Hidden Witness

SEVENTEEN

Henry Christie moved into gear, excitement and fear coursing through him, coupled with the experience of thirty years as a cop responding — occasionally — to life and death situations. Of course, there was nothing to say that Mark Carter’s life was really in danger, but at that moment Henry was furious with himself for just allowing the lad to be handed over to social services without adequate protection. Like everything else in the police, it was usually better to do things over the top than to look stupid and investigate a death that might have been prevented. Henry kicked himself for underestimating the ruthlessness, cunning and resources of the people who had killed Rosario Petrone and any witnesses to their crime.

Somehow they had been able to beat the police in tracking the mobile phone signal. Whether that was through the unguarded way in which the location of the pulse had been transmitted via radio communications, or because they too had access to mobile phone companies and tracking equipment, Henry could not be certain. But from what he knew of Karl Donaldson’s suspicions, he guessed it was both, which made him even more irate at himself. How could he have forgotten the lesson he learned that resulted in the death of Billy Costain? How could they possibly have known that the radio transmissions were about the mobile phone that had been used to take the photographs of the murder taking place? Henry was sure that was never mentioned over the air, but he would have to listen to a recording of it to make sure.

It put them ahead of the police in time and distance.

If they could locate a mobile phone signal, if they could listen into encrypted police radio messages, then it would be simple for them to track down and kill the last witness whose only protection was a social worker.

Henry and Donaldson raced out of the terraced house and up to the Ford Galaxy in which sat Bill Robbins at the wheel, with Alex Bent, Rik Dean and Jerry Tope alongside and behind him. He yanked open the passenger door and spoke hurriedly.

‘Alex, Rik, Jerry — you need to cover this scene.’

‘What scene?’ Rik said. He was in the front passenger seat alongside Robbins.

‘They got here before us. Two bodies, both shot to death. You guys cover the scene.’ He handed Rik his car keys. ‘Bill, you, me and Karl are going up to Cleveley House just to make sure Mark Carter is safe and well.’

‘Got it,’ Robbins said.

‘Alex — do you have the phone number of Cleveley House and the social worker who took Mark with him?’

‘No, but comms should have Cleveley House in their records and the social worker’s mobile number is on Mark’s custody record.’

‘Right… I’ll sort them.’ Henry glanced at everyone’s face as no one seemed to want to move. ‘Come on, let’s get shifting… lives at stake, here.’

Mark reached the foot of the stairs in silence and could hear raised, angry voices from the kitchen, furniture scraping on hard floors. He moved along the hallway, edging along the wall, passing the TV lounge, then a door with a toilet sign on it, until he was a few feet short of the kitchen where he flattened himself tight, back to the wall, and steeled himself to peek around the door. That was when he heard the social worker scream, ‘Mark — run.’

At the age of forty, Barry Philips had come late to social work, and actually wasn’t really anything like the stereotype of the profession. He’d ended up there through the path of redundancy than through any great desire to help people, but found that he loved the job. Working with teenage boys was the area he got the most out of. He found them fascinating and a great challenge, and although he had only just met Mark Carter, he could see a lot of good in a boy who was fundamentally decent and intelligent, but had experienced major traumatic events in his life. Because of Mark’s age, Philips knew the reality was that he wouldn’t be spending much, if any, time in care, but Philips was determined to do everything he could for a lad who had definitely been given the shit end of a prickly stick.

Philips already knew Mark would give him a rough ride, but he was looking forward to giving him a settled night in Cleveley House. Maybe at some stage there would be the chance of an exploratory chat about the future and what Mark saw, although he also guessed it would be a difficult subject to broach as the immediate past had yet to be dealt with properly.

In some ways, Cleveley House would be a blessing. Just the two of them, no interruptions. On the other hand, as comfortable as he would be, the night would be a lonely one for Mark once he was in bed.

However, under the circumstances, nothing could ever be perfect for someone who’d just lost their mother in horrific circumstances, as well as a friend, and had witnessed others being murdered. But Philips still relished the possibility of helping Mark to deal with these things… if only Mark would allow it to happen and would not clam up.

At least he had got Mark as far as the home, then into it, then up to the bedroom. Philips had had kids jump out of his car at the first set of traffic lights before now. But Mark was obviously shell-shocked, Philips had thought as he left him in the bedroom and went back to the kitchen.

