Hidden Witness (32 page)

‘Down to three metres, or so I'm told,' Henry said to Donaldson. ‘This was the location of the last pulse before the phone signal went dead.'

‘Are they ever gonna answer the door?'

Henry pounded on the front door of the house to which the phone company had directed them. They had been standing outside the terraced house on Cornwall Avenue in North Shore for a couple of minutes. Henry's car was at the kerb, as was the Galaxy driven by Bill Robbins, containing the others.

Henry was getting impatient, thinking the occupants could have seen who was knocking and decided not to open up. He rattled the door, but it was firmly locked.

Then he regarded Donaldson and said, ‘I am about to exercise my power of entry.'

‘Which power is that?'

Henry could have reeled off the many he knew that gave him the right to burst into peoples' homes unannounced, but just said, ‘I'll think of one that fits.'

He took a step back, braced himself, then flat-footed the door just underneath the Yale lock. It was a powerful, well delivered kick, but only rattled the door in its frame. He repeated the action, but it still held firmly.

‘Lost my touch,' he muttered angrily. ‘Getting old.'

Donaldson elbowed him out of the way. ‘Allow me.'

His first mighty kick almost took the door off its hinges. He stepped aside and allowed the English detective to enter the vestibule, shouting ‘Police' as he barged in, through the inner door into the narrow hallway where he almost tripped over the body that lay diagonally across the floor, slumped half against the wall. Henry just managed to stop himself from pitching headlong on to the floor.

Lee Clarke had a neat bullet hole in the centre of his forehead. He'd obviously been standing when shot, answering the door, facing the person who had killed him. The bullet had entered his skull an inch above the bridge of his nose and removed the back third of his cranium. He'd probably staggered a couple of steps, spiralled and fallen. The remaining pieces of his brains had dribbled out underneath him and he was now lying untidily in a thick, disgusting pool of blood and other matter.

Donaldson peered past Henry. ‘You know this guy?'

‘No – but I know her.' Henry was looking into the living room.

Still in her PEA uniform, Ellen Thompson was as dead as her drug-addled boyfriend. The crimson flowers of blood on her white shirt were still blossoming and the fingers of her right hand were jerking spasmodically in after-death. She had been shot at the door to the living room, maybe coming to see what was going on in the hall, only to be greeted by a gunman who had stepped over Clarke's body and killed her just as mercilessly. She had fallen back and was sitting upright on the settee, arms and legs splayed at wide angles and, despite the twitching, dead.

‘Shit,' Donaldson said. The eyes of the two men locked as they both had the same, dreadful thought. The witness, Mark Carter.

SEVENTEEN

H
enry Christie moved into gear, excitement and fear coursing through him, coupled with the experience of thirty years as a cop responding – occasionally – to life and death situations. Of course, there was nothing to say that Mark Carter's life was really in danger, but at that moment Henry was furious with himself for just allowing the lad to be handed over to social services without adequate protection. Like everything else in the police, it was usually better to do things over the top than to look stupid and investigate a death that might have been prevented. Henry kicked himself for underestimating the ruthlessness, cunning and resources of the people who had killed Rosario Petrone and any witnesses to their crime.

Somehow they had been able to beat the police in tracking the mobile phone signal. Whether that was through the unguarded way in which the location of the pulse had been transmitted via radio communications, or because they too had access to mobile phone companies and tracking equipment, Henry could not be certain. But from what he knew of Karl Donaldson's suspicions, he guessed it was both, which made him even more irate at himself. How could he have forgotten the lesson he learned that resulted in the death of Billy Costain? How could they possibly have known that the radio transmissions were about the mobile phone that had been used to take the photographs of the murder taking place? Henry was sure that was never mentioned over the air, but he would have to listen to a recording of it to make sure.

It put them ahead of the police in time and distance.

If they could locate a mobile phone signal, if they could listen into encrypted police radio messages, then it would be simple for them to track down and kill the last witness whose only protection was a social worker.

