Hidden Witness

EIGHT

Henry had been in Blackpool public mortuary when he got the call from Karl Donaldson that afternoon.

‘Who was that?’

He folded away his mobile phone, a thoughtful expression on his face, hidden when he replaced the surgical mask that covered his nose and mouth. He positioned himself behind the figure of Keira O’Connell who was standing by the body of the old man on the mortuary slab. The delayed PM had begun, the incision from neck to groin made and the body cavity opened out, the skin having been pared delicately away from the crushed ribcage.

The pathologist looked over her shoulder at Henry.

‘A guy I know in the FBI, works down in London,’ Henry said.

‘Ooh, very sexy.’

‘Mm, he really is a good-looking so and so.’

‘From what I overheard, he was calling about this chap… does he think he knows who he is?’

‘Yeah, I sent him a circulation and some dead body photos… he does think he knows who he is,’ Henry said tantalizingly.

‘Don’t keep me in suspense.’

‘Could be a Mafia godfather.’

O’Connell had an electric saw with an oscillating safety blade in her hand, the type used for cutting through bone.

‘In Lancashire?’

‘In the backwoods, you mean, where the natives have lazy eyes and play the banjo really well?’

‘Exactly.’ She flicked the switch on the saw and the blade vibrated.

‘Not as ridiculous as you might think,’ Henry said.

He didn’t expand on the remark there and then, but it wasn’t so long ago that two men with strong Mafia connections and suspected of murders had been arrested in Lancashire on behalf of the police in Naples. He’d had no involvement in the arrests, but knew that the Constabulary had some concerns about Mafia linked individuals lying low in this corner of the world.

Henry had mixed feelings about Donaldson’s call, though. If the ID was correct, it meant, as Henry suspected anyway, this was a professional execution and would be a far reaching investigation. That was an exciting prospect and he’d already had his customary bum-twitch.

The flip side of the coin was that the chances of a successful resolution in terms of arrests and prosecution would be more difficult. Professional killers didn’t usually hang around to get caught, although this lot had hung around long enough to kill a potential witness… so maybe they were still around, especially if they thought there was another witness out there who remained a threat. And if that was the case, Henry could not allow anything to slow down the flow of the inquiry.

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?’

‘None… the gaoler must’ve fixed that too, tampered with the recording equipment.’

‘What a mess,’ Barber said.

‘Means we’re running outta witnesses,’ Donaldson said.

‘Yeah… you’re certain Fazil was the gun-dropper?’

‘As can be.’

‘Then he got what was coming to him… I know it ain’t the perfect scenario, but there’s some justice in it. And he wasn’t coming across to you, was he?’

‘But I’m still way behind the American,’ Donaldson moaned. ‘Fazil was a helluva good lead.’

‘You’ll get to him,’ Barber reassured him. ‘That’s why I put you on him, because I know you’ll nail him sooner or later.’

‘Whatever…’

‘Hey, don’t sound so despairing. A bad man’s bit the dust, let’s not mourn,’ Barber tried to sound upbeat. ‘And you’re still alive.’

‘OK, OK, I get the message… ahh!’ A jolt of pain crackled through his head. He took the ice pack off his head and took a mouthful of the whisky mix. There wasn’t much left in the glass.

‘What can you tell us about the killer?’ Barber asked.

‘Not much. Biggish guy, mask on, gloves on, overalls, I think, didn’t even make the weapon, which seriously annoys me, other than it was revolver with a silencer, probably a. 38, so no ejected shells. And he’s probably got one sore face, because I managed to land a good one on him.’ Donaldson thought he heard Barber sigh at the other end of the line. ‘Sorry, Don?’

‘Nothing, pal. You sure you’re OK?’

‘Positive. Heck of a sore head, that’s all. And pissed off. I should’ve realized the danger, though, but I’m still trying to work out why Fazil was important enough to take such a risk to nail him. Real heavy stuff.’

‘Shit like that happens. We deal with desperate people, Karl.’

‘Oh God, do we!’

‘What are your plans?’

‘Ugh… tidy up here, make peace with the locals who are running around like headless chickens. Finish my statement for them, then I want to get back to Lancashire… see where, or if, Petrone’s death fits into all this.’