The house had been well renovated and was due to be opened properly for business the week after. Philips had only managed to get Mark into it because everywhere else in the area was full to bursting. There was an overnight space in a home in Rossendale, but Philips had argued with his boss that a forty-mile journey was out of the question. His boss had relented when Philips had volunteered to stay over with Mark, and had let him use Cleveley House.

The kitchen was big enough to fit a small dining table and Philips sat at it, and opened his laptop and diary and placed his mobile phone on the table next to him. He needed to catch up on his notes before doing anything else. He was conscientious like that. There was a lot to write about Mark and he wanted to do it whilst it was still fresh in his mind.

He was so engrossed in it, working hard with his head resting on his left hand as he wrote, that the next time he glanced up, the three men had already entered the kitchen from the back door.

Each was wearing a balaclava ski mask, all dressed in black, two carrying handguns and one a large hunting knife. It was this one who, even before Philips could rise or even utter a gasp, moved behind the social worker with a roar of warning, dragged his head back to expose his neck and had laid the blade of the knife across the windpipe, the kitchen chair scraping the floor as it moved.

‘Where’s the boy?’ one of the others shouted, stepped forwards and held the muzzle of his gun against Philips’s temple.

Philips swallowed, his eyes wide in terror, feeling his throat ripple across the knife blade. Yet in spite of the predicament and his own personal danger, Philips still believed his first duty was to protect the life of the boy he had been put in charge of.

‘What boy?’

The man with the gun bent to his face. ‘Don’t be a dick, I know he’s here,’ he said savagely. ‘I’ve just followed you from the police station. Where is he? Tell us, save time, save anguish.’

‘This place is empty except for me,’ Philips said bravely.

The man stood upright. His eyes flicked sideways to the man who had the knife at the social worker’s throat.

‘Kill him.’

There was a moment of hesitation, a millisecond that Philips took advantage of and he screamed, ‘Mark — run!’

Then the man behind him pushed his head forwards and at the same time drew the knife across his throat. Not tidily, not a nice slice, but roughly gouging and riving the blade into the larynx, pulling hard, pushing the head down, sawing, grinding, finding the carotid, then swiping the knife free as Philips, clutching desperately at his torn throat, fell off the chair. Everything twitched. He gagged horribly, gurgled, spat blood, which also pumped out of his neck via the severed artery. Then he no longer clutched at his neck, but for something above him. His fingers tensed and contracted as they seemed to reach for the light above. Then the gushing eased, his hands relaxed with no strength left in them, and flopped to the floor. The jerking of his feet slowed, became less urgent, gentler as though he was walking in his sleep, then ceased altogether.

‘Find him, quickly,’ said the only man who had spoken, ripping the telephone off the wall as it began to ring, then scooping Philips’s mobile off the table and stamping on it.

‘You know where we’re going?’

Bill Robbins nodded, and as he did a quick shoulder check, accelerating away from the kerb, said, ‘Used to be a bail hostel, as I recall.’

‘What firearms have you got?’

‘Glock on the waist, H amp;K, baton launcher and Taser in the safe. The usual.’

Henry nodded, then used his PR to call in, interrupting a two-way conversation between two other patrols. ‘Detective Superintendent Christie to Blackpool, urgent, repeat, urgent.’

‘Patrols stand by,’ the operator came in who was the one running the mobile phone location incident. ‘Go ahead, sir.’

‘Carrying on from the previous job, please send all available patrols to Cleveley House in Little Bispham. No one to enter the premises and I want everyone to RV at a point of your choosing, comms. I want the ARV down there… suspect armed individuals could be at the address intending to cause harm to a boy called Mark Carter. I’m en-route with one armed officer — don’t ask — ETA maybe one minute.’

‘Affirmative… RV point to be Little Bispham tram stop on the promenade opposite Wilvere Drive — received?’

‘Received,’ Henry said. ‘Know it?’ he asked Robbins, who nodded.

‘Only two patrols available to attend at present, though, sir, both in South.’

‘Send them,’ Henry ordered. ‘What about the ARV?’

‘On refs.’

‘Turn them out immediately, get back to me when you have and I’ll give you more instructions and details.’ Henry squirmed to look over his shoulder at Donaldson. ‘I was half-hoping that if the bad guys are monitoring us, the massive response we deployed would be enough to make them think twice. As it happens, it’s pathetic. Two patrols miles away and the ARV stuffing butties down their necks.’

‘Not sure anything would make much difference,’ Donaldson said. ‘They’re ahead of us anyway, they move fast and there’s every likelihood they’ve already dealt with him and gone.’ He clicked his fingers as though this was all a waste of time.

