Judgement Call (21 page)

‘OK,' FB said.

‘But then as I drove Sally back home, I saw Vladimir on Bacup Road … and I've only just remembered this, it's only just clicked. I watched him in my rear-view mirror. He crossed the road to a car that pulled in opposite the bus station. Didn't think anything of it at the time, even later really, but now I'm certain it was a two-tone brown Rover 3.5. It's been nagging me … but I only saw it fleetingly in the mirror …

‘Next thing all hell breaks loose, the post office in Crawshawbooth is getting hammered and then I'm chasing a two-tone …'

‘Brown Rover 3.5,' FB finished for him.

‘It was only after it all finished that I thought there was something familiar about the car, but it only just dawned on me this morning as I was looking through the files and sifting it all through my brain …'

‘OK, enough of the thought process,' FB interrupted rudely. ‘So you're saying you thought you saw Vlad talking to someone in the getaway car.'

‘I think it was the same car. Hands-up, y'know, I can't be one hundred per cent, but it was a Rover, and the right colour. Just saw it fleetingly but I'll bet Vlad parked it up for the gang.'

‘OK, go on.'

‘I've also spent a lot of time going through the very few and very shit-quality security tapes from the targeted shops. Something no one else seems to have got a grip of.'

FB looked slightly shamefaced at this. ‘And?'

Henry held up one of the tapes that he'd had the foresight to bring with him into the office. He knew FB had a VCR and portable TV in his office.

‘May I shove this in?'

‘Be my guest.'

The equipment was on a small table in the corner of the room. Henry switched the machines on and inserted the tape, which started to run automatically.

‘This is from the second shop, up on Haslingden Road, a week before it was robbed.' Henry stood aside to let FB see the screen. ‘An off licence … and again, I know this doesn't actually prove anything but watch this.'

It was the customer at the counter. The shopkeeper turning to get cigarettes. The customer leaning over the counter, checking, the shopkeeper handing over the cigarettes.

Then the customer glancing up at the camera.

That customer being Vladimir Kaminski.

Henry paused the screen, which froze unsteadily, Kaminski's face still angled up.

‘I think he's been the one choosing and sizing up the targets for the gang.'

FB remained stone silent. The pulse behind his double chin made it wobble and throb. His watery eyes were focused on the screen.

‘That said, it doesn't prove anything,' Henry admitted. ‘Just a guy buying fags. But it may have something to do with why he ran from me that morning at Sally's. He didn't want to get locked up because he knew the gang were due to strike that morning and he'd probably sorted out where to place the Rover, the second getaway car. He needed to be out and about – and I guess he must have sold you some bullshit, to make sure he walked.'

‘No, it doesn't prove anything,' FB whispered, his whirring brain-cogs almost audible. ‘Circumstantial and fleeting glimpses of a car that might've been the getaway car; him in the shop a week before it was robbed.' He looked at Henry. ‘What was all this tattoo shit you started to say? Is it relevant?'

‘I've got throbbing bollocks and a sore face,' Henry said, ‘and my brain hurts.'

‘I know all that.'

‘And I know who did it.' Henry had also brought a folder with him which he opened and removed some sheets of paper from, placing them on FB's desk. He slid them across the polished surface. ‘Vladimir Kaminski …'

‘You're saying Vlad was, is, Spiderman?' FB butted in again. ‘The guy from Longridge's flat? Surely not.'

Henry tutted and regarded FB with impatience. ‘If I could just finish … When I was on the ground, all alone, facing an escaping and very violent masked felon, armed with a flick knife, I saw his neck at the moment he looked up when you decided to come and help me. I saw his throat and he had a tatt across his Adam's apple – the exact same one that Vladimir has tattooed across the back of
his
neck. A snake wrapped around a rifle.' FB stayed silent this time. ‘So, I did a bit of digging this morning and found that Vlad has a younger brother called Constantine who has a criminal record for assault and robbery according to PNC and who lives in Manchester … but with no current address shown. I spoke to a PNC operator this morning who put his file up and confirmed the tattoo from the descriptives on the computer … and, apparently, this tattoo is the insignia of a criminal gang based in Gdansk, around the shipyards there. A particularly violent bunch, by all accounts.'

