Hot Blood (Bloodwords Book 1) (44 page)

Radcliffe could only see such
iconic buildings in isolation as he drove parallel to the river to where he
would turn off for the eighteen-mile drive along the coast to Southport.
Liverpool’s magnificent waterfront was the equal of most worldwide but rarely
publicised. To witness its true magnificence the waterfront needed to be viewed
from across the river at Birkenhead, where the view was transformed from a
clutch of individual buildings into a widescreen panorama with a backdrop of
the Roman Catholic Cathedral, known locally as God’s Sputnik because of its
futuristic shape, the Anglican Cathedral, and the iconic Liver Building with
its two Liver Birds.

Radcliffe enjoyed that vista
whenever he could, but now was not the time. His meeting at HQ, though heavy
going, had been quite productive and he had achieved what he had wanted.
Against the odds he had gained support for his suggested course of action and
for the time being he would continue to head the inquiry. But time was pressing
and he needed to be back in his office. There was no time for sightseeing trips
on this journey. Since leaving the meeting the Vauxhall had become his
temporary office and he had already received reports from both DS Fraser and DC
Green over the Bluetooth speakerphone. While talking to Green he had
inadvertently got himself into the wrong lane and, realising his error at the
last moment had unceremoniously cut in front of the car on his inside. He had
waved his apology but the two-fingered response he had received left nothing to
the imagination. He had made that mistake before, using the outside lane that
actually disappeared down into a vast underground car park for the Liverpool
One shopping complex. An expensive car park, the only way out had been through
a pay station and his error had cost him several pounds. Hands free phones
helped – but his concentration was inevitably divided and that wasn’t
good for road safety.

But several holes still remained
to be filled and these were occupying his mind more and more. Convinced that
solving the car thefts case would deliver the three murder case culprits, he
still had no idea where the cars were being stored, where they ultimately went
to, or who was involved. Which, if his theory was correct, meant ditto the
murders.

Waiting for the lights to change
he cast an eye across to a huge glass fronted BMW showroom on the corner.
Beyond he could see a similar sized Lexus showroom and another for Mercedes.
Turning left into Great Howard Street he passed showrooms for almost every car
brand he could think of until eventually he was driving out of Bootle and
towards Waterloo. Somewhere he was missing something. So many car brands all
nestling along the road from the city towards Southport must be relevant and he
felt that somewhere there was a clue.

Manoeuvring into the outside lane
– the route was a nightmare at a number of points if you did not know
which lane to take – he started the climb that would take him over the
huge island at the entrance to the container base at
Seaforth
.
Across to his left as he crested the flyover he could see hundreds of
containers stacked up and huge container vessels being loaded, beyond which the
river glinted in the sun. This was another view he enjoyed, though only for a
fleeting moment until he began the descent to yet another junction, by which
time the view over the docks would be lost. He actually enjoyed driving in the
other direction more, for after cresting the flyover the view across to the
river lasted for another half mile. On the way to his meeting he had almost bumped
into the car in front, the view of the docks with a row of camper vans lined up
ready for export having occupied his thoughts completely.

As he drove along, the scenery
changed dramatically. The car showrooms, dockland and industrial premises of
the city gave way first to commuter suburbia then, as he approached Southport,
to fresh open farmland, sand dunes and the beach. His spirits always rose as he
left the confines of the city and drove back towards fresher air.

Fraser’s report about his and
Lescott’s
visit to Kevin Archer had given him much to think
about but Louise Green’s account of her conversation with the car plant HR lady
excited him. Using Rick Worth as a shortened version of Patrick Ainsworth was
improbable. However, if there was no Richard Worth employed at the JLR plant
and Patrick had not turned up for work since exactly the day Rick Worth got
himself pinned under a Bentley, there were too many coincidences to discount
the two being one and the same. And if you also worked
Cyrec
Krawiec
into the equation, that was definitely one
coincidence too many. All they needed now was for some forensic results to come
through, Patrick Ainsworth’s ID picture to arrive, and Rick Worth to regain
consciousness.

Thirty

‘The sooner this political conference comes
around and we can forget about it the better. I don’t think I can stand three
months of this boring rubbish.’

‘What’s up Frank,’ responded DI
Radcliffe with a chuckle, ‘it sounds as though you’re not happy unless you’ve
got a murder to detect.’

‘No,’ replied Davies. ‘It’s not
that. I prefer people to live than pop their clogs. But all this legwork just
for a bunch of politicians that couldn’t care a damn for us normal people goes
against the grain. I’m a detective not a bloody pen pusher. Why did planning
their security get piled on us anyway? Uniforms are trained to wait around for
ages and drink tea and coffee – we are trained to detect.’