‘Come on, Bill, get this tug moving.’ Henry smacked the dashboard.

‘I am, but this is a police owned Ford Galaxy, not a Maserati — and where did you get an ETA of one minute from?’

‘Bit of an exaggeration?’

‘By about four minutes, not counting traffic,’ Bill said as he careened on to the roundabout at Gynn Square and gunned the vehicle sluggishly around it, blue lights on and a weary two-tone horn sounding as they hit the promenade northwards in the direction of Bispham.

‘Blackpool — Superintendent Christie.’

‘Receiving.’

‘ARV en-route.’

‘Thanks for that… now call Cleveley House and see if you can contact a social worker called Barry Philips. He should be there. Also contact the custody office. This man’s mobile phone number should be in Mark Carter’s custody record. If you can’t get a response from Cleveley House, call the mobile. It’s imperative we contact this guy, as he’s the one with Carter.’

Mark heard Barry Philips scream out the warning and for an instant he could not move. He could not even begin to imagine what had happened in the kitchen, around the corner, probably less than a dozen feet away from where he was standing. He’d heard the shout, then what? Maybe the sounds of a struggle, the thump of something heavy — a body? — hitting the floor and a horrible gurgling, gagging sound.

Then he moved. He spun away from the wall, taking two long paces, pivoted into the TV lounge, his eyes searching for a hiding place. There wasn’t much choice. The furniture consisted of one L-shaped sofa pushed up into one corner of the room, then a couple of mismatched armchairs and, of course, the 42-inch TV that Barry Philips had boasted about, which was screwed to the wall.

Basically nowhere.

Panic overwhelmed him momentarily before he scrambled over to the settee, pulled it away from the wall and crawled in backwards behind it, like some crustacean reversing into its shell. He stretched himself out as long and as thin as he could and tugged the settee back up to him. He had to grind his teeth together to stop them chattering. He tensed every muscle tight and hoped he didn’t emit some wimpy squeak of terror or fart of fear that would give away his position.

‘No reply from either number,’ the comms operator informed Henry.

‘Keep trying, please.’

‘Will do.’

Henry and Donaldson exchanged a worried look. ‘Doesn’t necessarily mean anything,’ Henry said.

‘No, you’re right,’ Donaldson said.

Neither man meant it.

Robbins performed a dangerous swerving overtake through a set of traffic lights, finding the narrow channel between the vehicle to his nearside and the oncoming one. He saw the driver of that one, who seemed to have big, wide eyes and an expression of horror on his face. He powered on, the Galaxy having picked up momentum, a bit like a container ship.

‘We’re probably about thirty seconds away,’ Bill said, flicking off the lights and siren.

‘Pull in here,’ Henry instructed him, pointing to a spot at the roadside. Robbins braked sharply and veered into a halt.

A few beats passed.

‘What the hell’re you doing?’ Donaldson demanded.

‘Waiting for back up. This is the RV point — Wilvere Drive.’

Donaldson screwed up his face at Henry. ‘You kidding me? We need to get in there now, otherwise that kid’s dead and they’ve gone for sure. There’s no time to sit here with thumbs up our asses waiting for cops who might not get here. How far away from the house are we?’

‘Just beyond that slight bend,’ Bill said, pointing. ‘Just out of sight.’

Donaldson and Henry looked at each other again. ‘You know I’m right. Two patrols coming from the south, the ARV only just jumping into their vehicle in the garage. If we hesitate, he’s dead. These guys don’t mess around. And if we’re wrong, then let’s have red faces. I don’t mind lookin’ stoopid. We need to get in there now — and this talkin’ is just a waste of time.’ He reached for his door handle.

Henry nodded. ‘You’re right.’

‘Give me a minute,’ Donaldson said and opened his door. ‘I’ll go around the back of the place, then you hurtle in through the front door.’

‘You have no weapon,’ Henry reminded him.

‘I’ll improvise if I have to,’ He touched Henry’s shoulder, trotted diagonally across the road, leapt over a garden wall and disappeared.

‘Let’s hope he bowls into the right place. There’s lots of old biddies in these houses along here,’ Henry said. ‘Time to go.’

The first of the men stepped into the TV lounge, checked it quickly. Across the hallway, the second man opened the door of another lounge opposite.

