Nightmare City

Chapter Fourteen

The avenue was wide, tree-lined and very pleasant. Extremely middle-class. On either side of the road was a grass verge which was covered with a coating of pure white fluffy snow. Behind the grass verges ran wide footpaths, behind which were the garden walls which fronted the houses. They were all detached, five- or six-bedroomed affairs with driveways which had an entrance and an exit. Set back at the rear of the houses were double garages the size of small bungalows. The gardens were all lawns and landscaping. Stockbrokers and solicitors abounded here, a good place for them to live, not far from Manchester and the towns of central Lancashire. They had their own little railway station nearby that made commuting a doddle.

Rider looked at his watch. 7 a.m. A couple of minutes before, a milkman had trundled down the avenue in one of those electrified carts, in and out of the driveways, and now the place was quiet again.

It was very dark. A real winter’s morning. It would probably be ten before the night was completely shrugged off.

The dull ache in Rider’s body became more than uncomfortable. He changed his position slightly for the hundredth time, yawned again, long and weary. It had been a long night.

He shivered and hoped it wasn’t to be an unproductive one. Otherwise he’d have to revisit a certain transvestite and drown him/her in a toilet.

Rider was sitting in the front passenger seat of a tatty Ford Transit van parked up on the avenue, underneath the overhang of some roadside trees. The van was totally out of place, exposed. Rider knew it would only take one phone call from an early-rising public-spirited resident to bring the cops sniffing around. He was living on borrowed time and the later it got, the less he had.

With increasing restlessness he was observing the front of one of the houses about a hundred metres away.

It was fucking freezing and though the engine was ticking over like there were lumps of lead in the petrol, the pathetic heater was only gasping out lukewarm air. He wasn’t dressed for the cold, only wearing his nightclub gear of thin suit and tie.

Efficient as ever, Jacko, sitting in the driver’s seat, was appropriately dressed for the winter weather in a duffel coat, thick socks, boots and cord pants. His gloved hands were resting on the steering wheel. He constantly had to wipe the screen with the back of his hand to see through the thin veil of frost which was forming relentlessly on the inside of the glass as their breath froze.

Jacko looked glum and unhappy. He did not want to be here. He desperately hoped nothing would happen.

‘ You should get a decent van,’ Rider complained. ‘I’m freezing my balls off sat here.’

‘ It is a decent van,’ Jacko replied stonily. ‘Is he gonna come or what?’

‘ Yes.’ There was more certainty in Rider’s voice than he felt.

‘ Then what?’

‘ Leave it to me. My problem.’

‘ I don’t like this one little bit, John,’ the other said nervously. ‘Why get involved? I know you got battered, but this is a dangerous world — and I really don’t want anything to do with it.’

‘ I know. You won’t be involved. Trust me.’

Jacko gave him a contemptuous glare from the corner of his eyes.

Rider was experiencing some guilt in roping the barman in, but he had no one else to turn to other than Isa, and she wouldn’t be much use in a situation like this. ‘I appreciate what you’re doing.’

The barman merely snorted, giving the impression he wasn’t remotely taken in by Rider’s words. He wiped the window again.

A vehicle turned into the other end of the avenue, lights blazing. It came towards the Transit. Rider got ready. But it was only the gritting lorry thundering past, showering the Transit with road salt.

‘ At least there’s nothing left to rot,’ Rider said dryly.

‘ One more remark about this van and we’re going,’ Jacko snapped. He meant it. ‘You could’ve used your Jag.’

‘ And he might’ve recognised it… Hang on.’

Another vehicle turned into the avenue from the same direction, travelling slowly. A car. Instinctively Rider touched Jacko’s arm. They both sank down.

This car turned into the driveway of the house they were watching and pulled up outside the front door. The security lights clicked on and bathed the whole front garden with white light. The car lights were switched off. A man got out, went up the steps to the door and pressed the bell.

Rider’s throat constricted.

