A Time For Justice (53 page)

Within moments he was asleep.

The interview room had three chairs and a sturdy table with a
tape recorder on it. Janine was sitting on one of the chairs with
her elbows on the table, hands held loosely over the sides of her
face and ears. Henry sat down opposite her. Donaldson remained
standing, arms folded, like a sentry.

Henry placed an unopened pack of tapes on the table, together
with a sealed plastic bag containing the drugs seized from her.
‘Janine, we’d like to have a chat with you.’ He spoke softly,
seductively.

‘
Who the hell are you?’ she demanded.

‘
We’re here to help you.’ Henry noticed, with pleasure, that
her hands were shaking. She was coming down.

‘
I’m up shit creek,’ she said. ‘I’ll go down for this -
importing or whatever. You can’t do fuck-all for me.’

‘
Oh yes, we can,’ countered Henry. ‘But you’ve got to help us
first. You see, this isn’t a recorded interview.’ He held up the
unopened tapes. ‘It’s totally off the record.’

She gazed defiantly at him. ‘Oh yeah?’ she said
disbelievingly. ‘So what can you do?’

‘
Two things actually,’ Henry said, matter-of-fact. ‘First we
can give you a fix - I can see you need one - and the custody
officer needn’t know about it; secondly, we can get all the charges
against you dropped.’

Her eyes seemed to come alive. ‘Are you taking the
piss?’

‘
Trust me, Janine, we have the power. All you need to do is
answer some questions. When you’ve done that, we’ll slip you a fix.
When we’ve verified what you say is correct, we’ll arrange for you
to be released without charge.’

He paused, letting his words sink in, then resumed, his voice
hard: ‘Thing is, if you don’t cooperate, Janine, you’ll get no
smack and we will push hard for a custodial sentence. Just think -
five years in prison, a lovely girl like you. We’ll tell the court
what a bitch you were - obstructive, violent, all that sort of
shit. Get the drift? So, you can come out of this a winner or a
loser. Choice is yours, babe.’

‘
What do you want to know?’

It was 4.15 a.m. when Dave August awoke. He felt terrible. He
needed to wash his face and gargle with a minty mouthwash, which he
did at the washbasin in his little sleeping annexe next to the
office.

As he dried his face he looked at the camp bed. It hadn’t seen
much activity since Karen had left him. Bitch. Served her right.
Without a shred of conscience, nor even the merest idea that he
might have committed rape - after all, how could it have been rape
after she’d let him fuck her all those times before? - he strolled
back into his office, feeling more or less ‘with it’.

The files on his desk were in disarray. He straightened them
up and turned back to the one he’d been reading just prior to
falling asleep.

As he skimmed through it again, feeling much more alert, he
came across an old 1974 descriptive form - a piece of police bumf
that is completed when someone is arrested - which related to a man
called Dakin. August wasn’t too sure about Dakin’s role in the
scheme of things (Chief Constables only ever want to know the wider
picture not the ins and outs of investigations), and he wasn’t too
bothered. He speed-read the form without undue interest. It was an
old-style form from Strathclyde police in Scotland, containing much
more detail than the newer forms, even down to the colour of
Dakin’s socks.

August was about to add it to the pile when he paused.
Something was triggered in his mind.

Firstly, it was a Scottish form. Interesting.

There was something else too, but he wasn’t sure
what.

He read it again, slowly. The officer who had filled it in had
been very thorough, even to the point of describing and drawing the
tattoo which Dakin had on the back of his left hand. It was in the
shape of a heart with a skull superimposed on it.

August stared at the little drawing. His mind swirled back.
The factory floor. The shotgun rammed into his neck. His face
pressed into the floor, eyes tightly closed except for one
millisecond when he’d squinted upwards and seen...

Heart and skull.

And the man with the tattooed hand had a Scottish accent. Time
to find out more about Lenny Dakin.

‘
Do you actually have the power to do what you said?’
Donaldson asked Henry. ‘Getting the charges dropped?’

They were back on the M6 motorway, speeding north, Henry at
the wheel.

‘
Probably not,’ admitted Henry. ‘But I did get some smack to
her and I’ll do my best. If I can’t pull anything off, so what?
She’s just a junkie. I won’t be too concerned.’

‘
You’re all heart,’ said Donaldson with a short laugh. ‘By the
way, do you always break the rules? That interview wasn’t really
legit, was it?’

They both cracked up laughing.

‘
We don’t ever break the rules in the States,’ Donaldson went
on. ‘We can’t afford to.’

‘
Neither can we,’ said Henry bleakly.

The consequences of what he’d just done were too horrendous to
contemplate if it came out. He’d lose his job and probably get
prosecuted for supplying controlled drugs to a person in custody. A
very serious offence. A very serious understatement.

He hoped that both Janine and the airport detective would keep
quiet about it. Realistically, though, he knew it was probably too
much to hope for.

They passed the turn-off to Blackpool and stayed on the M6. In
less than fifteen minutes they’d be back at Lancaster.

‘
What d’ya reckon to all that blabbering about screwing your
Chief Constable?’ Donaldson yawned.

‘
Puzzles me,’ said Henry. ‘Perhaps it’s one of her
fantasies.’

‘
I wouldn’t put anything past him,’ said Donaldson.

‘
Which reminds me,’ said Henry. ‘What’s happening about that
... business between him and Karen?’

‘
It’s in the pipeline. That’s all I can say.’

By 6.15 a.m. everyone was assembled in the gymnasium at
Lancaster police station in readiness for a briefing.

