A Time For Justice (3 page)

The reporter was talking excitedly into his mike as he
approached. Henry recognised him from TV. The crew stopped in front
of Henry and the ambulanceman, blocking their way.

The reporter spoke dramatically into the mike.
‘Detective-Sergeant Christie, you and your partner struggled in
vain to rescue the children trapped in the Minibus. How do you
feel, knowing that they’ve almost certainly perished?’

He thrust the mike into Henry’s face.

How do I feel?
Henry asked himself.
He explored his body and mind for an answer.
Numb. Frustrated. Useless.
Emotions
tumbled through him like a pack of cards being shuffled and
suddenly they all welled up into one: anger.

His eyes blazed. ‘Parasite!’ he yelled, knocking the mike out
of the reporter’s grasp and lunging at him. He grabbed him in a
clinch, as if they were dancing partners and shoved him backwards
down the riverbank.

The reporter tried desperately to balance himself ... but
failed. He teetered, then fell into the mud with a loud
scream.

Henry turned to the cameraman who had recorded the incident.
The man backed off.

Henry was about to say something, but in a flash of clarity he
recognised the stupidity of his actions and the possible future
repercussions.

Silently he walked over to the ambulance and was helped
inside.

Hinksman held the phone away from his ear. Over 3000 miles
separated him from the voice on the end of the line, but Corelli
still managed to boom with a force that could burst an
eardrum.

Hinksman let him shout. Mr Corelli was entitled. He was the
boss.

As the tirade began to subside, Hinksman re-entered the
conversation. ‘The FBI are here too, for some reason - and I don’t
like it,’ he said.

‘
I’ll look into it,’ Corelli promised, which meant he’d get
some information from his highly placed, and highly priced, mole at
the Bureau.

‘
So what do you want me to do?’ Hinksman asked finally,
although he already knew the answer.

‘
I paid you to do a job. You ain’t done it yet. So go finish
it, Sonny.’

Chapter Two

Following the bomb on the motorway, the casualty bureau at
Lancashire Constabulary’s force headquarters near Preston was
staffed to its maximum and working at full stretch. A barrage of
phone calls from all over the country clogged up the specially
installed switchboard.

A squad of officers - sweating, ties removed - noted down
details of relatives, friends and lovers who hadn’t returned or
called home. They reassured callers, promised to phone back, passed
on the details to be cross-checked and answered the next
one.

The dry-wipe boards on the walls told their grim
stories.

Descriptions of bodies, clothing, vehicles. Names of the
injured; those who could talk, those who couldn’t, their
descriptions and their condition.

Twenty-two people were confirmed dead so far - not including
the kids on the bus. They had a dry-wipe board all to themselves.
Nine kids, two social workers and the driver. Twelve extra - all
either dead or missing. Six bodies had been recovered from the
river by divers; two were still trapped inside the Minibus -
undoubtedly dead. Specialist lifting gear was awaited. It was
believed that the four missing bodies had been thrown from the bus
and washed away down the river. The Support Unit was now searching
the riverbanks, but there was little hope.

Of the other twenty-two, twelve still remained
unidentified.

Since the bombing had hit the national news the bureau had
logged over 1500 calls, and they were still coming in thick and
fast. Many people were late home; their families feared the worst
but they were simply stuck in the horrendous traffic jams which
blocked the motorway for over twenty miles in both
directions.

The Chief Constable, Dave August, listened to the way his
officers handled the calls. He did not envy them their job. He had
no desire to talk to distraught relatives. He had neither the
patience nor the compassion.

Earlier he had visited the accident site by helicopter, but
had quickly delegated the scene management to one of his ACCs. His
job was back here at HQ, coordinating, overseeing -
panicking.

In one corner of the room a news cameraman and a reporter –
not the man who had accosted Henry Christie - had set up their
equipment. The camera slowly panned the room. August made his way
over to them and prepared to be interviewed.

He was in full uniform, with gold braid and sharp creases. He
was the captain at the helm, steering the ship, reassuring crew and
passengers alike. Secretly he’d always wanted to be an
admiral.

The arc light came on and a make-up girl dabbed at the shine
on his nose. He stepped forward in front of the camera - which,
incidentally, loved him.

Next to him, one pace to his right and slightly behind, but
making sure she was in camera shot, stood his aide, Chief Inspector
Karen Wilde. Karen wielded a great deal of influence over her boss.
Not yet thirty years old, she was a graduate entry to the force -
biochemistry being her subject - who had milked the system for all
it was worth. She was alleged to be a ruthless manipulator who
would sleep with anyone, male or female, of any rank, who could do
her good. Part of her myth - an accusation often levelled at
career-minded females in the police - was that she’d been afraid of
working the streets as a Constable during her two-year probation.
She was supposed to have avoided this unpleasantness by long bouts
of sickness, suddenly regaining full health once the probationary
period was over and Bramshill Police College beckoned her to the
fast track.

Like most myths, the one surrounding Karen Wilde was a
combination of truth, lies and stereotyping from jealous male
officers who hated the competition.

She had been married twice, briefly; her dedication to self
advancement had left both husbands gasping for air. It would not be
long before her next promotion, and it was widely speculated she
could become one of the few women to attain ACPO rank in the
country. To make this a reality, her first priority was to ensure
that Dave August got the Home Office Inspectorate post he so
desired. With him there, pushing for her, the journey upwards would
be very much smoother. Ten years tops, she calculated. She did a
lot of calculating.

The Chief concluded his interview and turned to her. ‘Well,
how was I?’ he whispered.