‘ Is it him?’ Jacko hissed.

Rider couldn’t say for sure. He was three hundred feet away and he could hardly see sod-all through the iced-up screen.

The upstairs house lights came on. Seconds later the front door opened.

The man stepped inside, the door closed.

‘ Well?’ Jacko demanded.

Rider shook his head. ‘I’ll take a chance.’ He reached under the front seat and pulled out the revolver he had confiscated at the zoo. He held it up ominously, feeling a charge of adrenalin zip through him. His hand shook ever so slightly. Fear? Excitement? ‘Give me fifteen minutes and if I haven’t reappeared, call the cops, emergency or something. Use your imagination, ‘cos it’s likely one or both of us’ll be dead.’

He jumped out of the van without looking at Jacko and trotted towards the house, making the first footprints of the day in the snow.

Henry Christie’s two daughters — Jenny, fifteen and Leanne, nine — were both at an age when privacy meant a great deal to them. They had a room each and were very protective of their environments. They hated adults in their rooms, full stop.

Both were also acutely aware of their developing bodies, Jenny more so than Leanne, obviously. Should their dad, by accident, see anything more than he should, or even see their underwear in the washing basket, there would be screams of embarrassment. Usually from him.

His privacy and body, however, were fair game for them.

And at the same time as John Rider stepped out of the van that morning,

Henry was thinking how unjust the world was when he couldn’t even have a crap in peace.

He had settled himself, quite naked, on the toilet in the en-suite adjoining his and Kate’s bedroom. He straightened out that morning’s Daily Mail and looked forwards to ten minutes of bliss. He hadn’t even had the time to digest the sports headlines when Leanne burst in without knocking, tearing into the littlest room like a chattering whirlwind in jimjams, frightening the shit out of her father. He quickly covered his private parts with the newspaper. Leanne, seemingly oblivious to his predicament, commenced to show him some drawings she’d done at school the day before.

‘ Mmm, yeah, lovely. Nice — that’s a good one,’ Henry said, trying to appear enthusiastic. A trapped critic. At that point he was having a few problems holding back his natural bodily functions.

Then his eldest daughter, Jenny, appeared. ‘Hi, Dad,’ she said brightly. She came in and helped herself to a towel and a bottle of shampoo. On her way out she looked at him critically. He squirmed and coloured up. ‘You’ve put some weight on,’ she said and legged it with a giggle.

Leanne revealed another drawing which resembled… nothing. She explained it was someone riding the ‘Big One’. With that Henry could appreciate where she was coming from.

‘ Ahh, yeah, great… Look, honey,’ he said tenderly, ‘your Daddy needs to have the loo to himself for a moment or two, so go and get ready for brekkie, will you?’

She sighed heavily and collected her masterpieces which she’d scattered all over the floor. She left, closing the door behind her.

‘ Mercy,’ Henry said. He lifted the newspaper and Kate came in with one of her ‘faces’.

Henry closed his eyes momentarily.

‘ Don’t look at me like that,’ she warned him. ‘Are you seriously going to try and get on this squad?’ It was the continuation of a discussion-cum-argument they’d begun when Henry came in from work the night before. Kate was obviously going to pursue this to the bitter end. ‘Seems a bloody dangerous job to me. Everyone who has anything to do with it ends up dead.’

‘ Coincidence. No connection — and an exaggeration.’

‘ But why d’you want to go on it?’ She crossed to the shower and turned it on. ‘I thought you wanted to be a DI? Surely it’ll put your promotion chances on the back burner?’

‘ Probably. But it’s such a good opportunity, Kate. It’s got a cracking reputation, the work’s real interesting and very focused… and there’s nothing set in stone that I’ll get on anyway. They’ll have to advertise the vacancy, so other people will be able to apply and everyone’ll go through the rigmarole of interviews. You know I’m crap at being interviewed. My bottle goes.’