‘I can deploy someone else to that if you like?’

‘No. I know them up there, especially the guy in charge of the investigation. We go way back and he always needs my help.’

‘Only if you’re up to it, but don’t overdo it, OK? If it’s eyeties versus eyeties, let’s not get too involved, eh?’

‘I hear ya.’

Their conversation ended. Donaldson groaned as he stood up, unsure whether it was injury or old age — or possibly a combination of both — and a lifetime of law enforcement. He stood by the balcony railings overlooking the harbour and noticed, peeking over the frosted glass panel separating his balcony from the next one, that the sliding doors into the room were open. Gentle jazz music filtered out. He edged along until he could see on to the balcony, also empty, although there were signs of recent activity on the lounger and table. An empty glass, a half-full bottle of wine, a paperback book, cigarettes and a lighter. Donaldson’s eyes honed in on the cigarettes and something moved inside his chest. A yearning. He’d been a light smoker in his teens, but hadn’t had a cigarette for many years and was very much against them — usually. But there and then, with a bad head, in a horrible situation, he found he had an irrational need for a cancer stick.

A movement caught his eye. He glanced up, moving his head a little too sharply, causing him to emit a muted howl.

Still clad in her bikini, the forward Scandinavian lady stepped out through her net curtains on to her balcony. There was a wry smile on her face.

‘Spying on me now?’ she admonished him. Then she saw he was holding the ice pack to his head. ‘My, what happened to you?’

‘Long story, ma’am,’ he replied, quickly pulling the blood-soaked cotton wool out of his nostrils and dropping them on the floor. ‘But I wonder if I could trouble you.’ She regarded him with deep misgiving. ‘I know, I know.’ He held up a hand to reassure her he wasn’t the sick pervert she thought he was after seeing the photographs on his laptop. ‘I’d really love a cigarette. Been a bad day.’

‘O-K,’ she said unsurely, but took the pack, shuffled one out for him and one for her. They were Superkings and as he inhaled the smoke spread into his lungs with a deeply pleasurable sensation.

He exhaled deliciously. ‘First one in twenty-five years.’ He held the cigarette between his first and second fingers and pointed it at her. ‘I’m not going off the wagon, though, even though this is absolutely wonderful and I thank you kindly, ma’am.’

She too was smoking and regarded him through a cloud of her own.

He took another deep draw and as he exhaled this time it was with a growl of pleasure. Then he looked at his neighbour. ‘Sorry for freakin’ y’all out earlier,’ he said in his best Yankee drawl.

‘Yes, I was freaked.’

‘OK, understood. My name is Karl Donaldson and I’m an FBI agent,’ he said, not even beginning to understand why he was telling her this, because he did not need to, nor should he have done really. ‘The photos you saw were of a dead guy, obviously, and I was asked if I could identify him.’

‘You’re an FBI agent,’ she asked in disbelief.

‘Really, I am.’ He didn’t wish to explain exactly what he did in the Bureau because that made things complicated. Everyone sort of understood the concept of an agent.

‘What are you doing in Malta?’

‘Interviewing a witness… that’s where the bad day came in.’ He showed her the ice-packed towel, then tilted his head. ‘Hit on head

… long story. See it, touch it.’

She reached across the partition and felt his scalp and the quail egg-sized lump on it. Her fingers withdrew quickly.

‘Ooh, the witness did not like you?’

‘Something like that.’ He took another drag, enjoyed it, then said, ‘I think that did the trick. And you are?’ He knew she had introduced herself at their previous encounter, but that hadn’t gone too well and he couldn’t quite recall the name. Then it clicked. ‘Vanessa.’

‘Vanessa Langstrum.’

‘What are you doing in Malta?’ he asked. The combination of alcohol and cigarette smoke was having an effect on his social skills. Normally, he was pretty shy and reticent with women, but for some reason he wanted to talk to this one.

‘I’m a photographer on assignment for a Scandinavian woman’s magazine.’

‘Nice,’ Donaldson said. He swayed slightly. Despite his bulk, he wasn’t too good at holding his drink. ‘Care to step around and maybe we could restart our relationship?’ He gave her a very childish smile.

