Hidden Witness (19 page)

Then another two shots ripped through at head height.

And the neighbour screamed again.

And in a parallel mind-thought, Donaldson was glad that Vanessa had witnessed this. There was no way now she'd want to have sex with him.

Having worked in Blackpool on and off for many years, Henry was used to dealing with gay men. He hoped he always treated them with courtesy, consideration and fairness. Most of the ones he'd encountered were generally well balanced blokes with a slightly effeminate touch, very unaffected and straightforward. There were those, however, who were completely off the counter, at the far end of the stereotypical scale and would have been booed off stages.

‘Well,' the manager of the clothing store known as Lucio's said, clasping his hands together, ‘the thing is this,' He spoke with a slight lisp and a wave of the hand. ‘I wasn't worried when he didn't show up this morning, because he doesn't keep regular hours, but when he didn't show up this afternoon I got a bit concerned.' He pursed his lips, gave Henry a once up and down, did the same with Rik and liked what he saw, his eyes bulging at the sight. Rik reddened and tugged his collar. Henry smirked. The manager's lips pursed more tightly and could have even been a kiss. He tore his eyes from the younger of the two detectives and brought his attention back to Henry, who he clearly did not find attractive. Henry could see it in his eyes. Maybe he was just too rugged. ‘Then I heard on the radio about the murder and even though there was no name mentioned, I got to thinking. The description sounded a bit like Mr Casarsa.' He shook his head. ‘I mean, I've no reason to think it was Mr Casarsa,' – he pronounced the name as ‘Cathartha' – ‘but I was worried by his non-appearance so I called in, just in case.' He clasped his hands together again. ‘I hope I haven't inconvenienced you.'

‘No, Mr Gooden, you haven't,' Henry assured him.

They were in Lucio's. It had closed for business and they were on the shop floor, near the till by the front door. Henry glanced at the stock, the displays of footwear, clothing and jewellery. Most of it had names he recognized and it all looked good quality stuff. But Henry wondered . . .

Alex Bent hadn't arrived, but was expected soon.

Henry said, ‘We haven't formally identified the dead man as yet, and I don't want to jump to any conclusions, but from the description you've given me it sounds like he could be the victim, this Mr Casarsa.'

Gooden looked deeply shocked and saddened. ‘I'm mortified. Who could possibly want to kill him? He was such a nice, gentle man and so proud of this business. And I think he has more shops, too.'

Alex Bent's car drew up outside.

‘Are the goods you sell genuine?' Henry asked out of the blue, fingering a ladies jacket on a rack. It had a very well known designer label.

‘I have no reason to think otherwise.'

Henry nodded, but held back from asking any more questions. There were many that had to be posed.

Alex Bent came in.

‘Oooh,' Gooden gasped and almost fainted, his legs buckling. He held himself up from falling over by gripping the counter. Neither Henry nor Rik dashed to his assistance. ‘Oh my.' He held a hand on his forehead.

‘What's the matter?' Henry asked.

‘That . . . that . . .' He pointed weakly at one of the items Bent was holding in his hand.

‘What?'

‘The cane . . . the walking stick . . . it belongs to Mr Casarsa. I recognize it. Oh, poor, poor Mr Casarsa.'

Or, thought Henry, poor, poor Rosario Petrone, as he was better known to the police.

TEN

H
enry treated the store manager to his nicest smile and said, ‘This officer will look after all your needs.' He stressed the word ‘all' and patted Rik Dean's shoulder. The DI's eyes drove daggers into Henry's heart and Henry gave him a wink. Mr Gooden adjusted himself primly on the interview room chair and smiled seductively at Rik, who squirmed. Henry then left the both of them in the interview room so they could get on with the task of getting a statement down from Gooden, who seemed only too pleased to be assisting the police with their enquiries. Henry started to make his way back up to the MIR up on the sixth floor.

Time had dragged. It was almost ten thirty p.m. Henry still had a lot to do before calling it a day and leaving the investigation in a suitable state for someone else to take over.

At the moment it all seemed very bitty and incoherent.

Two murders, both connected, one witness out there to both killings – probably.