Kate unfastened her dressing gown and shrugged it off. Henry could not keep his eyes off her as she tested the shower temperature and adjusted the control minutely. Even after all these years and two children, he loved the sight of her body minus clothing. Recently she’d been on a pretty ruthless exercise and diet regimen which had shed pounds and toned her muscles up just enough to — well, just enough. He glanced down at his own tummy and breathed in, slightly ashamed of himself. He was in good health, but didn’t have the strength of character to stop eating things which were bad for him, and go to a gym. The result was showing around his midriff. Jenny had been right in her cheeky observation.

Kate stood and faced him with a sad look in her eyes. She was completely unaware of her nakedness and his position on the loo.

‘ I don’t want you to go back on a specialised squad.’

‘ There’s no guarantee I’ll get promoted to Inspector. I think I should go for it. They approached me.’

‘ It’s not the Inspector thing. It’s the hours, days, weeks. You know what it was like when you were on Regional Crime Squad. I never knew when you were coming home next. I didn’t like it and neither did the girls.’

‘ I work long hours now,’ he protested.

‘ Yes, but at least you come home every day and you only work ten minutes away. It’s different. You’re not chasing all over the country, or Europe. It feels good having you close by, even if you work until midnight. And you virtually run that office, don’t you?’ she said, changing tack slightly. ‘Surely that’ll count towards promotion?’

‘ Don’t bank on it. Once you get into that interview room, everyone’s on a level playing-field.’ He paused and gave her a pleading look. Big eyes. Fluttering lids. ‘Look, I really fancy this job, Kate. It’s the chance of a lifetime. It’s like dead men’s Doc Martens.’

‘ Literally,’ she commented gloomily.

‘ And as I said, I’m not guaranteed it.’

‘ Well, you know how I feel about it. We’ve only just got everything back to normal around here and now you want to rock the boat…’ She shrugged. Her small breasts quivered with the gesture. She turned her back on him, stepped into the shower and slid back the curtain.

So that was really her hidden agenda. It wasn’t so much the long hours away from home, it was the temptation that went with them.

She had a point, of course. Life at home had been incredibly good recently, following the ‘blip’ caused by Henry’s stupidity and rampant sexual urges almost two years ago. Kate had truly forgiven him and for that he was extremely grateful to her. He loved Kate like mad and didn’t want to lose her. But the guilt he carried about betraying her was always just under the surface and now, sitting on the bog, he realised for the first time that she too always had something at the back of her mind.

Something called mistrust.

She was obviously worried, but did not want to spell it out. Henry sensed that she equated specialist squad with adultery. All those hours and weeks she’d talked about meant temptation. Away from home. Strange places. Even stranger women, particularly the detectives.

He understood Kate’s concerns, but was sure it would never happen again. His libido was in check.

And he seriously wanted to get on the Organised Crime Squad. It was right up his alley, the type of work he excelled in. Chasing and convicting good-class criminals.

Feeling unable now to concentrate either on the Mail or his bodily functions, he got off the loo and went into the bedroom to get dressed.

Rider edged around the perimeter of the garden, aware that his flimsy shoes were no barrier against the wet. He stayed far enough away from the house so as not to activate the security lighting which was fitted all the way around. He was trying to establish which of the bedrooms they were going into before he moved in and tried to gain entry.

The lights in a ground-floor room at the rear of the house came on. Rider assumed it was the kitchen, but the blinds were drawn. He could see the shadow of some movement but not enough to tell him anything. Then the lights came on in another room and through the patio doors Rider could clearly see into a lounge.

A man and a woman came into view.

The man was Munrow.

Rider did not know the woman, but from the brief conversation he had initiated with Toni Thomas, he had learned that she was a volunteer prison visitor and her husband was working in Saudi. Apparently she and Munrow had struck up a relationship in prison and it had spilled into the outside world.

She obviously liked a bit of rough.