All the detectives involved in the ‘escape’ enquiry were
there, wearing scruffy clothes as requested, together with a
heavily armed firearms team, dog-handlers and uniformed Support
Unit officers. Also present was the Superintendent in charge of the
division and a couple of communications operators.

Henry, Donaldson, Karen and FB were at the front of the room.
Donaldson and FB kept a healthy distance between each other,
despite FB’s apparent acceptance of Karen now, he and Donaldson
still did not see eye to eye. The American tended to bear grudges
for a long time, especially where women and their treatment were
concerned.

Henry gazed with mounting excitement tinged with trepidation
at the tired but expectant faces in front of him.
This was it.
Somehow he
knew it in his guts. This was going to be the real thing. No way
could it turn out to be a wild-goose chase.

Karen had been tasked to do the briefing. When she asked for
quiet, the room hushed immediately.

‘
Good morning, everyone. Thanks for turning out at such short
notice. We are very impressed by your eagerness and I think that it
will be rewarded today.

‘
OK. . . we all know about the escape from custody of a man
called James Clarkson Hinksman three days ago after he’d been found
guilty of the M6 bombing and the murders of several police officers
and others. The escape was perpetrated by a ruthless professional
gang who specialise in such jobs. It involved incredible violence,
leaving many of our colleagues dead for no good reason. Obviously
since then we have been working at full tilt to recapture Hinksman
and apprehend this violent team.

‘
It’s no secret that netting the team will be a long and
difficult process as we believe they’ve probably dispersed abroad
by now. However, with regard to Hinksman we have had a major
breakthrough. This is why you’re all here this morning.’

A murmur went round the room. Karen allowed it to settle
before continuing.

‘
As most of you know, DS Christie and I have headed the part
of the investigation aimed specifically at Hinksman. This morning
DS Christie and Special Agent Donaldson of the FBI - who has been
working closely with us on this - have received some Class A
information which leads us to believe two things. Firstly, Hinksman
is still in Lancashire. Secondly, he’s going to leave the country
today. We know how and where, but we don’t exactly know when, other
than it’s today sometime. So I’ll warn you now, this could be a
very long day, but I’m confident that at the end of it we’ll have a
result. Any questions so far?’

There were none. But there were plenty of smiles on plenty of
faces.

On the wall behind Karen was a large-scale map of Lancaster
and its environs. She stepped to one side and turned to
it.

‘
The information we have received today is this...’

She pointed to the map and began to reveal the police
operation that had been hastily put together.

Dave August had everything from the Lancashire police files on
Lenny Dakin: intelligence reports, photographs, more up-to-date
descriptions, known associates, suspected involvement in crime,
estimated wealth etc. There were copies of several surveillance
operations which had been run jointly between Lancashire and other
forces, but all these had been unsuccessful. He was a very careful
man, very surveillance-conscious. One detective referred to him as
the ‘canny Scot’.

So, pondered August, he was a big-time criminal, of that there
was no doubt. He read through an intelligence report submitted by
Henry Christie, reporting that Dakin had picked up the American
gangster Corelli at Manchester Airport. Christie surmised that the
two were in cahoots, probably planning ways to bring drugs into the
country. He also surmised that Dakin had probably set up Danny
Carver and Jason Brown to meet their deaths at the hand of Hinksman
- but he had no evidence to back that up.

He may be Mr Big, August thought, but more importantly, this
morning I have identified him as the man behind everything that has
gone wrong with my life recently. This is the bastard who preyed on
my weakness and exploited it.

When August’s secretary Jean came in, he realised, much to his
surprise, that it was 8 a.m. He was still sat there in the uniform
he’d been wearing for the last twenty-four hours. He needed a shave
and a shower.

Jean had a worried look on her face.

She walked across to August’s desk and placed a newspaper on
top of what he was reading.

‘
I think you should see this, sir,’ she said without a smile.
‘And there’s a journalist outside asking to see you, an American
called Lisa Want.’ She spun round and left.

August frowned. This was not a newspaper he had ever read or
would ever consider reading. It was complete trash.

Then the headlines hit him.

Chief Constable In Sex-And-Drug Orgy With Hooker!

‘
Oh my God,’ he groaned.

A grainy colour photograph on the front page showed him facing
the camera, standing naked with a woman kneeling in front of him.
Her face and breasts, his privates and buttocks had been blacked
out with a thick line, but the ecstasy on his face was horribly
clear. It was a still taken from the video.

The article accompanying it was written by Lisa Want - again
on ‘special assignment’. Readers were invited to turn to the centre
pages for more sensational photographs and a transcript of the
soundtrack.

With a heartbeat increased to epic proportions and a quivering
hand to match, Dave August did just that. His world, which was
crumbling away, began to avalanche down a precipitous
mountainside.

And there would be more to come.

He looked out of his window towards the sports field. The day
was overcast, clouds grey. Big spats of rain slapped loudly onto
the panes.

The phone started to ring.

Both Henry Christie and Karl Donaldson received phone calls
after the briefing which unsettled them. They were summoned down to
the communications room on the floor below the gym and took their
calls at the same time, but from different extensions.

Karen, standing in a position between the two, watched their
reactions to whatever the news was.

‘
Daddy?’

Henry immediately recognised his eldest daughter’s voice and
the strained tone which accompanied even that single
word.

‘
Hi Jenny, what’s the matter, sweetheart?’

‘
I don’t know, Daddy.’

He could hear fear in her voice.

‘
What d’you mean, you don’t know?’ he asked, keeping his own
voice purposely light. He sensed something catastrophic was wrong.
It wasn’t like Jenny to phone him at all; she usually tagged onto
Leanne’s calls.