One of the bodies, that of a Camorra Mafia chief who had been lying low in Blackpool; the other, an innocent boy, a rascal, maybe, who had seen too much. Henry churned it over, shuffling his thoughts into order with a view to then getting them down in the murder policy book, the record he was obliged to keep – supposedly contemporaneously – of the investigation as it unfolded. Then he had to call the detective superintendent who was going to take over the reins tomorrow and give him a heads up. Henry had been told who this would be and had no doubt that the man, one of his FMIT colleagues, would do a stand up job.

He stepped into the lift. As the doors closed his mobile rang, but as the steel plates came together and sealed him in, they sliced off the signal and Henry was unable to take the call from the Chief Constable.

Henry shrugged. The little fat bully would have to wait.

The lift clanked upwards and the doors reopened on the sixth floor. As he came out, his mobile chirped annoyingly. In the short space of time he'd been in the lift rising up through the building, he'd had two more missed calls, one from Kate, one from a number he didn't recognize.

He called Kate first, fearing her ire way above that of the Chief.

‘Hi, babe,' he cooed, hoping he could soothe her savage bosom. It seemed such a long time since they'd had that morning quickie.

‘Don't you ‘hi, babe' me. Why the hell haven't you called me? We go away tomorrow in case you've forgotten.'

He held the phone away from his ear, cringed and resisted the temptation to get back in the lift. ‘I haven't forgotten,' he simpered.

‘Have you handed it all over to someone else, like you said you would?'

‘Hon, I was just about to do that, honest.'

‘I've packed for us both. Everything's ready. Money, passports, tickets.'

‘Hey, you're a good gal,' he said. ‘I should be home in an hour.'

‘I won't hold my breath.' She hung up.

Henry screwed his face up at his phone. Carrying it in his hand with an almost crushing grip, he walked into the MIR in which Alex Bent was hard at work in an otherwise deserted room. The DS acknowledged the superintendent with a nod and a ‘Boss', and Henry wandered into the office he'd claimed, seething at himself after Kate's call.

His desk was an array of sticky notes, reminders and ‘call-me's', including one from Keira O'Connell, the Home Office pathologist, giving a landline and mobile number. He inspected it and muttered, ‘Professor Baines, wherefore art thou?' wistfully. It was so much easier working with a male pathologist who had stuck out ears and who he didn't fancy the pants off. The time noted on the sticky was since he'd last seen O'Connell. For a moment Henry wondered if he could juggle getting the paperwork done, brief the superintendent who was taking over from him by phone, race over to O'Connell's house near Kirkham, fuck her, and get home before midnight. Then go on holiday tomorrow with Kate.

It was a serious consideration but then he laughed. Days, times, like that, were long gone. He screwed up the note and tossed it in the bin.

He opened the murder book and held his pen aloft.

His phone rang again: the Chief Constable.

As Henry thumbed the answer button, Alex Bent appeared at the office door, pulling on a jacket, eager to tell Henry something. Henry shushed him with a finger across his lips.

‘Hello, sir.'

The Chief Constable, Robert Fanshaw-Bayley, known as FB to friends and enemies alike, had known Henry over twenty-five years. For some reason Henry had started calling him ‘Bobby Big-nuts'. He couldn't explain why, but he'd said it once and it just seemed to fit. He would never say it to his face, of course, not if he wanted to live. Their relationship had begun when Henry was a mere PC working the crime car in Rossendale and FB was a lording-it-over-everyone DI back in the days when detective inspectors were ferocious Gods. Since those early days, FB had used Henry ruthlessly to achieve his own aims, then discarded him coldly when it suited. That said, Henry would not be in the position or rank he was if it wasn't for his involvement with FB, so the hate-hate relationship continued to this day.

‘Do you never answer your phone?' the increasingly portly Chief whinged to his subordinate.

‘I got cut off in the lift.'

‘What's that a euphemism for?' FB asked, no amusement in his voice.

‘Just losing the signal.'

‘Anyway, you should've called me back immediately. I shouldn't be the one chasing you up, Henry. I'm the friggin' Chief Constable, after all.'

‘Point well made, sir.' Henry watched Bent jigging excitedly at the door. He gave him a hang fire gesture.

‘How is the murder inquiry going?' FB asked.

‘Good. Things happening all the time.'