The MIR was silent. The lights were lowered, the hush respectful as DC Jerry Tope took centre stage at the front of the room. He set up his laptop, wirelessly connected to the ceiling-hung data projector. For a few seconds it looked as though technology was going to let him down as the screen turned blue and the words ‘NO INPUT DETECTED’ came up.

He pressed a couple of buttons and the screen came to life with the photograph of a man — short, grey-haired, sitting at a street cafe, leaning across the table pointing at someone who was out of shot. The man looked angry. In front of him was a large cup of coffee and in his left hand was a walking stick.

Tope positioned himself so that he could see his laptop screen without having to crane his neck to look at the projector screen behind him and the audience in front.

‘Let me present our victim: Rosario Petrone,’ he said. The eyes of all the assembled officers flitted between the screen and him. ‘Although we have yet to have a formal ID, information suggests that this is the man who was murdered last night in Charnley Road. Comparison between the photographs of the dead man and photographs I have acquired are pretty conclusive — plus, this.’

He pressed the enter button and the next slide came up.

‘The photo you’ve just seen is one of a series of surveillance shots taken by an anti-Mafia task force in Naples — and this is a blow up of one section of that photo.’

And indeed it was. It showed, in quite good detail, Rosario’s left hand, his fingers gripping the walking stick. ‘The head of the walking stick in this shot is the same as the walking stick found at the scene of the murder… so I have no doubt that Petrone is our victim.’

He picked up the remote mouse and right-clicked. The next slide came up — showing the first slide again of Petrone at the cafe table. Tope held up the walking stick that had been found at the scene, which, back from forensic analysis, was in a long, thin plastic cover, just to emphasize his point.

‘So, who is Rosario Petrone and why did he die?’ he posed the question dramatically. ‘Why,’ he went on, ‘did the head of one of the most ruthless Mafia families in Naples, otherwise known as the Camorra Mafia, end up dead on a Blackpool street?’

Everyone sat and listened earnestly.

‘But I’ll come to that later,’ Tope said, easing the tension in the room, rather like the evil quizmaster with everyone in the palm of his hand. ‘First off, I think it might be useful to give some background on the Camorra, so it’ll give you an idea of what we might be dealing with…’

The next slide was simply entitled ‘Camorra’ and had a series of bullet points under it, which came in with the special audio effect of gunfire, a simple device that seemed to please Tope no end. He spoke over the prompts.

‘The Camorra is like the Mafia and is based in and around Naples in Italy. Its activities include drugs, protection rackets, smuggling people and goods and the production of high quality fake goods in factories in the area previously mentioned. Murder levels are horrendously high in the areas it operates in and to put that boast into perspective, the Camorra have been blamed for…’ With a flourish he jerked the remote mouse at the screen and a figure ‘4’ appeared thereon, accompanied by a gun shot, then three zeros — ‘0’, ‘0’, ‘0’ — each with their own sound effect. ‘Four thousand deaths in the last thirty years, mostly in that geographical region.’ The next slide, mercifully appearing silently, showed a map of Italy with the Campania region highlighted.

‘Da-da-daah!’ one of the detectives in the audience said dramatically, causing a ripple of laughter.

Tope shot the offender a look of stern disapproval. ‘Hm,’ he muttered, not impressed. This was his show. ‘Anyway, the Camorra have probably been in existence since the 1700s and they’ve always operated in a decentralized way, meaning their structure has always been flatter than the hierarchical structure of the main Mafia clans. Because of this, the Camorra clans are always at each other’s throats, but they are more resilient when their top men are arrested, or go into hiding.

‘The 1980s saw the number of clans increasing and today, if Wikipedia is to be believed, with over a hundred clans and over six thousand members, they outnumber the Sicilian Mafia. Rosario Petrone is — was — the head of one of the most ruthless clans of them all. No prizes for guessing its name… the Petrone clan.

‘This lot produce fake luxury goods in their factories in Naples, they traffic thousands of people across the world each year, they control unions in Naples — particularly in public service facilities. They deal drugs, prostitution, money laundering and kidnapping. They are huge and are reckoned to turn over about a billion Euros each year

…’

‘Did you say a billion?’ someone asked.