She fluttered her eyelashes at him. ‘You performed well, sir,’
as always, she said cheekily. ‘However, the shipping metaphors were
rather OTT.’

‘
When the day is done,’ he said, ‘I’ll be docking in your
harbour.’

‘
Wanna bet?’ she said, and spun away.

Out on the motorway it was getting dark and cold. A wind had
begun to howl. The carriageways were still blocked but traffic had
started to move sluggishly now that diversions were slowly coming
into effect.

Tomorrow the scene would undergo a fingertip search by
specialised police, Army and forensic teams. The estimate was that
motorway would be closed for up to forty-eight hours while that
carried out. A major fuck-up, traffic-wise.

Not that Special Agent Donaldson nor Detective Chief Inspector
McClure gave a toss about that. They were too busy trying to find
out if Danny Carver was dead or alive.

Having confirmed that he hadn’t caught the Miami flight from
Manchester, they concluded that the bomb must have gone off beneath
the limousine that the hotel staff had seen him get
into.

The problem was that they couldn’t find the
Daimler.

Both men stood on the hard shoulder of the motorway looking at
the scrapheap-from-hell of vehicles littering the carriageways.
They were not allowed to go any closer, the whole scene having been
cordoned off. The centre of the area was a crater in the road
surface some thirty feet in diameter, two feet deep. Smoke
continued to rise from it.

Sipping sweet strong tea provided by the mobile canteen, they
were glad of the warmth the liquid provided. Their stylish suits
and thin shirts offered scant protection against a wind that
whipped in fast and bitter from the Irish Sea.

In one hand McClure held a list of vehicles which creased in
the wind as he tried to read it.

No Daimler listed on it.

No Daimler to be seen on the road.

The official line at the moment stated that this was a sick
terrorist attack aimed at killing the maximum number of innocent
people, disrupting the economic infrastructure. In the absence of
the Daimler, McClure tended to agree with the assumption - even
though the main suspects, the IRA, hotly denied all responsibility.
It was true, he agreed, that this sort of thing would do the IRA
cause no good whatsoever. . .

So where was the Daimler?

It hadn’t turned up in Manchester at any of the usual haunts
that were currently under surveillance.

Puzzling.

‘
Maybe they split up because they knew we were watching them
and they’ve met up somewhere else,’ McClure ruminated.

‘
Naw, I ain’t having that,’ drawled Donaldson. ‘This is too
mud a coincidence - all this and the word that Corelli had put a
contract out on Carver. Then there was that guy back at the hotel.
I know that face, I’m sure I do.’

They each took a sip of tea. It was burning hot. Blue and red
light flashed with greater intensity as the night crept in. Mobile
floodlights lit up the scene eerily.

‘
Perhaps there’s nothing left of it,’ McClure suggested. ‘It
might be here in front of us, in a billion fragments.’

‘
Naw.’

Another pause. A cold gust of wind made them shiver. Then a
thought hit each man at the same time.

‘
It’s in the river!’ they said in unison.

They threw down their paper cups and made for the mobile
control room which had been set up about a mile away from the scene
of the explosion.

A glorified caravan with radio and telephone equipment, an
inbuilt console and a toilet, the control room was a bustle of
activity. People went in and out. Radios blared. Messages were
passed. Action was taken. It was a warm place, a haven of comfort
in an increasingly cold night.

The ACC (Personnel) sat by one of the radio operators looking
glum and tired. It had been a long day and it would be an even
longer night. Times like this he wished he’d retired years
ago.

He glanced up as Donaldson and McClure knocked and
entered.

By the time the three men reached the riverbank, the crane was
lifting the sad remains of the Minibus out of the water. It gushed
like a sponge. The body of a child hung limply out of one of the
broken windows. The crane jolted. The body was dislodged and
dropped back into the water.

A police diver, treading water nearby, grabbed it before it
was washed away.

Slowly the arm of the crane moved round and deposited the bus
on safe ground. A swarm of rescue workers moved towards it like
ants.

The ACC, clearly upset, wiped his eyes and blew his nose.
After pulling himself together he went to speak to the diving
team.

Two hours later they located the Daimler. The crane hauled its
remnants out of the Ribble and dumped them on the bank. There was
very little left of it to identify. There was nothing left of the
occupants at all.

Henry Christie tottered unsteadily through the crowded
Accident and Emergency Department of Preston Royal Infirmary.
Although the casualties had been split between three other
hospitals - Blackpool, Lancaster and Blackburn - even now, six
hours later, the staff were still having difficulty
coping.

Henry had not even reached a treatment room yet; they were all
occupied. He had seen some distressing sights ... people with both
legs blown to tatters, horrendous head wounds. He felt guilty to be
sitting there with just a cut head.

Eventually he had been stitched up by a harassed nurse who
looked no older than his teenage daughter. Henry pitied her. She
told him to come back for an X-ray in a couple of days and pointed
him at the exit.

He looked pretty bad with his head partly shaved and eight
stitches in a wound which seeped blood. His eyes were dark and
circled, his skin pale and sickly, his clothes dry now, but
crumpled and dirty. What he needed more than anything else was a
drink - something very alcoholic.

As ever, Terry was ahead of him, sitting in the back of the
traffic car detailed to take them home. His hand was in plaster and
his demeanour reflected Henry’s.

They were driven home by a traffic PC who sensed that any
conversation would be less than beneficial to his
health.

Eventually, Henry said, ‘I lost my gun in the
river.’

‘
Me, too,’ said Terry.

These were the only words spoken on the journey.