Rider settled onto his haunches in the shadow of the back fence. Munrow and the woman — Rider could see she was good-looking — stood side by side at the patio door and looked across the garden in his direction, or so it seemed to him. They each held a glass and were talking. She wore a dressing gown. Munrow was in a black windcheater and black jeans.

From his observation point, Rider appraised him.

He looked as fit and as hard as ever.

Once again, after having chosen a course of action, Rider wavered. In his condition, even if he hadn’t been beaten up, he’d be no match for Munrow in a head to head. Rider had to physically stop himself from making his way back to Jacko and saying, ‘Fuck it, we’re going home.’

But he knew deep down in his soul that if he didn’t take positive action now in a way which Munrow understood, he’d never be able to shake the bastard off his back. Ever. Munrow would walk all over him again and again. That was the sort of person he was.

If he dealt firmly with Munrow now, it would also send a strong message to Conroy to keep away.

The woman put her drink down and opened the patio door. She stepped outside with only slippers on her feet. The security light came on, illuminating the whole of the back garden. Rider hunched further down into the shadows.

In the snow she tiptoed to the bird-table and checked to see if there was any food on it. A moment later she was back in the house, patio door closed, and in Munrow’s arms.

They attacked each other with a passion, kissing wildly, necking, tearing at clothing. She didn’t have very much to remove and within a couple of seconds her dressing gown was on the floor and she was naked. Together they removed Munrow’s clothes and she took obvious delight in peeling his boxer shorts off him, revealing what Rider had always suspected. A very big penis. Which she greedily took in her mouth as she knelt in front of him.

Munrow’s head drooped back in ecstasy.

The woman clawed her way back to her feet, heaved herself onto Munrow by wrapping her legs around his waist and hands clasped around his neck.

Thus engaged, Munrow walked them both out of the room, easily holding her weight.

When they disappeared, Rider emerged from the shadows and sprinted low to the house. He flattened himself against the wall, gun in hand.

The security light went out. Rider moved and it came back on. He darted to the patio door and silently pushed the handle. Yes! It was open.

He was inside the house.

Munrow’s discarded clothing was on the floor. Rider went through the pockets and found a single car key which he slid into his own. He trod carefully through the lounge and emerged in the hallway.

From upstairs the sounds of unbridled lust bounced down the walls. She was moaning to a rhythm, Munrow was gasping a beat behind. Oh, the din of sexual rapture, Rider thought.

He pulled a ski-mask over his head. Not because he wanted to hide his identity from Munrow, but from her. If things went pear-shaped in the next few minutes it would be better if she didn’t see his face. He made his way cautiously up the steps to the landing, where the racket of intercourse became much louder from the bedroom second on the right.

After checking the first bedroom and finding it empty, Rider stepped lightly to the next door, which was open. He adjusted the ski-mask and tried to control his breathing — and the urge to scream and run away, forget it all, become a hermit. He counted to three and twisted into the bedroom, gun in right hand, supported by the left.

They did not notice him enter, being far too preoccupied in their own world of thrusting and grunting.

The couple were on the bed, facing away from Rider. The woman was on her hands and knees, face buried into a pillow, groaning wildly and Munrow plunged himself into her from behind with no subtlety whatsoever. It looked like he was meting out some form of medieval torture as he grabbed her thighs with white knuckled fingers and jab-jab-jabbed into her. She didn’t seem to be complaining, meeting each of his rams with a powerful reverse thrust of her own. At the same time she was reaching backwards between Munrow’s legs, cupping and squeezing his balls in the palm of her hand.

Not that he was a good judge of such things, but Rider made an educated guess that Munrow was not a zillion miles away from his climax. Rider wondered if it would give him an even greater thrill with a gun poked in his ear.

He decided to find out.

Two strides and he was standing right behind the heaving Munrow whose arse flexed, tightened and relaxed each time he drove his cock into her.

Without warning Munrow emitted a rhino-like squeal which made Rider jump.