Henry and Donaldson raced out of the terraced house and up to the Ford Galaxy in which sat Bill Robbins at the wheel, with Alex Bent, Rik Dean and Jerry Tope alongside and behind him. He yanked open the passenger door and spoke hurriedly.

‘Alex, Rik, Jerry – you need to cover this scene.'

‘What scene?' Rik said. He was in the front passenger seat alongside Robbins.

‘They got here before us. Two bodies, both shot to death. You guys cover the scene.' He handed Rik his car keys. ‘Bill, you, me and Karl are going up to Cleveley House just to make sure Mark Carter is safe and well.'

‘Got it,' Robbins said.

‘Alex – do you have the phone number of Cleveley House and the social worker who took Mark with him?'

‘No, but comms should have Cleveley House in their records and the social worker's mobile number is on Mark's custody record.'

‘Right . . . I'll sort them.' Henry glanced at everyone's face as no one seemed to want to move. ‘Come on, let's get shifting . . . lives at stake, here.'

Mark reached the foot of the stairs in silence and could hear raised, angry voices from the kitchen, furniture scraping on hard floors. He moved along the hallway, edging along the wall, passing the TV lounge, then a door with a toilet sign on it, until he was a few feet short of the kitchen where he flattened himself tight, back to the wall, and steeled himself to peek around the door. That was when he heard the social worker scream, ‘Mark – run.'

At the age of forty, Barry Philips had come late to social work, and actually wasn't really anything like the stereotype of the profession. He'd ended up there through the path of redundancy than through any great desire to help people, but found that he loved the job. Working with teenage boys was the area he got the most out of. He found them fascinating and a great challenge, and although he had only just met Mark Carter, he could see a lot of good in a boy who was fundamentally decent and intelligent, but had experienced major traumatic events in his life. Because of Mark's age, Philips knew the reality was that he wouldn't be spending much, if any, time in care, but Philips was determined to do everything he could for a lad who had definitely been given the shit end of a prickly stick.

Philips already knew Mark would give him a rough ride, but he was looking forward to giving him a settled night in Cleveley House. Maybe at some stage there would be the chance of an exploratory chat about the future and what Mark saw, although he also guessed it would be a difficult subject to broach as the immediate past had yet to be dealt with properly.

In some ways, Cleveley House would be a blessing. Just the two of them, no interruptions. On the other hand, as comfortable as he would be, the night would be a lonely one for Mark once he was in bed.

However, under the circumstances, nothing could ever be perfect for someone who'd just lost their mother in horrific circumstances, as well as a friend, and had witnessed others being murdered. But Philips still relished the possibility of helping Mark to deal with these things . . . if only Mark would allow it to happen and would not clam up.

At least he had got Mark as far as the home, then into it, then up to the bedroom. Philips had had kids jump out of his car at the first set of traffic lights before now. But Mark was obviously shell-shocked, Philips had thought as he left him in the bedroom and went back to the kitchen.

The house had been well renovated and was due to be opened properly for business the week after. Philips had only managed to get Mark into it because everywhere else in the area was full to bursting. There was an overnight space in a home in Rossendale, but Philips had argued with his boss that a forty-mile journey was out of the question. His boss had relented when Philips had volunteered to stay over with Mark, and had let him use Cleveley House.

The kitchen was big enough to fit a small dining table and Philips sat at it, and opened his laptop and diary and placed his mobile phone on the table next to him. He needed to catch up on his notes before doing anything else. He was conscientious like that. There was a lot to write about Mark and he wanted to do it whilst it was still fresh in his mind.

He was so engrossed in it, working hard with his head resting on his left hand as he wrote, that the next time he glanced up, the three men had already entered the kitchen from the back door.

Each was wearing a balaclava ski mask, all dressed in black, two carrying handguns and one a large hunting knife. It was this one who, even before Philips could rise or even utter a gasp, moved behind the social worker with a roar of warning, dragged his head back to expose his neck and had laid the blade of the knife across the windpipe, the kitchen chair scraping the floor as it moved.

