Hidden Witness (25 page)

‘No, no,' she said, suddenly self-conscious under Donaldson's eyes. ‘I know she missed him, though. Always mooning around the place. I think they've had relations,' she said timidly, ‘but she never confided to me, though.'

Mrs Bretherton was wearing a fairly low cut blouse, a practical piece of clothing and not excessively revealing, but Henry spotted that her upper chest and lower neck had flushed red. She actually fanned herself by flapping hand, and blowing out. It's not that hot, Henry thought sourly.

‘Are you OK, ma'am,' Donaldson inquired as though he cared.

She licked her lips, they'd gone dry, and said, ‘Yes, I'm just hot all of a sudden.'

Henry's mouth curved down disdainfully at the corners.

‘I'm sure there's nothing to worry y'self about,' Donaldson cooed. ‘Even if she is with Mark, he ain't no danger, but we do need to trace him. And obviously we'll put our efforts into finding Katie, too. S'please, doncha worry.'

‘I won't,' she said with a quiver.

The two detectives had hurried from the school on receiving the news from the head teacher about Katie's absence and gone directly to the Bretherton household. Henry would have staked Donaldson's fat pay packet on Katie being with Mark. It was too much of a coincidence. They'd once been very close and if Mark was going around saying his farewells to his mates, it was always on the cards that Katie would be on the list as well as Bradley.

‘
Detective Superintendent Christie receiving?
' Henry's PR called out.

‘Go ‘head.'

‘FYI, we've got a patrol on Pier Gardens, Shoreside, attending the scene of a garden shed break.'

‘And that has what to do with me?' Henry said irritably.

‘We thought you'd be interested. Looks like someone might have bedded down there for the night, then stolen a bike – and also left an unpleasant calling card.'

‘Oh, right, sorry. I am interested, Get the patrol attending to take details and pass them on to the MIR please.' Henry's thumb came off the transmit button and he looked triumphantly at Donaldson and Mrs Bretherton. ‘Could be where Mark got his head down.'

Mrs Bretherton's house phone then rang.

She picked it up. ‘Katie, where the heck are you? I've been worried sick. The police are here . . . oh.' She looked at the dead phone. ‘Hung up.'

‘What did she say, ma'am?'

‘That she was OK. That was it.'

‘Will you ring her back, please?' Henry asked.

‘And beg her not to hang up,' Donaldson said sweetly. ‘If she is or has been with Mark, we urgently need to speak to her.'

‘I'll try.' She fumbled with the touch-tone keypad under the gaze of the two men. Eventually she tabbed in the number, put the phone to her ear and looked at Donaldson as she waited, her eyes taking him in. Henry could see she was wondering what it would be like. He glanced at Donaldson who had that lopsided grin on his face and Henry suddenly realized that the big dumb Yank thought he was God's gift to women following his tawdry encounter in Malta. That, Henry thought peevishly, could unleash a very dangerous animal. ‘It's ringing,' Mrs Bretherton said. Then it was answered as she bent forward, as if craning to hear would actually increase the volume. ‘Darling, please don't hang up. I'm not angry. Please, this is very important . . .' Henry held and waggled his fingers for the phone. ‘Love, please don't hang up, there's a police officer here who must speak to you.'

‘Katie? This is Henry Christie . . . yeah, I thought you'd know me. Love, you're not in trouble but just tell me, have you seen Mark Carter this morning?'

Katie agonized over her answer. The half-filled train was heading towards Blackpool and she could still feel Mark's hand down her panties, and what he'd said about love and her promise to him not to talk almost made her say no, I haven't seen him.

But Katie Bretherton was no liar.

Plus, she could see that her overriding responsibility was above her feelings for Mark. She was a very moral girl who wanted to do the right thing. She watched the countryside blur by for a moment.

‘Yes, I have seen him.'

The platform was getting busier with irritated passengers. Late trains were nothing new, but this was getting ridiculous.

Mark milled around restlessly, his eyes roving. Only when he was on the Virgin Express and the next stop was Crewe would he feel anything like safe. He checked the boards. The news was good. One minute to the arrival of the Pendolino service to Euston, stopping only at Crewe and Rugby. In less than three hours he would be at Euston Station and on the streets of London.