The reason for it was that the woman had reached further back than Munrow’s testicles and inserted the tip of her forefinger into his anus.

‘ Shove it in, baby,’ he hissed. She obliged. He let out a long ‘aaargh’ — somewhere around middle C — and responded by slamming his full length into her. Rider wished he’d thought to shove the gun up there instead of in his ear. That would have been a real wheeze. Alas, the opportunity had passed.

Instead he sidled up to Munrow and stuck the muzzle under his left ear and cocked the weapon with an ominous click which always seems much louder than it really is.

In mid-forward thrust, Munrow stepped on the brakes, came to a dead halt. He contorted his head round, eyes wide, knowing exactly what he was feeling behind his ear.

Rider put more pressure on and said, ‘Don’t stop.’

‘ Honey, what’s wrong?’ the woman said. She looked round and saw the hooded figure of Rider pressing a gun into her lover’s neck. She did what any normal person would have done: screamed and tried to wriggle free.

With his left hand, Rider grabbed the back of her neck and forced her face roughly down into the pillow, muffling the noise, suffocating her. He kept the gun pointed to Munrow’s head and said, ‘Shut it, you bitch, or I’ll blow his head off and then rape you in the blood.’

He hoped it sounded convincing. Personally he was not remotely taken in by the threat.

Munrow hadn’t moved.

Rider let go of the woman. She stayed where she was, ass in the air with Munrow stuck inside her. She started to shake and sob.

Suddenly Rider’s resolve petered out. There was no way he could bring himself to force Munrow to finish the job.

‘ OK Charlie, we’re gonna go for a ride. I suggest you come out of there, real slow-like — unless you want to take her along too.’

Munrow withdrew with a ‘plop’. To his credit, despite everything, his manhood towered majestically, sparklingly damp, up to his belly button.

He opened his mouth.

This was no place for a debate. Not wanting to miss the chance, Rider inserted the gun into that orifice. ‘Now then, Charlie,’ he growled dangerously, ‘this is a double-action revolver with the hammer cocked, so I don’t even have to pull the trigger, just touch it, and I’ll blow your fucking brains all over this pretty wallpaper. I want you to remember that because we’re going downstairs now with this gun stuck in your mouth, so you need to be very cooperative, otherwise you’ll be brain dead and she’ll be dickless. Get my point?’

Jacko jumped. The security lights at the front of the house came on as Rider and the naked Munrow came out of the door, down the steps and walked towards the car — an old Ford Granada, like something out of The Sweeney.

Jacko could see the gun stuck in Munrow’s gob.

Nausea ripped through the barman’s insides. ‘Oh shit,’ he breathed. He coaxed the gear lever into first, released the handbrake, then the clutch gently — but could not stop the van from kangarooing the first few metres as the engine and gearbox merged into one entity. One day he’d get the clutch fixed properly.

By the time he had pulled onto the driveway, Munrow had been forced unwillingly into the boot of the Granada which was akin to a freezer. Rider had slammed the lid down over his shivering body.

Ski-masked, gun in hand, Rider walked casually up to Jacko who wound his window down. ‘Follow me.’

‘ Where we going?’

‘ Fuck knows… just follow me.’

Rider got into the Granada and pulled the mask off. He slid that and the gun underneath the seat.

The car started first time.

From the boot he could hear Munrow’s muffled banging and shouting.

There was no going back now.

The real bad weather had hit London. Public transport was at a virtual standstill. Traffic hardly moved in the heavy snow.

Even so, the conscientious Karl Donaldson crawled into his office at 7.30 a.m., having left home at 5.00 a.m. in the Jeep.

Some faxes and correspondence had appeared on his desk overnight.

One of the faxes gave the result of the second autopsy on Sam Dawber.

It came to the same conclusion as the one performed on Madeira. Some more specks of human tissue had been found underneath her fingernails and was being DNA profiled. The bruising on her body was inconclusive.