‘A Polish gang? Then why …?'

‘Why are the Kaminskis over here?' Henry raised his eyebrows, then shrugged. ‘I don't know. They're both quite young so maybe they were brought over here by desperate parents to get their kids away from organized crime … dunno, just guessing. There are lots of Polish people in this neck of the woods and Russians, too. According to Constantine's antecedents, which are also on the PNC, the family came over here about four years ago, but there's nothing more than that, and I don't need to know. All I know is that they're here, they're involved in violent crime and I'm sure they're connected to the crew that's terrorizing us and I think Vlad is doing the local legwork.'

‘Shit,' FB said. ‘You've been an early bird, Henry.'

‘How do you want to play it, boss?'

FB rubbed his face. ‘Close to the chest. For starters, let's go and arrest Vlad the Impaler.'

T
he estate was quiet as Henry drove FB up into it in one of the unmarked CID cars – a ‘Danny' as they were called for some reason no one could adequately explain. To Henry it was a shit heap of a Metro, badly looked after and hardly roadworthy. They combed the avenues and alleyways first, just in case Kaminski was out for a stroll, but they saw no one of interest.

‘Let's give Sally a knock,' FB said.

Henry nodded and headed towards her house. He thought about parking up some distance away but decided against a sneaky approach. If Kaminski was at the house, he wouldn't necessarily be aware of the reason why cops were knocking at the front door and seeing FB might possibly work to their advantage and lull him into a false sense of security, although Henry doubted this.

He parked directly outside.

‘If he's there, two things are likely to happen. He'll try to run and/or he'll kick off,' Henry predicted.

‘Good reasons to kick the shite out of him then,' FB said.

FB had been seething silently on the short car journey. Henry guessed it was at the way Kaminski had played him. Just as FB didn't suffer fools gladly, neither did he appreciate being treated as one. Henry further guessed he was plotting a cold revenge on his informant.

They knocked hard.

There was some movement from within, but it was impossible to see what was going on as the door in the window had been panelled over and the letterbox nailed shut since Henry had last visited.

Eventually it opened.

The sight that greeted the two cops made them both react with horror.

It was Sally Lee, dressed in her usual attire, low-cut T-shirt exposing a large proportion of her breasts and her shell-suit bottoms.

That wasn't the problem.

The problem was her battered face.

Her eyes were swollen, the purple colour reminding Henry of the deep shade often found in chapels of rest. Her right one was virtually closed, just a pus-lined slit, nothing more; her left was a touch wider and it was clear this was the one she was looking through. Her right cheek was also swollen and Henry thought her cheekbone could be cracked. Her lips had been smashed, too. The injuries were similar to the ones she had previously, but they were now much, much worse.

A wave of rage washed through Henry because as well as being angry at the person who had inflicted these injuries – Kaminski – he was also very pissed off at himself, FB, and the cops in general for letting this happen to her again. Whatever her reputation, she did not deserve this.

Henry also saw bruising on her neck in the oval shape of thumb prints around her windpipe.

He could not be certain of what expression she had on her face underneath the veneer of those wounds, but guessed at contempt and resignation.

‘What do you want?' Her voice grated huskily, but Henry knew it wasn't sexy-husky. It was that way because she had been half-throttled. He glanced at FB, who was staring at Sally and Henry was wondering if he, too, realized he'd let her down in a very big way.

‘Is Vlad in?' FB said, shaking himself out of his reverie.

‘No.' She peered at Henry through her good eye.

‘Did he do this to you?' Henry indicated her face.

‘Who the hell d'you think did?' she rasped accusingly, still looking at him. ‘Looks like he's had a go at you, too.'

‘Not quite,' Henry said, suddenly aware of his own bruised face, caused by another member of the Kaminski clan. ‘Can we come in?'

She hesitated, then stepped aside, mumbling, ‘I don't know why.'

Henry bit his tongue and walked through behind FB. They went into the living room, both cops checking it carefully. There was no sign of Vlad, or Sally's baby.

