Hidden Witness (14 page)

‘Like I said, you're full of shit. A liar.'

Donaldson unfolded the sheet of A4 paper he'd been keeping under his hands, then revealed its contents to Fazil. ‘If you want, I can stop this happening to you.' He showed him the photographs he'd printed off of a very dead Rosario Petrone.

Actually, Karl Donaldson did not know for certain if Fazil would be a serious target in the ongoing reprisals that were still happening in the world of the Camorra. Fazil was a bit player, nothing more than a gofer, and it would not have surprised Donaldson if he'd been forgotten in the grand scheme of tit-for-tat killings, especially as he'd seen sense and kept his head down after the shootings in Majorca.

But that didn't stop Donaldson from scaring the living crap out of him and manipulating him to come across.

The other truth was that Fazil probably knew little about the assassin, known as ‘The American'. Fazil would have been employed solely to source and drop a weapon for the American's use. But this had put him in a position in which he would have seen the killer, would have had chance to scrutinize him and therefore be able to give the most detailed description yet, something the FBI was woefully missing, despite what the nervous waiter had seen. Wringing Fazil dry would be very useful, if only Donaldson could get under his skin. He wasn't completely hopeful of success. Fazil would be more afraid of Camorra repercussions than anything Donaldson could lob at him. But the FBI man was reluctant to let him go.

Fazil
had
been at the scene of the murders. He had seen the American, he was part of the set up, and that was more than anything Donaldson had so far. Fazil was also a useful source of intelligence about organized crime in Europe, so Donaldson wasn't about to let that go either.

It was a very complex situation, and as Donaldson ambled back up the cell corridor to the prisoner reception area, his mind somersaulted with it all. He walked alongside a gaoler who had just put Fazil back in a new cell in the otherwise empty female wing of the complex. He was told that this was because murder charges were going to be put to Fazil and all suspected killers were kept isolated from other inmates if possible. Fazil would be put before a magistrate in the morning and then, once he was in the judicial system proper, there was little Donaldson could do, or promise, after that.

Once enmeshed therein, Donaldson had much less clout.

He nodded at the gaoler, then walked past the desk sergeant who watched him leave with shifty eyes. Donaldson stepped through a security door into the public foyer of the police station and paused in deep thought, trying to work out the angles. He had to offer something to Fazil that would tip him over the edge. But what?

His brain hurt. He was tired. He wanted to go home. He wanted a drink. He wanted to go to sleep. Not necessarily in that order. A devilish part of him also wanted to knock on the door of the next hotel room and get laid whilst watching porn and drinking champagne, but that was one thing that would not happen. Certainly not to the ultra conservative and very faithful hound dog that was Karl Donaldson, no matter what the state of his marriage was.

Maybe, he thought, bunching up his fists, maybe just one last stab at Fazil. Put his cards on the table. Admit that one of the dead men was an undercover FBI agent. Let Fazil gloat over that. Admit he was desperate to catch the killer. Then offer him a good package in return for good information. Promise him immunity from prosecution, both from the Maltese and Spanish authorities. Then offer good money and relocation. And then tell the Turkish bastard that if he didn't come across, he would definitely see to it that word got out that Fazil was an informer, even if he wasn't. Then see how long he lived.

Sounded like a plan. Or the last refuge of a scoundrel.

Donaldson looked across at the enquiry desk. It was choc-a-bloc with members of the public. Normally, the constable on duty behind it would have buzzed him back through, but he was harassed, so Donaldson turned back to the door and tapped in the entry code himself. Any self-respecting FBI agent always sneaked a look and remembered keypad codes if at all possible whilst being escorted through buildings. The officer who had first shown him into this police station hadn't been particularly security conscious, and Donaldson had seen and easily digested the four digit entry code – just in case.

It opened, he stepped back in, made his way along the corridor and trotted down the steps leading to the underground cell complex, then through another secure door (keypad entry code remembered) into the prisoner reception area. There was a door leading to an outer yard off an underground car park that prisoners were brought in from. Then there was another door to the cells behind the charge office desk and two other doors, one into an office and another to a set of stairs leading to another part of the building.

Donaldson smelled cordite as soon as he entered the prisoner reception area. He came alert, because of all the odours in such areas, that was one that should not be present. There was no one at the custody desk. Donaldson approached it and peered over, also noting that the barred gate to the cells was open. Usually it was kept locked. Maybe the sergeant was making his rounds. Donaldson knew there were about four other prisoners in custody besides Fazil. They were listed on the big whiteboard on the wall behind the desk. None were in for anything as serious as Fazil. He also noticed that Fazil's name had been transferred from his original cell into the one on the female wing, which consisted of only two cells separated from the rest of the otherwise male dominated complex. Putting a male into a female cell was usually only done as a last resort, generally when cells were full to overflowing, although a man and a woman never shared a cell under any circumstances. Looking at the board, Donaldson was a little confused, though. He understood that it may be policy to keep murderers apart from other prisoners, but there was actually plenty of room on the male side and Fazil could easily have been separated from the others without shoving him into a female cell.