‘ Goddam,’ he sighed, resigning himself even more to the fact that he would probably never be able to prove Sam had been murdered. His only hope was a lead from the tissue, but being a pessimist at heart, Donaldson doubted anything would come of it.

A large fat envelope underneath this fax was from the New York Office and contained a photocopy of everything the FBI had ever filed on Scott Hamilton. Donaldson shuffled the papers out onto his desk. The file was almost half an inch thick. He scanned through it quickly.

Hamilton’s main claim to fame was that he had trained as an accountant, had then been briefly jailed for skimming his employer’s profits, and moved on to handle the financial matters of a well-known New York hood — i.e. laundering money for him. The Feds and the DEA had blown the racket sky high. The hood had been jailed (and since escaped), but Hamilton evaded incarceration by the skin of his teeth.

He branched out into some classy white-collar crime, defrauding people who should have known better. Currency and commodity frauds were his favourites.

He had been caught for a tobacco scam which backfired when the buyers turned out to be Fibbies. In particular, one Samantha Jane Dawber.

So that was how she knew him, Donaldson thought.

Hamilton got eight months for that.

He was not considered big time, as in mafia terms, but he was wealthy and worth watching as his activities sometimes straddled state and international boundaries.

He also had a violent streak and was suspected of dealing with a rival in a fatal manner. Nothing was ever proven. He was also believed to be a fixer, arranging things for third parties such as burglaries. Again, this was only intelligence, not hard evidence.

Since his prison release for the tobacco scam, he had dropped out of sight. There was nothing on file for almost two years.

Except the FBI now knew where he was — Madeira, running a timeshare. Donaldson wondered what type of criminal activity the Jacaranda was fronting. He knew one thing for certain — it was going to be investigated ruthlessly.

He cast his eyes over the rap sheet for the cigarette fraud. Sam’s name was down as Case Officer. It was a good bust. One to be proud of.

She probably couldn’t believe her eyes when she spotted Hamilton on sleepy Madeira.

So why had she died?

Accident? Donaldson was convinced this was not right. More likely revenge for the jail sentence. Or had she stumbled across something more? And would he ever know? Probably fucking not.

The phone rang. He closed the file and answered it.

In days of yore, Rider would have known exactly where to take Munrow for a little chat.

Times change. He had no contacts to speak of any more, owned no suitable properties of his own, so was therefore forced to play it by ear.

After half an hour’s driving he was heading up a steep winding road against merciless snow, out of the border town of Todmorden towards Bacup.

Halfway up the hill he turned off the road onto a farm track, where he pulled up out of sight of the main road. There was no sound coming from the boot. He prayed that Munrow hadn’t died of hypothermia or inhaling exhaust fumes.

Jacko drew the Transit in behind.

Rider climbed out of the Granada and opened the boot. A shivering, numb Munrow lay curled up in the foetal position, arms folded tightly around his knees which were drawn up to his chest. He looked up at Rider, full of hate.

Rider produced the gun. He reached for Munrow’s arm and heaved him out. He pushed the naked man roughly towards the back of the Transit, opened the doors and forced him in, climbing in behind, squatting on his haunches, gun held loosely. With immense satisfaction Rider saw that the huge throbbing erection had shrivelled to sub-acorn size. Now Rider didn’t feel quite so threatened.

‘ Get out, pal,’ Rider ordered Jacko. ‘Go sit in the car.’

There was no need to tell him twice. He was gone in a flash, leaving Rider and Munrow alone.

Munrow’s whole body was shaking with the cold. His skin had turned ice-blue. His teeth chattered audibly.

‘ I’ve brought you here for two reasons,’ Rider said, giving the impression this was a pre-planned halt. In truth, he was winging it.

‘ Which are?’ his captive managed to stutter.

‘ So you are obliged to listen to what I say and know I’m not bullshitting.’

‘ Why the fuck should I listen to you?’