‘Yeah, you heard right, a billion and, depending on the exchange rate, about eight to nine hundred million pounds — ish — every year. They are phenomenally rich and well organized.’

‘So what was Petrone doing in Blackpool?’

‘He was in hiding following a particularly brutal fallout between clans, as a result of which it’s believed about thirty people have been murdered in the last three years. Certainly a dozen have, and the figure may be as high as fifty. Lots of people just disappear and are often never found. Some have fled, like Petrone, others are encased in concrete or rotting on rubbish dumps… whatever.’

Henry Christie, watching and listening to all this at the back of the MIR, felt his arse twitch with excitement again. He loved it. Loved being in murder room briefings, loved setting off on the hunt for a killer. He knew it was the sort of thing he did well and the thought of having to hand it over to someone just because he was going on a short break made him sweat with frustration. Damn the holiday, he cursed inwardly.

‘Let me take you back about three years,’ Jerry Tope was saying at the front of the room. ‘To a tale of jealousy, revenge and murder

… and garbage.’

‘I should apologize for my earlier forwardness,’ she said. ‘I was a little tipsy and a little annoyed, I suppose.’

‘Annoyed?’ Donaldson said. He and his neighbour were out on his balcony, sitting alongside each other on loungers. He was sipping a small beer from the minibar and she had a gin and tonic from the same source. Donaldson’s supplies were sparse now.

‘My boyfriend. He was supposed to be joining me but,’ she shrugged, ‘pressure of work, or so he says.’

‘Where is he now?’

‘In Sweden… probably being laid by the twenty-year-old tramp I caught him texting last week,’ Vanessa said fiercely. She took a long drink of the G amp;T. ‘So I was annoyed and I made a bit of a fool of myself because of my rocky relationship.’

‘Ah, rocky. I know that.’ Donaldson raised his glass to salute that intangible phrase.

‘So I am sorry.’

‘Apology accepted.’

‘But.’ She turned to him and despite his best intentions he could not keep his eyes off her cleavage. ‘I would still like to fuck you

… you know, now that we have ironed out our misunderstandings. I know you are an FBI agent, not a pervert. You know I was a bit mad, but I’ve had some sleep since then and my head is clear.’

Donaldson averted his eyes and squinted across the harbour. Even in the extended trough that his relationship with his wife was foundering, he had never been unfaithful to her. He’d had the opportunity. Women at work. A very sexy female Cypriot detective he’d met — and that had been a very close run thing — but he’d always held back, hoping things would improve with Karen. A forlorn hope. Even though both had tried, it was a struggle.

His head turned.

Seconds later they had dragged each other through to the bedroom, wrestled each other out of what little clothing they wore and passionately attacked each other. But as Donaldson finally clambered above her, the fingernails of her left hand digging hard into his muscled backside, the fingers of her right curled around his hard cock, easing back the foreskin, and he was about to commit adultery, there was a loud, incessant knocking on the door.

‘Jesus, not now,’ she hissed.

The knocking persisted. A woman called his name.

‘Shit,’ he said, rolling off the bed and grabbing a hand towel that he could have hung on his full-to-bursting penis, holding it in front of him. He padded to the door and peered through the spyhole. The fisheye lens distorted the view, but he could still work out that two people were in the corridor, a man and a woman, in the uniform of the Maltese cops.

‘Yes?’ he shouted through the door.

‘Mr Donaldson.’ The woman leaned to the door. ‘Could you open up?’

He sighed impatiently and opened it on the security latch. ‘What is it?’

‘Please could you accompany us?’

‘Why, am I under arrest?’

‘No, nothing like that… we… we’ve found the body of our colleague. He’s been murdered.’

‘That was good.’ Henry congratulated Jerry Tope on his presentation. Tope nodded.

‘I did my best. Is that everything?’

‘For now, thanks, Jerry.’ Henry was in one of the tiny offices off the MIR, leafing through a paper copy of Tope’s PowerPoint. Tope gave Henry a nod and left.

