear crept up on him, the like of which he had never experienced in his whole existence. Not even looking down the barrel of a gun in a back street in Madrid had invoked such terror. Not even being kidnapped and tortured by a rival gang. But looking and listening to this old man and his grandson was churning his insides, shredding his guts.

‘And now, somehow, you lose what, four million pounds worth of goods and twenty illegal immigrants. Fortunately those people paid up front,’ the old man said with a dismissive wave, ‘but we have financed the drugs and now — poof!’ His hands made an exploding gesture. ‘Someone has relieved you of them.’ He stopped speaking abruptly. His face became expressionless, but his eyes, which bored into Mendoza’s, were like tungsten. ‘We had faith in you, but something has gone seriously wrong. Maybe you’re too enmeshed in it to see what is happening? I don’t know, but your organization is, as I imagine your bowels are at this moment, loose.’

‘I already know that and I have taken action to plug the holes,’ he said, not realizing that his choice of words would have been comical in other circumstances.

‘Good.’ The old man’s eyes moved slowly to Lopez, who felt a shiver of apprehension slide down his spine. Then his attention returned to Mendoza. ‘Good, because we are losing faith with you and there will be no more business, no more loans, no more support, unless you make amends very quickly.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Pay back your debt in full, otherwise this business relationship is terminated.’

‘You can’t do that!’ The palms of Mendoza’s hands slammed down on the table, the action jerking a reaction in the old man’s grandson. Throughout the conversation he had remained silent, did not appear to be taking much heed, but always there was a brooding, sunken-eyed presence. His face rose and his eyes locked into Mendoza’s, who saw the look and slowly withdrew his hands from the table. Chastened without a word being said, such was the young man’s power. ‘You know I cannot pay the whole debt.’

‘Then what can you offer?’

‘I will recover the drugs, then they will go through the original channels of distribution and then the money will start to filter back.’

The old man nodded sagely as he mulled this through.

‘Not enough.’

Mendoza was exasperated. ‘What then?’

‘You own four building sites on which the houses are almost complete. . as a good-will gesture, they must be signed over to us.’

Mendoza’s mouth popped open. There was something like forty million pounds worth of property — potentially — on them, once sales picked up. He felt his insides crumble.

The old man raised his glass of wine. ‘My lawyer will meet with yours first thing to arrange the necessities. . and one more thing.’ Mendoza waited for another bombshell. ‘Clean up your organization — quickly.’