Donaldson stepped behind the reception desk, which was a chest-high counter at which prisoners were presented on arrival at the station.

He almost tripped over the man's protruding legs.

The body of the station sergeant was jammed up against the bottom edge of the counter, which explained why Donaldson hadn't seen anything when he'd looked over a few seconds earlier.

It also explained the whiff of cordite.

‘Shit.' Donaldson twisted down to his haunches and saw that the man, who not many minutes earlier had given him a suspicious look, was now dead, two bullets having torn off the upper left quadrant of his skull. A puddle of bright blood was growing under the poor man's head and shoulders.

Following his next expletive, Donaldson rose quickly to his full height as everything slotted into place. He stepped through the barred gate into the cell corridor, his right hand automatically going to his left armpit to touch the gun that wasn't there. He hadn't carried a firearm as a matter of course for over ten years, but still missed it dreadfully. Especially when he needed it.

Straight ahead was the male cell corridor. Through a door to the left was the female cell corridor. Donaldson pushed open this door, which was unlocked – and should not have been. Even though there were only two cells down here, it was still a long, dank passageway, angling downwards, poorly lit by flickering fluorescent tubes. The cracked concrete floor sloped unevenly away. The two cells faced each other at the far end.

Both cell doors appeared to be open from what he could see.

He swallowed. His throat dried up as a pulse of adrenaline gushed into his system. His heart thumped and the track of the bullet that had nearly killed him in Barcelona burned. He took four quick steps, tensing. He heard something from one the cell on the right – Fazil's cell. A scuffling noise. A gasp. A thud. A groan.

He flattened himself against the wall and edged down the corridor silently.

There was a scraping noise.

He was perhaps ten feet from the door now, teeth gritted, trying to keep his courage, wondering if the face-to-face confrontation he'd had with an armed terrorist had sapped him of it.

Then a man appeared at the cell door, turning cautiously into the corridor, wearing a full face mask, a pistol fitted with a bulbous silencer in his hands, holding it up in front of his masked face.

Donaldson forgot all doubts about courage. He reacted as he'd been taught to.

In spite of the man's caution, he clearly hadn't expected anyone to be in the corridor and Donaldson's presence jarred him, but only briefly. However, that nanosecond of hesitation was the opportunity Donaldson needed. He launched himself low and hard into the man's torso, driving him back with the force of an American footballer. He forced all the breath out of the guy as the two men smashed against the wall. Donaldson reared up and knocked the gun out of the man's hand with his right forearm. It skittered across the floor.

But whilst he might well have knocked the wind out of him, the gunman was not beaten that easily. He came at Donaldson with a raging ferocity and the contest became a primal fight for survival. He hit hard, accurately; Donaldson responded, instantly aware the man was hard, dangerous and knew how to fight.

They rolled around the tight corridor.

The man landed a vicious punch on the side of Donaldson's head, sending a shockwave through his brain. He went blank and staggered away, but his senses returned almost immediately and he came back at the man with a growl of anger.

There was nothing heroic or beautiful about this contest.

Donaldson felt his nose go. Blood splashed. His fist connected with the man's cheekbone. It crunched and broke.

Then they were wrestling, rolling through the open cell door, chest to chest. Donaldson could smell the man's hot garlic breath, felt the man's knee jerking up, trying to connect with his balls and crush them. And suddenly the man was on top, straddling Donaldson's chest. His powerful gloved hands took a vice-like grip around his neck and squeezed as Donaldson squirmed desperately under him. His eyes bulged, his windpipe was being crushed.

Instead of trying to wrench his fingers free, Donaldson made a V-shape with his own arms and shot the point up between the man's arms, broke the grip, then chopped down on the man's neck with the hard sides of both hands. It was a powerful, double-edged karate-style chop that knocked the man to one side, giving Donaldson the chance to roll sideways – straight up against Fazil's dead body that lay along the cell floor behind the door. Like the desk sergeant, he'd been killed by a double-tap to the head and for an instant his and Donaldson's faces were inches apart, almost nose to nose, but the FBI agent didn't have time to be shocked.

The attacker was off him. Now he had to somehow regain the advantage by getting to his feet. He did this in a fluid, well-practised motion, rising before the other man could regain his senses.

He kicked him hard in the side of his head, knocking his face out of shape.

It was going to be over now.

Donaldson towered over him, a position from which he had never lost a fight.

Unless someone came up behind him and crashed a baton across the back of his head, sending him into brain-spin land. A searing pain shot across his head, fired down his spine, his legs went weak, he staggered, attempted to turn, but another blow to the head came from his new attacker. He slumped stupidly against the wall, trying to hold himself up, but he slithered down to on to his backside. His head lolled and his fuzzy vision looked at Fazil's dead eyes. Then his own eyes rolled upwards in their sockets and everything went black.

EIGHT

H
enry 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.