‘Where's the boy?' one of the others shouted, stepped forwards and held the muzzle of his gun against Philips's temple.

Philips swallowed, his eyes wide in terror, feeling his throat ripple across the knife blade. Yet in spite of the predicament and his own personal danger, Philips still believed his first duty was to protect the life of the boy he had been put in charge of.

‘What boy?'

The man with the gun bent to his face. ‘Don't be a dick, I know he's here,' he said savagely. ‘I've just followed you from the police station. Where is he? Tell us, save time, save anguish.'

‘This place is empty except for me,' Philips said bravely.

The man stood upright. His eyes flicked sideways to the man who had the knife at the social worker's throat.

‘Kill him.'

There was a moment of hesitation, a millisecond that Philips took advantage of and he screamed, ‘Mark – run!'

Then the man behind him pushed his head forwards and at the same time drew the knife across his throat. Not tidily, not a nice slice, but roughly gouging and riving the blade into the larynx, pulling hard, pushing the head down, sawing, grinding, finding the carotid, then swiping the knife free as Philips, clutching desperately at his torn throat, fell off the chair. Everything twitched. He gagged horribly, gurgled, spat blood, which also pumped out of his neck via the severed artery. Then he no longer clutched at his neck, but for something above him. His fingers tensed and contracted as they seemed to reach for the light above. Then the gushing eased, his hands relaxed with no strength left in them, and flopped to the floor. The jerking of his feet slowed, became less urgent, gentler as though he was walking in his sleep, then ceased altogether.

‘Find him, quickly,' said the only man who had spoken, ripping the telephone off the wall as it began to ring, then scooping Philips's mobile off the table and stamping on it.

‘You know where we're going?'

Bill Robbins nodded, and as he did a quick shoulder check, accelerating away from the kerb, said, ‘Used to be a bail hostel, as I recall.'

‘What firearms have you got?'

‘Glock on the waist, H&K, baton launcher and Taser in the safe. The usual.'

Henry nodded, then used his PR to call in, interrupting a two-way conversation between two other patrols. ‘Detective Superintendent Christie to Blackpool, urgent, repeat, urgent.'

‘Patrols stand by,' the operator came in who was the one running the mobile phone location incident. ‘Go ahead, sir.'

‘Carrying on from the previous job, please send all available patrols to Cleveley House in Little Bispham. No one to enter the premises and I want everyone to RV at a point of your choosing, comms. I want the ARV down there . . . suspect armed individuals could be at the address intending to cause harm to a boy called Mark Carter. I'm en-route with one armed officer – don't ask – ETA maybe one minute.'

‘Affirmative . . . RV point to be Little Bispham tram stop on the promenade opposite Wilvere Drive – received?'

‘Received,' Henry said. ‘Know it?' he asked Robbins, who nodded.

‘Only two patrols available to attend at present, though, sir, both in South.'

‘Send them,' Henry ordered. ‘What about the ARV?'

‘On refs.'

‘Turn them out immediately, get back to me when you have and I'll give you more instructions and details.' Henry squirmed to look over his shoulder at Donaldson. ‘I was half-hoping that if the bad guys are monitoring us, the massive response we deployed would be enough to make them think twice. As it happens, it's pathetic. Two patrols miles away and the ARV stuffing butties down their necks.'

‘Not sure anything would make much difference,' Donaldson said. ‘They're ahead of us anyway, they move fast and there's every likelihood they've already dealt with him and gone.' He clicked his fingers as though this was all a waste of time.

‘Come on, Bill, get this tug moving.' Henry smacked the dashboard.

‘I am, but this is a police owned Ford Galaxy, not a Maserati – and where did you get an ETA of one minute from?'

‘Bit of an exaggeration?'

‘By about four minutes, not counting traffic,' Bill said as he careened on to the roundabout at Gynn Square and gunned the vehicle sluggishly around it, blue lights on and a weary two-tone horn sounding as they hit the promenade northwards in the direction of Bispham.

‘Blackpool – Superintendent Christie.'