He was on platform three, the main one, looking north up the tracks as they curved away in the distance. The train came into view in its distinctive Virgin livery.

He heaved up his rucksack and sleeping bag, checked his ticket once more, the one he'd bought for cash at the station. Carriage D, seat twelve, forward facing.

The train was less than a hundred metres from the platform now, slowing down gently.

Mark edged to the safety line, trying to work out where carriage D would be. Fourth down from the front, or fourth from back?

He positioned himself where he thought the middle of the train might be once it had stopped.

The engine passed him. The brakes hissed. He could smell diesel and smoke. He looked for his carriage.

The train stopped and the doors slid open. Some angry-looking people disembarked. They'd been stuck somewhere out in the country for two hours, no hot drinks, no food. Sod 'em, Mark thought. Just get out of the way and let me on.

He was about to place his right foot through the nearest door when hands gripped his biceps at either side of his body and he was dragged roughly away from the train.

Henry was driving. Donaldson was in the passenger seat, grinning like a slightly woozy Cheshire cat.

‘That poor woman almost had an orgasm when you talked to her,' a miffed Henry said.

‘I know,' he said smugly.

‘Your mojo is on fire.'

‘Yeah, baby.'

Henry scowled at him. ‘It's only just dawned on you, hasn't it?'

‘The amazing effect I have on the opposite sex? Yuh, suppose so.'

Henry gasped with disbelief, but before he could say anything, his phone rang. ‘Henry Christie . . . thanks for that.' He looked at Donaldson. ‘Got him.'

THIRTEEN

H
aving warned Karl Donaldson in no uncertain terms not to unleash his newly discovered sexual superpowers on Kate, Henry dropped him off at his home. Then he headed down the A585 towards Preston. He'd told the plain-clothes officers who'd arrested Mark on the railway station to lodge him in the cells on suspicion of robbery and he would come to collect him personally.

Meanwhile, Donaldson settled in Henry's house and was given a cup of tea by Kate who, having known him for a long time, was completely immune to his charms. From a purely objective standpoint, though, she could have happily ripped off his clothes and pleasured herself on him, and had she not been so completely in love with Henry, that's what she would have done. A long time ago.

‘Karen phoned earlier,' she told Donaldson. ‘Said she'd be up mid-afternoon.'

‘Oh, smashing,' he said dubiously.

Instantly the female radar honed in on something. ‘Is that OK?'

‘Yeah, yeah.'

She folded her arms. ‘You two aren't having problems again, are you?'

‘Uh, no,' he lied. It wasn't long since Kate had acted as a bit of a go-between and engineered a meeting between him and Karen after they'd been having problems following him being wounded in Barcelona. Kate was under the impression they'd weathered that storm. Maybe she'd been wrong. She could sense something was troubling Karl, who in terms of his personal life was a bit of an open book. Unlike his professional life that was shrouded in secrecy.

‘You can tell me, you know.' She smiled sympathetically at him – and he almost fell for it. The man who had faced one of the world's most wanted terrorists and emerged victorious, who had hunted down bombers and violent criminals, had almost blabbed his infidelity to his wife's friend.

‘Nah, it's nothing – honestly.' He held her stare sheepishly, before being forced to shrug, look away and cough guiltily.

‘Fine,' she said.

‘Henry said it would be OK for me to use the study. I need to do some research on the Internet.'

Henry pulled up at the new police station in Preston about half an hour later, traffic having held him up a little. He was buzzed into the building via the enquiry desk and made his way along the ground floor corridor to the custody office where he presented himself to one of the two custody officers. They were lords, masters of all they surveyed, a step higher than everyone else on a raised area that reminded Henry of a spaceship command centre, the captain's bridge. He knew the custody officer, so there was no need for introductions.

‘I've come to collect Mark Carter.'

‘Good, a wick little bleeder, that one. He's spat at me and pissed all over his cell.'

‘Charming.'

The custody officer beckoned over a gaoler and told him to take Henry to Mark's cell, a juvenile detention room just off the main custody reception area. As the cell door opened, the strong odour of urine hit Henry.