‘ Your own interests, Charlie boy. I mean to make a point and doing it this way is the only way you’ll take it seriously.’

‘ Get fucking talking then.’

‘ OK. I don’t give a monkey’s ass about what’s going on between you and Conroy. I’m not involved, never was, never will be. Your guys saw me with him because he wanted something from me, not because we’re in business together. Understand?’

‘ You shot one of ‘em.’

‘ Self-defence,’ Rider said quietly.

‘ Don’t believe you.’

‘ Your choice, Charlie. But think about this. If I was with Conroy, do you honestly think we’d be having this conversation right now, especially after your two goons beat the shite out of me the other night? Your head would be in pieces and they wouldn’t find you until the snow melted… would they?’

Rider raised his eyebrows.

Rider wasn’t sure whether he succeeded with Munrow. The other man could merely have been conning him just to get out of an awkward situation.

In the end, Rider had two choices — to kill him, or let him go and see what happened.

Rider always knew he would choose the latter. Just to make a point and ensure that Munrow realised Rider was no soft touch, he threw the Granada ignition key into a field adjacent to the lane where it disappeared in a snowdrift. He left Munrow standing there stark naked in the middle of nowhere, mouthing obscenities at him as Jacko reversed the van out of the lane, back onto the main road.

The man who only hours before had orchestrated vicious attacks on three nightclubs, now found himself helpless and freezing, scrambling over a dry stone wall into the field to search for his key.

A humiliation he would never forget for as long as he lived.

Henry’s heart went cold because he recognised the voice on the other end of the telephone line immediately.

Superintendent Guthrie. Discipline and Complaints.

Allegedly the most ruthless bastard they had in that department. A man, it was said, who dedicated his life to prosecuting police officers, who investigated each complaint with fervour. A cop who loved screwing other coppers.

‘ Henry. Need to come and see you. Have a bit of a chat. Think you know what it’s about,’ Guthrie said affably in the clipped way he spoke.

‘ Shane Mulcahy?’

‘ Spot on. You working Saturday — say three-thirty p.m.?’

No, I’ll be in South America by then, Henry wanted to say. ‘Yes,’ he replied meekly.

‘ Good. See you in your office then. Bye.’

‘ Bye, sir,’ croaked Henry. He replaced the receiver. A bead of sweat trickled irritatingly down his forehead. His hands trembled ever so slightly. The investigation process had begun.

He refocused his mind. There was a busy day ahead.

The team investigating Derek Luton’s death were parading on at ten. Ronnie Veevers, the Detective Superintendent assigned to run the case, would not be arriving until noon. Henry was required to kick-start the job.

After this he wanted to see how the officers dealing with Marie Cullen’s murder were progressing and to warn them about McNamara making smells at a higher level. Henry dearly wanted to arrest the man but knew that, at the moment, there was nothing to connect him to her murder, other than gut feeling. Which would not stand up in court.

Then he needed to know the current position of other enquiries. Dundaven was in the cells on a three-day lie-down and needed to be interviewed with a purpose.

And maybe, if he could find time, he’d look into the shooting of Boris, the gorilla, and dig deeper into John Rider, see what he could unearth.

Lots to do. Not much time to do it in.

Firstly he called the hospital.

Nina had pulled through after a fraught night when they thought they were going to lose her. She had not regained consciousness, but showed slight improvement. She would undergo another operation today.

The news made Henry feel better and put his own problems into perspective.

The zoo told him Boris was much better too. But still in a real bad mood.

A cup of coffee was placed down on his desk. Henry spun round in his chair to see two smiling Chief Superintendents — FB and Tony Morton. They both looked smug, pleased with themselves — rather as if they were in co-hoots.

‘ Morning, Henry,’ they said.

‘ Sirs.’

‘ Got some good news and some good news for you. Which do you want first?’ Morton asked, beaming.

‘ I’ll start with the good news.’