‘Clear,’ the first man said, backing out of the TV lounge, his gun held combat style, an isosceles triangle formed by his arms and chest, the gun held in his right hand, supported by the left.

‘Clear,’ the second man echoed, coming out of the other lounge. He was the knife man, but now he was armed with a pistol, the knife wiped clean and sheathed at the small of his back.

The third man, clearly the leader, had waited in the hallway for his colleagues to do his job. He said quickly, ‘Upstairs and check the bedrooms. I’ll wait here. If you find him, bring him to me alive. I want him to look me in the face and ID me again before I kill him. Go.’

The two men sprinted down the wide hall, moving silently as they went, and took the stairs just as quietly and began a well structured, swift search of the bedrooms on the first floor.

Donaldson clambered over the brick wall and slithered down into a patch of damp soil. He moved quickly behind a rhododendron bush and inspected the rear aspect of Cleveley House. There was one door, which he guessed was a kitchen door, three ground floor windows and a patio door. On the first floor there were four windows, one with the lights on.

Keeping low, he stepped out from cover and, crouching, ran across the width of lawn, then over a paved area, to the back of the house, flattening himself up to the wall. He edged to the door that he now noticed was slightly ajar.

The man in the hallway, the leader, remained stock still, listening for any movement. He also had an earpiece screwed into his left ear, wirelessly attached to the radio on a harness at his waist. The police transmissions had stopped for some reason, but he wasn’t too worried. He estimated his team had about four minutes before the cops came in their size tens, by which time he and his men would be gone and the boy would be dead. He was certain of his skills and abilities.

He remained in a crouching position, weapon drawn and ready, constantly looking, evaluating, listening, reassessing. Upstairs he heard a door being kicked open. He backed up slightly, his eyes rechecking the two downstairs lounges that had been declared empty.

The one on the left, then the TV lounge on his right.

And then he saw it, and computed it, and instantly realized that the room wasn’t empty because he saw the L-shaped settee move ever so slightly — and knew exactly where the boy was hiding.

Bending low, Donaldson ran his left hand across the kitchen door and very gently put some pressure on it, pushing it further open by one inch. He waited for the creak that did not come. But it was a brand new UPVC door, so why would it creak? He opened it an inch further, then wide enough for him to step into a tiny vestibule, with an inner door six feet ahead that opened into the kitchen itself. Donaldson took a silent stride to this door, held his breath, opened it.

He was definitely in the kitchen. There was a sink, cooker, refrigerator, shelves, cupboards, work surfaces, a small dining table and a dead body with a horrendously sliced open throat, lying in a sea of thick, deep-red blood.

There was no time for sneaking about. The man crossed the TV lounge and dragged the settee away from the wall, revealing the stretched out, terrified form of the boy lying prone behind it.

Mark stared up at him as he tore off his balaclava and pointed his gun at Mark’s head.

‘Remember me, sonny?’

Mark did. He knew this was the face of the man who had killed the old guy on the street in Blackpool and who had probably killed Rory and Billy Costain. And also, his mother, Mandy Carter.

Mark was determined to show no fear.

‘I know you, you murdering bastard.’

‘Good, because I’m the last face you’re ever going to see.’

He placed the muzzle of the gun against the crown of Mark’s head. The boy shut his eyes tightly and at that moment, fear did overwhelm him.

Donaldson stepped over the blood to the kitchen door, braced himself for an instant before looking into the hallway and catching a glimpse of the back of a black-clad figure entering the next room on the right.

From upstairs he heard the clatter of doors being kicked open.

‘Henry, you should be here by now,’ Donaldson murmured under his breath.

The man curled his fingers around Mark’s collar and heaved him one handed out from behind the settee, keeping the gun jammed against his skull. He dragged him out as though he was a dog about to be put down.

Karl Donaldson stepped into the TV lounge doorway, his wide frame filling the gap. He’d wanted to say some profound words at that point and if he’d been in a movie, that’s probably what he would have done. He would have explained why he could not allow the killing to happen and the gunman would have had the opportunity to say his piece, too. But there was no time for such niceties. Explanations were rare in real life. If Donaldson had said something, even given a warning, the gunman would simply have turned and shot him, then the boy, because Donaldson knew what the man was capable of.

Instead, Donaldson had to act immediately.

Taking full advantage of the fact that, for the briefest moment in time, the gunman had his back to him, he charged across the room, powering low and hard into him, bowling him over, breaking his grip on Mark’s clothing. The collision sent both of them crashing into the back wall and into a radiator underneath the window.