Mark was stretched out on the bench, on his side, facing the wall. He did not move when the door opened. A pool of yellow stinking piss was on the cell floor, splashed up on to the walls also.

‘He won't clean it up, so we've left him in it,' explained the gaoler to Henry.

‘Do you piss everywhere you go now?' Henry said, a comment that elicited no response from Mark. ‘I said . . .'

‘I heard what you said,' Mark mumbled into the wall.

‘Get me a mop and a bucket,' Henry said quietly to the gaoler. ‘You're going to clean this up, Mark.'

‘No I'm not.'

‘Wrong answer.'

Mark twisted his head around and saw that his annoyer was Henry. He groaned. ‘Oh no, not you. Just eff off and leave me alone.'

The gaoler eyed Henry, gave a tut, then went down the corridor for the mop, leaving Henry temporarily alone with Mark. The detective stepped carefully into the cell, avoiding the pee, and leaned over. His mouth was only inches from Mark's right ear.

‘You get the fuck up, you mop up your own piss and then you're coming with me.'

‘Or what?' Mark was staring intently at the wall on which was inscribed without any originality, ‘Cops'r'cuntz', a sentiment with which Mark agreed wholeheartedly.

‘Or I'll rub your nose in it,' Henry whispered.

Mark flinched.

Henry added, ‘You know I will.'

‘I've got rights. I'll sue you.'

‘No one's done that successfully yet,' Henry said. He stood up as the gaoler returned with the cleaning utensils, one in each hand, reminding Henry of a soldier on latrine duties. ‘Get up Mark, we have some important things to discuss.'

‘Go away.'

Henry turned to the gaoler and gave him the ‘look'. The man nodded and quickly sidestepped out of view. Henry grabbed Mark's arm and yanked him off the bench and before he knew it he was on his knees, one arm wedged up between his shoulder blades face to the floor. His head was being pressed down by Henry's big hand on the back of it, his nose hovering less than an inch above his urine.

Henry bent low again. ‘I have no time to mess about here, Mark. Things have got very serious and you have to cooperate with me.'

‘Did that bitch tell you where I was?'

‘None of that matters any more. Just clean up your mess and let's get moving.' Henry ratcheted Mark's arm another inch up his back. A hiss of pain exited from between his clenched teeth.

‘OK, OK,' Mark relented.

‘And after you've done that, we might go and scoop up the shit you left in some poor bugger's shed last night, at the same time as returning his bike to him, eh?'

‘It's definitely Petrone,' Donaldson was saying. He had a mug of filtered coffee in his hand and was standing in Henry's back garden, looking out across the adjoining field on which sheep grazed and a pair of noisy Canadian geese pecked at the ground next to a pond. He was on the phone to Don Barber down in London. ‘Confirmed with my own eyes.'

‘Well, at least it's some revenge for Shark's death.' Barber said, referring to the undercover FBI agent.

‘You could look at it that way,' Donaldson conceded, ‘but it's one less avenue for me to get to the American.'

‘Any leads as to who might have whacked him?'

‘I mentioned this witness before, who they've got in custody now. It'll be interesting to find out exactly what's been seen or otherwise.'

‘Where is he in custody?'

‘Preston at the moment, but being brought back to Blackpool.'

‘OK, keep me posted, Karl.'

‘Will do, boss . . . there is one thing.'

‘That would be?'

‘I've decided to review all the murders between the Petrones and the Marinis that happened since the Majorca shootings, if that's OK.'

Barber hesitated slightly. ‘To what end?'

‘Mm, maybe nothing, just an aside the SIO up here said to me. I just want to have a look at the patterns to the killings, see if anything strikes me as odd.'

‘In what way?'

‘Again, not sure yet, but the SIO has a vague theory that we might not just be up against the Mafia . . . as I said, it's a vague one.'

‘Don't spend too much time on it.'

‘I won't.'

Donaldson chucked the last dregs of the coffee over the fence and returned to the house. Kate had been studying him from the kitchen. He handed her the cup and said thanks, but wilted under her knowing eyes.

‘Please don't say you've been unfaithful,' she said, ‘not you.'