‘Where is he?' FB demanded.

Sally shrugged. ‘Don't know, don't care.' She picked up a packet of cigarettes that were stuffed between the cushions of the baby-clothes-cluttered settee and opened the packet to shuffle out a throwaway lighter and a ciggie, which she lit. She put the packet onto the mantelpiece. ‘Anyway, what do you want him for?'

‘We need a chat,' FB said.

‘Well, he in't here.'

‘Where can we find him?' FB demanded.

‘No idea.'

‘If we get him, he won't be coming home this time,' Henry said.

Sally turned to him, flaring. This time he could clearly tell her expression was one of disbelief. ‘Like last time?'

‘No … no …' Henry's voice petered out inadequately.

From the kitchen came the whistle of a steam kettle boiling. ‘I'm making meself a brew. Want one?'

‘No,' FB said flatly, glaring at Henry.

Sally looked at Henry. ‘No … it's OK.'

‘Up to you.' She left them in the living room.

FB swooped across to Henry. ‘He won't be coming home?' he whispered hoarsely. ‘Why say that?'

‘I'll tell you why, boss,' Henry's voice quavered. ‘Because even if we can't make anything stick on him for these robberies, I'm going to protect her like I should've done in the first place. She doesn't deserve this.'

‘Oh, what's this?
Love Story
? Get a grip!'

‘I'm doing what I'm supposed to be doing. Protecting life, y'know – or has all that disappeared in the mists of time? I thought that was the oath we all took when we joined up!' Henry snorted, turned and clomped belligerently out of the room and into the kitchen where Sally was pouring boiling water from an old-fashioned kettle onto a teabag in a big cracked, stained mug. Henry clocked that there were two mugs out. Sally noticed his eyes flicker down at them.

‘Sure you don't want one?' she said quickly.

Henry said no, then, ‘Where's junior?'

‘Aaron? Upstairs asleep, thank God.'

She poured milk into the tea. Henry said, ‘Don't protect him, Sally,' getting the feeling that Kaminski was probably in the house at this moment, hence the two mugs. ‘If he's here, just give me the nod,' he said quietly. ‘We'll take him away and you'll be safe. I promise you this time.'

Sally shook her head and squeezed the teabag against the side of the mug with a teaspoon. ‘He's not here.'

‘Where is he?'

‘Like I said, I don't know. He just crashes here, rather than lives, y'know?' She lifted the teabag out of the mug with the spoon, turned slightly to put her foot on the pedal of the kitchen bin, which flipped up. As she flicked the squashed teabag into the already overstuffed bin, Henry glanced down for an instant as the bag slopped on top of the rest of the rubbish. The lid then clattered back into place and Sally moved over to the fridge to put the carton of milk back in. She bent down with a groan and a hiss of escaping air through her damaged lips.

‘He's hit more than your face, hasn't he?'

She squinted sideways at him as she stood upright and pulled up the hem of her T-shirt, exposing her pasty white stomach. She kept the T-shirt pulled up just below the line of her breasts and teetered around full circle, showing Henry her back and the sides of her ribcage, which bore the marks of wounds caused by punching and kicking and teeth marks from being bitten. Then, facing Henry again, she lowered the T-shirt.

‘Kicked the shit out of me for making a complaint against him,' she said, matter-of-fact. She picked up her tea and walked past him into the living room.

As shocked as he was, he took a stride over to the pedal bin and lifted the lid with his fingertips and saw that his eyes hadn't deceived him. He took the teabag out and dropped it into the sink then carefully, one by one, took out the pieces of the torn-up photograph he had seen on top of the other rubbish. He took them back into the living room, where Sally had taken a seat in an armchair.

Henry held out the palm of his hand on which were displayed the bits of the ripped photo. He said quietly, ‘Vladimir's not here, but your stepbrother is, isn't he? Or whatever relation he is. Jack Bowman.'

Sally looked from Henry's hand to his face. He recognized the expression this time, one which said, ‘Oh shit.' He angled his hand towards FB, who was watching without understanding. Henry then slid the pieces into his pocket. ‘Upstairs?' he asked.

Sally nodded.