‘According to Handy Andy we will
all be on the political trail soon due to understaffing. I just guess that
you’ve started the ball rolling and we will join you soon. But where have you
been waiting and who’s tea have you been drinking?

Frank Davies looked at his
friend. Though the two of them had worked together for many years, Radcliffe
was older by several years and had progressed all that much sooner. Apart from
age, the two men differed in many ways. Being of the build that tended to be
too heavy and thick-set to look fashionable, Radcliffe tended to grow into his
clothes rather than wear them and he was quite content with a base model
Vauxhall or Ford. If it had four wheels and was reliable it would do. In
contrast, Davies was more of a smart dresser, conscious of his image and keen
to score points. Whether that was by delivering results or just driving a
better car he did not care. All the same, although he would never have admitted
it, Davies secretly envied his mentor’s case success rate.

‘I still say that it’s a job for
uniforms,’ responded Davies. ‘Take this morning for example. I took young Sean
along to check out the Floral Hall, the Theatre and Ramada Hotel where the
focus of the conference will be. It should have taken us about fifteen minutes
at each of them – say an hour all told – but we wasted more than
that at the Floral while they found the manager and it was the same in the
Ramada. At least they gave us a coffee out on the veranda overlooking the
Marine Lake while we were waiting. But the guy at the theatre never turned up
and what should have been less than half an hour talking to two blokes wasted a
whole morning.’

Radcliffe laughed. ‘Well at least
that’s a few visits out of the way that I won’t have to do when I get roped
in,’ he said with a chuckle, ‘but I’ve had my own share of talking and wasting
time too you know.’

‘You? Don’t make me laugh. As if
you’ve not got plenty to keep you busy, you’ve also got my death at
Lydiate
Hall to play about with.’

‘For the time being I have, but
it looks as though my time is almost up on that score.’

‘Time up? In what way?’ asked
Davies.

‘Like I said,’ replied Radcliffe,
‘while you and Sean were lazing about drinking coffee and watching the paddle
steamer on the Marine Lake, I was justifying our progress to our bosses in
Liverpool. I spent about the same time actually talking as you did, but with
the drive there and back it took me a full morning. And I don’t think that I
achieved much either.’

‘No? I thought that you were
close to cracking both the murders and car thefts.’

‘I wish,’ replied Radcliffe. ‘We
are about to move on the car thefts but I haven’t a clue on any of the murders.
Despite my best efforts, HQ only gave me a day or so more, then they will take
over. I cannot be in two places at one time so with me being tied up with the
car thefts operation, nothing is going to happen deaths wise is it?’

‘I wish I could help Don,’
responded Davies, ‘Like I told you, I think that the couple that found Archer
are hiding something, particularly the lad, and I wouldn’t be surprised if the
town artist bloke wasn’t connected either. Family feuds can be lethal you
know.’ Giving his colleague a cool stare, Davies qualified his reasoning,
‘That’s the direction I would be looking in, not looking for a serial killer.’

‘Don’t forget that all three died
the same way Frank.’

‘I’m doubtful. I reckon that it
is pure coincidence. Put some pressure on the young lad or the randy artist and
I’m sure that it will pay dividends.’

‘Unless something earth
shattering comes along, the young couple are out of the frame Frank. As for
Mike Johnson, he’s not in the best of shape and keeps rambling when we talk to
him.’

There was a knock and DS
Lescott
leaned around the door as it opened.

‘Well look who’s here,’ said
Davies. ‘I get saddled with dozy Sean and my favourite partner decamps to the
opposition.’

Ignoring his sarcasm,
Lescott
aimed her question directly at Radcliffe. ‘Are you
ready Don? We are all here now.’

‘Yes Debbie,’ said Radcliffe.
‘Bring them in. It’ll be a squash but we will manage.’ Adding for Davies’
benefit after she had gone, ‘I’m briefing them for the car thefts operation.
Like I said, it’s about to go and I am hopeful. Always supposing that they
don’t move out before we arrive like they did last time that is.’

‘How long will you be?’ asked
Davies. ‘I’ve still a bit of this report to complete but if you won’t be long I
can disappear for half an hour to give you my seat.’

‘Don’t worry about it Frank,’
Radcliffe told him. ‘There’s only the three of them so we will manage.’