Henry’s eyes went to the slides giving some background to Rosario Petrone, head of the Petrone clan. Born in Naples in 1934, making him seventy-five years old, he had spent his entire life in the gangs of the Camorra. His early years were mainly running protection rackets and drug dealing, even in those days. But as times moved on, people trafficking became profitable, as did running factories making fake designer goods and taking a stranglehold on the garbage disposal service in Naples. This latter business didn’t actually give a shit about how rubbish was disposed of. Often lethal chemicals were simply dumped by roadsides or burned, or tipped into streams causing dangerous water and land pollution. But the Camorra-run businesses did it cheaply and legitimate businesses were more than happy to use their services. Petrone’s empire flourished.

But there was always inter-clan rivalry. Shootings were common. Ruthless scare tactics were regular — such as cutting off victims’ genitals and stuffing them into their mouths, from which their tongues had already been cut. Petrone was believed to have either killed or ordered the assassination of forty rivals. Some were found with their heads blown off, others were burned with the garbage, others were never found. There were times when he was on the run from rival factions or the police or both, although he was never successfully prosecuted for any of the murders he was suspected of. The disappearance of vital witnesses was usually the reason for his acquittals. About six years ago, he was involved in a shooting incident in Naples when he took a bullet in his side and survived. He was sixty-nine at the time and the people believed to have winged him were found later, dunked in a vat of hydrochloric acid one of his companies was supposed to have disposed of.

About three years ago a very powerful rival clan, the Marinis, decided to move in on Petrone’s businesses. After a series of unsuccessful negotiations, followed by brutal beatings on either side, a Mafia war kicked off when Petrone, it was alleged, ordered the murder of a Marini clan leader in Majorca. He brought in an outside hit man to carry out the killing that also eliminated two other Marini members. Collateral damage.

That was the beginning of a terrible campaign.

Ten more people were dead within three months.

Henry shook his head. And he thought Blackpool had its problems.

Things got too hot for old man Petrone, who certainly could not realistically expect to survive another shooting, and he went to ground and, according to Tope’s research, had not been seen in Naples for over a year. Until he turned up dead on my patch, Henry thought, and a silly lad got caught in the crossfire.

So Petrone got what he deserved, probably. Murdered on the orders of the head of a rival gang, Henry guessed. But Rory Costain did not deserve to die in such a way. This was not the streets of Naples. A seething anger spread through Henry at the thought. His mouth dried up. How dare that old man bring his violence to Lancashire? Henry knew it was his job to fight for the dead and there and then he realized that this murder enquiry was about seeking justice for Rory Costain, not Rosario Petrone who would probably have died by the bullet anyway. Rory Costain was who Henry would be fighting for and he resolved to bring the killers to justice, not least because he owed the Costain family something, as bad as they were.

‘Hey.’

Henry looked up from the notes. ‘Hey,’ he said back to the individual who’d appeared at the office door. For a moment it felt like an exchange in an American sitcom where characters always seemed to greet each other with a cheery, ‘Hey.’

It was Detective Inspector Rik Dean, Henry’s old friend and prospective brother-in-law now that Rik and Henry’s will o’ the wisp sister Lisa were ‘an item’. Lisa had turned up like a prodigal a short while ago when their mother had been taken ill. She had ended up in bed with Rik, the serial seducer whose motto was, ‘Vulnerable is good’. At the time Lisa had been vulnerable to Rik’s undoubted charms, but the two seemed to have weathered that storm and were now firmly in love with each other. Wedding bells were possibly in the offing. But, Henry thought cynically, that step would be one giant leap for mankind.

Henry knew that Rik, who was a DI at Blackpool, had been away on holiday with Lisa.

‘How was Lanzarote?’

‘Nice. Warm. Sunny,’ Rik said entering the room.

‘I quite like its barrenness for some reason,’ Henry said. ‘When did you get back?’

‘Yesterday afternoon. Just landed back at work this evening.’

‘Uh-huh.’

‘Only just got the chance to come and see what was going on up here. Been going through all the crap, seeing what I have to do, etcetera.’

‘Yup,’ Henry said, wanting to get his head back round to Petrone.

‘Been doing some paperwork — dealing with a few street robberies from last night that need following up. Had a bit of a chat with the victims on the phone.’

‘Right, good,’ Henry said, failing miserably in his attempt to feign interest. Rik was a good detective and he was angling to get him transferred on to FMIT, but it wasn’t as easy as clicking fingers, even if you were a superintendent. Only the Chief Constable could do that, bless him.