They fell into an untidy heap, but the man was very fast and strong, and highly trained. Donaldson held him in a massive bear hug, his arms wrapped tightly around him as they hit the wall. But the man managed to unpin his left hand and punch Donaldson hard on the side of the head. It was a blow that, despite travelling only a short distance, connected accurately and powerfully and with great effect. The strike of a man familiar with hand to hand combat. The knuckles smashed like brick into Donaldson’s temple, just above his jaw hinge. A shock wave surged through his brain, sending him sideways, and although he tried hard to keep hold of this extremely dangerous man, his whole body just went loose as the message relay system from brain to function crashed for an instant.

The gunman broke free and rolled away.

Donaldson sagged on to his hands and knees, his eyes watering from the blow, vision blurring.

In a flowing motion, the man contorted back to Donaldson, his gun arcing around.

Just as quickly as they’d deserted him, Donaldson’s senses returned like power being flicked on at a fuse box.

Using his arms as pivots, he spun his legs through ninety degrees and kicked upwards at the man like a break-dancer. His right foot caught the barrel of the gun with such force he could not keep hold of it and it was banged from his grasp.

Donaldson bounded up on to his feet and the two men faced each other, crouching low like wrestlers, both breathing heavily.

The gunman smiled — but Donaldson had no time for that. He knew he was in a fight to the death and had to take the man down without hesitation or conscience. They went for each other, coming together like two stags in a contest that was evenly matched and brutal.

Henry and Bill Robbins reached the front door of the house. Robbins had his MP5 strapped diagonally across his chest from left shoulder to right hip, ready for use. The Glock was in a holster at his hip. He also wore his chequered police firearms baseball cap. Henry, not wanting to feel naked, had grabbed the Taser as a security blanket.

The door was open, led into a wide, tiled, vestibule, then through an inner door into the hallway, facing the central staircase.

As they stepped side by side, Henry on the left of Robbins, through this second door, the two men who had been searching the first floor appeared on the landing at the top of the stairs. Their guns came up.

Robbins forced Henry away with a sweep of his left hand, and brought the H amp;K round into a firing position and screamed, ‘Police, drop your weapons.’

The man on the right fired his pistol. Henry jumped to one side, whilst Robbins returned controlled fire with the machine pistol. Two bullets slammed into the man’s chest and he wind-milled backwards, as Robbins’ aim shifted across and he took down the second man with a burst of fire.

It was a ferocious fight. The two men, both large, powerful, hard and determined, came at each other with a fighting style that combined brutal street battling — fists, headbutts, knees to groins, gouging and biting — with more refined, but equally violent, martial arts — chops to the neck with the side of the hand, throws, powerful short blows, thumbs to pressure points. Each man vied for supremacy. They both tired quickly and it would be the one who could just get the slight edge that would be the victor.

Donaldson fought clinically and dispassionately, landing punches, some better than others, taking what the man had to offer and he felt he was coming out on top.

For the men, the fight seemed to go on forever, even though it lasted less than a minute. Donaldson began to feel confident he would win as they clashed and tumbled across the lounge floor, toward the fireplace, but he slipped, his knee gave and the man was on him. He punched Donaldson hard on the side of the head again and the blow caught him perfectly. Everything suddenly gave up as the man pounded Donaldson’s head on the side of the marble hearth.

Suddenly — amazingly — the man screamed, jerked and writhed and no longer held on to Donaldson, who rolled away and back up to his knees.

His opponent had been Tasered by Henry Christie and was having fifty thousand volts of electricity pumped into him through the probes discharged by the gun-like device in Henry’s hands. He was experiencing what was described by the Taser manufacturer as neuromuscular incapacitation. It lasted for only a few seconds, after which he would immediately regain all his functions. This was a fact that Donaldson knew. He waited for the spasms to cease then leapt on the man before he even knew he had recovered, flipped him on to his front and forced both his arms behind his back and yelled, ‘Could do with some cuffs, here, pal.’

Henry went over to him and handed him the pair he’d brought in with him, which Donaldson ratcheted on tight and turned the man back over.

They made eye contact.

‘What the hell, Don, what the hell?’ Donaldson said breathlessly.

‘Had to be done, pal.’

Henry watched the exchange, then turned to Mark Carter who was still crouched by the end of the settee. He rose on unsteady legs and Henry went over to him, said, ‘C’mere pal,’ and drew him tenderly to him and held tight.