After
Lescott
had returned with Louise Green and Kyle Fraser in-tow, Radcliffe briefed them
on the proposed operation. Intelligence suggested that the car thieves had been
rattled by the earlier pounce on the former catholic college on the mansion
estate in the country and had decamped to another location on a very temporary
basis. There were two potential locations. One was a farm at
Burscough
that had numerous empty buildings and the other
was on a back road going out of Southport towards
Ormskirk
.
Cars had not been seen going into or out of either but it was believed that the
Burscough
farm was more likely than the
Scarisbrick
location.

He thought that the cars would be
moved out to a more secure location about fifty miles away near to Manchester
Airport by the end of the week, so the planned operation was to pre-empt the
thieves by swooping on the farm later that afternoon. If they drew a blank then
they would debrief and assess options for other locations, the problem being
that they couldn’t just go raiding all the farms in the area or they would have
the National Farmers Union on their backs.

‘Right you lot,’ said Davies.
‘I’m going to leave you to your fun and games. While you go rushing around in
the countryside, I have to go through my extremely boring report with an
extremely boring boss so that he can hand it to the equally boring Home Office and
get all the credit for it.’ Looking around the crowded room he added, ‘I’ll
leave you to worry about the NFU.’

……….

‘That’s quite comprehensive Frank,’ said DCI
Handley, peering at him over his glasses. ‘I know that it went against the
grain but Uniforms will appreciate what we’ve done for them.’

The “we” wasn’t lost on Davies.
As he had observed only minutes earlier, he expected that Handy Andy would take
the credit for his work.

‘Can’t say I am bothered about
that Arthur,’ replied Davies. ‘Sorting out arrangements for the conference is a
job for the Home Office or Uniforms, not us. I’m just glad to have finished so
I can get back onto real policing.’

‘We get support from Uniforms
from time to time so we’ve got to reciprocate,’ responded Handley. ‘But let’s
put that aside for now shall we?’

Turning the pages of Davies’
report, he looked across at the DI and made a few observations. This was only
the start. It was just a start for the teams that would do most of the work. He
should understand that when the country’s leading politicians arrived in town
they would bring with them huge responsibilities for all the security and
emergency services – we didn’t want another JFK assassination or Brighton
bombing now did we?

Going back and forth through
Davies’ report, Handley picked up on the DI’s suggestion that a major concern
would be on Southport’s streets rather than in the convention venue itself.
Davies had then explained that in his opinion, the security services that
normally accompanied politicians of the major parties would be able to handle
all issues at the venue as a matter of course and that since the Ramada was
linked directly to the foyer of the Floral Hall where the conference would take
place, they would in effect have the top delegates under one roof all of the
time. The same could not be said for junior ministers, backbenchers and
ordinary party members however because they would be staying in hotels up to
half a mile away. Their transit between hotels and conference venues had the
potential for disaster since they would be using the main routes of Lord Street
and the Promenade. Didn’t Handley think that there could indeed be potential
for a JFK style incident?

Actually, Handley didn’t. He
thought that that was taking things a bit far. However, getting delegates from
the various hotels to the venue would, as Davies had so rightly identified,
mean that they would be mixing with both residents and tourists and keeping the
way clear would be problematic.

After discussing other aspects of
the report, Handley had sought to reassure his DI. He could now have a break
from the conference-policing plan, take the afternoon off and report back in
the morning bright and breezy for more real policing.

……….

Sitting up in his hospital bed, though visibly
bruised and battered, to all the world Mike Johnson appeared ready to face
whatever life might throw at him. Yet inside Johnson was in turmoil. The world
had already thrown its worst – and it had hurt.

Two beatings in a very short time
would be enough for anyone, but business problems stemming from low priced
competition and a fall in the popularity of amateur art had hit his formerly
prosperous virtual monopoly art shop. What had been a licence to print money
had become a loss making liability and with his bank first putting a cap on his
borrowing and then calling in his loans, he had been forced to resort to other
sources of finance.

Milling everything over in his
mind – reliving every business blip and negotiation - he could identify
where he had made the wrong decisions and where he should have taken action. He
could see where the initial signs of a downturn had emerged, where he should
have taken preventative action and when he should have just closed the shop and
walked away. The memories of stubborn resolve and, being honest, sheer pig
headedness that had driven his actions, hurt almost as much as the beatings he
had endured. For sure he had endured the pain, but would he, could he, endure
the aftermath?

For three days he had been in a
coma. Those days were lost, as had pretty much everything else for a while.
Then slowly the recollections had returned. First the bad ones. Then, filling
in the holes, some of the good ones. Bad outnumbered good. And by some measure.
At more than one point since he had regained consciousness he had wished most
fervently that he had not survived, that his attackers had finished the job
they had started.