‘Quite interesting, actually,’ Rik said mysteriously. ‘I’ve also been down as second jockey on a preliminary interview with a guy who tried to abduct a young lad earlier today. He was posing as a school truant officer, fake ID, the business, then luring kids away for naughties.’

‘I think I saw him being locked up.’ Henry shuffled his papers, hoping that the great detective in front of him picked up on the bit of a clue to get lost.

‘Two things,’ Rik went on, grinning slyly, seeing Henry’s growing impatience.

Henry regarded him stonily.

‘Even earlier, the paedo-guy got a face full of hot tea from one of the teenagers he tried to bullshit into going with him for a wanking session. The description of that lad fits the description of one of the offenders from last night’s two robberies. One took place in town, one just outside the nick on Bonny Street.’

‘Rik, as interesting as this is, I’m kind of bogged down with a double murder.’

Rik grinned even wider and said, ‘Connections, Henry. You’re always bleating on about connections.’

‘What is your fucking point?’ Henry said.

‘My point, sir,’ he said mockingly, ‘is that when Lisa and I got back from Lanza-grotty, we were still technically on holiday. So we decided to go out for a quick jar across at the Pump and Truncheon.’

‘You really know how to treat a lady.’

‘I do, actually… but the point is we only had an hour in there and we had a bit of a barney, and we were knackered from flying, so we left about nine-ish, and who should I spot strolling past the pub down Bonny Street as we came out arguing with each other?’

The hairs on Henry’s nape moved. ‘Go on.’

‘None other than Rory Costain.’

Henry didn’t speak. Just waited for Rik to come good.

‘Obviously, I didn’t really think about it then, but he must have gone down the road and literally bumped into his robbery victim…’

‘A teenage girl,’ Henry stated.

‘And if I’m not mistaken, you had some dealings with her in the front office yesterday evening.’

‘And another — a Goth.’

‘Yup — two robbery victims, both attacked by the same lads I would say, from the offender descriptions, that is.’

Henry’s mind flipped it all over. ‘You said the description the paedo-guy gave you fitted the description of one of the offenders from last night? When did he get tea chucked at him?’

‘This afternoon.’

‘And you said you saw two lads walking past the Pump?’

‘Yep.’

‘Rik, very soon I’m going to pull rank and whup your sorry arse if you don’t tell me everything, like now.’

‘I saw Rory Costain.’

‘And who else, dammit?’

‘Your mate — Mark Carter.’

Henry was already rising to his feet. In his mind he heard the recording of the call made to alert the police to the body behind the shops. He thought he recognized it and now he could put a name to the voice. ‘Grab your coat,’ he said to Rik.

The body had been discovered by a strolling holiday maker, rolling to and fro in the gentle surf of Mellieha Bay, Malta’s longest stretch of beach. Since the discovery some well-meaning civilians had dragged it from the water’s edge before the police arrived.

Donaldson ducked under the cordon tape and went along the plastic walkway that had been unrolled to the body to ensure that everybody who had to, went on the same route there and back.

Lighting had been erected and the body was now hidden from view by windbreaks pushed into the sand. He was relatively impressed by the scene protection, but he doubted much would come from it.

He was allowed to view the body and recognized the corpse as the gaoler from the police station cells in Valletta. The one who had accompanied him on his visits to Fazil and who had now paid the price of corruption and collaboration. He had been shot to death, two to the head, two to the chest.

Donaldson did not need to spend long looking. He came quickly to his own conclusions about motive. Obviously, this simple man had colluded, had his palms crossed with silver, and then paid the price.

Witnesses were always better off dead.

He turned and walked slowly back to the police car that had brought him, glad as hell he hadn’t had sex with a woman he didn’t even know. It had seemed a good idea at the time, as most hare-brained things usually do, but he was relieved he hadn’t gone all the way. Integrity intact — almost, he thought. He would sneak silently back to his room so as not to disturb her. He knew for certain the only woman for him was Karen, the only woman he wanted to make love to. He pulled out his mobile phone and as he sat in the back of the police car, he called her just to tell her how much he loved her.

Unfortunately, the call went straight through to answerphone.