‘I'm glad to hear that. You can give me a full update in the morning.'

‘I'm handing over to Dave Cottam,' Henry said. ‘He'll be i/c tomorrow.'

‘Well, there's a thing,' FB said. Henry's heart sank. ‘I take it you haven't heard about the murder-suicide over in Burnley?' FB said.

‘No,' Henry replied cautiously, drawing out the single syllable. His eyes narrowed.

‘It's Dave Cottam's territory,' FB said, a fact Henry knew well. There were four detective superintendents on FMIT and each had a geographical area of responsibility. Henry's was the Fylde coast and the northern part of the county. Cottam covered the east, the other two central and south, but these divisions were often blurred. No detective superintendent would refuse to cover a job just because it happened off his allocated patch, because each of them loved dealing with murders and other serious crimes. And they always covered for each other in cases of leave, sickness and other unavoidable commitments. However, Henry knew what was coming: Dave Cottam was just as snowed under as he was and to expect him to take on Henry's complicated double murder and a murder-suicide would be a very big ask. ‘I'm going on holiday tomorrow,' Henry said firmly.

‘Leave's for wussies,' FB said. ‘There's no way you can go away at this moment in time.'

‘Boss, I'm going.' He stood his ground bravely.

‘Cancel it – it's just a mini-break, as I understand.' FB's voice was as cold as stone.

‘And lose almost a grand? Don't think so.'

Silence came on the line.

‘Boss?' Henry said. ‘Let's put a chief inspector in – at least until Dave Cottam can get free.'

‘You need to think about what you're saying here, Henry,' FB warned him. ‘You're a superintendent now, and I put you there.' The line clicked dead.

‘Hell,' Henry uttered, looking at Alex Bent. ‘I've just seriously pissed off the Chief.' He blew out his cheeks. ‘What is it, Alex?'

‘Mark Carter . . . up on Shoreside.'

Before Alex could finish, Henry's phone rang again. He answered it without thinking.

‘Mr Christie, it's Billy Costain . . . I phoned you a few minutes ago, you didn't answer, so I phoned your incident room and spoke to that Bent guy.'

‘What is it, Billy?' Henry rose from his desk, and closed the murder book and put his pen away.

‘You said you wanted me to find out who Rory was with?'

‘Yep,' Henry said, not letting on that he now knew this fact.

‘It's that little shit, Mark Carter – and I've got the little twat here in my hands . . .' In the background Henry heard scuffling sounds. ‘You'd better hurry up, he's struggling to get away. I might have to punch his lights out.'

‘Don't do that. Where are you?'

‘Shoreside Drive, near the old shops on the square.'

‘On my way.' Henry ended the call and didn't add, ‘Oh, you mean the shops your family vandalized and destroyed?' He looked at Bent. ‘What are we waiting for?' Henry picked up his personal radio and called into Blackpool comms, telling them to get patrols up on to Shoreside urgently.

Having watched the coppers leave his house after annoying his mother, Mark retreated back into the coal-hole where he'd stashed crisps, chocolate, some packed sandwiches and a bottle of Coke from an easy shoplifting venture earlier. He settled back into the blackness, which was warm and comforting, to wait until his mother left the house, as he knew she would. She was seeing a guy who owned a pub out on Preston New Road, and as soon as she'd showered and changed, she would be out on the razz.

It didn't take her long. The lure of booze and sex made her hurry. She didn't spend a lot of time getting tarted up, and she was teetering down the front path on her high heels within half an hour, as spruced up as she would ever be.

Mark sneaked into the house by the back door. He did not turn on any lights and moved furtively through the house and upstairs, where he had a hot shower in the dark and changed his clothes. Then he went into his mother's bedroom and helped himself to ten pounds from her secret stash tucked away at the back of one of her drawers. He let himself out of the house and moved through several adjoining back gardens before emerging on to one of the avenues.

He was famished, despite his food supply. It was intention to head to the KFC on Preston New Road for a boneless chicken feast.

Like most teenagers, he didn't really have any plans beyond the immediate, although he did try to think through his predicament. But it muzzed his brain, and he decided to leave those thoughts until he was in the restaurant and the southern fried chicken was making him feel a bit better.