The Child Taker & Slow Burn (17 page)

“Nasty?” Alec raised his eyebrows. “Similar to people that transport five-year-old children in the boot of their car?” he said sarcastically.

Alfie sat back in his chair and sighed. The situation was dire, and the more information he gave, the worse he sounded.

“Weapons?” The Detective carried on building a picture of the criminals that he’d be dealing with.

“Yes, he has everything from mortars to machineguns. Hajj deals them,” Alfie shrugged.

“Deals weapons?”

“Yes, his men sell to most of the drug gangs in the city,” Alfie explained.

“This gets better and better.” Alec scribbled the details down as Alfie spoke.

“Is it his farm?”

“No, he rents a stable yard there for his racehorses.”

“I wonder how many racehorses a five-year-old could buy me in today’s climate, eh?” Alec commented sourly.

“There is no need to be sarcastic, Inspector Ramsay. My client is trying to answer your questions honestly,” Alan Williams interrupted. He tried to look sternly at the detective, thinking how much he looked like the celebrity chef who shared his surname, but it barely registered.

Alec thought for a second, and decided that if Alfie was on the level about the location of the farm that he’d taken the children to, then that’s where they needed to start their search. He walked to the door and called to a uniformed police officer. He handed him a piece of paper with the address of the farm written on it.

“Get this to Detective Naylor immediately,” he ordered.

“Yes, Sir.”

                “Tell him to organise a helicopter and an armed response unit there pronto.” He closed the door and sat back down at the table. Alec felt edgy now, as he had enough information to be going on with, and he’d rather be out looking for the bad guys than sat sweating in this tiny interview room. “What else can you tell me?”

              “Jack Howarth was paid to supply the Moroccans with children to order.” Alfie wanted the real kidnapper identified before the spotlight fell on him. “Myself and an associate, Brian Croft, were the intermediaries. We picked up the twins and took them to Hajj at the stables. Last night Hajj shot Brian with a Mach 10 machine pistol.”

“You witnessed that?”

“Yes.”

“Was he dead?”

“Yes.”

“You’re sure of that?”

“Yes.”

“How can you be sure?”

“His brains were all over the stable yard, how sure do you want me to be?”

“How many times have you done this?”

“Done what?”

“How many times have you transported children to the stables?”

“I’ve just told you that Hajj shot Brian with a Mach 10.” It was Alfie’s turn to be annoyed. He thought that the revelation would have more of an impact than it had, but Alec was more interested in building a case against him.

“We’ll look into it when we get to the farm, Alfie; if you play with fire then you expect to be burnt. How many times have you acted as intermediaries?”

Alfie’s brief nudged him before he could answer. It had become obvious that the detective was trying to stitch Alfie up tighter than a drum.

“My client is here to answer questions about the events for which he has been cautioned, nothing else.” The solicitor interrupted.

“Okay, I’ve got enough for now.” Alec eyed Alfie suspiciously. “Tell me, why did you assault Jack Howarth?”

Alfie’s solicitor shook his head again.

“No comment,” Alfie replied.

Alec stood and picked up his jacket. He opened the door and called a uniformed officer into the room.

“Put this scumbag back into his cell.” He ordered. “You’d better get used to hearing that door slamming closed, Lesner.” Alec headed down the corridor. The police officer motioned for Alfie to stand which he did without protest.

“I will not be requiring your services again,” Alfie said without looking at the duty solicitor.

“Thank God for that,” Alan Williams muttered.

Alfie smirked as he walked down the corridor to the detention area. He didn’t know why he found the solicitor’s comment funny, but he did. The smell of stale urine grew stronger as he neared his cell. A hard shove in the back launched him forwards through the doorway and he landed painfully on his knees. The police officer sneered as he slammed the thick iron door closed, and the sound echoed through the cellblock. Alfie grimaced as a tear ran from the corner of his eye. It would be a sound that he’d have to get used to for the foreseeable future.

Chapter Twenty-one

Warrington General Hospital

John Tankersley waited outside Warrington General Hospital for a task force vehicle to pick him up. The chopper that he’d arrived in had been dispatched to pick up a unit who would be on standby until they were required. The night had turned cold and drizzle began to fall steadily. Puddles of water began to form, reflecting the yellow streetlights. The car parks were empty bar a few isolated vehicles here and there. Tank thought about the way things had progressed as he watched a couple of drunks swinging punches at each other outside the casualty department. The two men staggered back and forth like human windmills in slow motion. The automatic doors opened and two women staggered out of casualty to join in the fray, and the action intensified. The drunken quartet wobbled around, hurling punches and abuse until two huge black security guards managed to separate them.

A black Mitsubishi Shogun turned off the main road and headed towards the foyer area. Tank recognised Grace as the driver. She pulled the vehicle to a halt, much to the annoyance of the ambulance driver who was in the vehicle behind her. He honked the horn and gesticulated wildly to the double yellow lines, which indicated that she should not have parked there. Tank waved at him in apology and opened the passenger door, climbing in as quickly as he could.

“Road hog,” he joked.

“Do you think he’s annoyed?” Grace added. She signalled and pulled the Shogun away from the curb, freeing up the lane again. The ambulance driver honked again, and this time Tank gave him the finger. The paramedic thought better of returning the gesture and steered his ambulance around the warring couples to the casualty department.

“What do we know?” Tank asked as he clicked the seatbelt into its socket.

“Well, the good news is we have a file as long as your arm on our friend Hajj Achmed,” Grace began.

“Why am I not surprised?”

“Is it because of your deep mistrust in human nature?”

“Probably,” he grunted. Tank had a bizarre respect for the people that he usually hunted. Terrorists had a cause to fight for, a reason to cause others harm, as they justified it, anyway. An organised business that dealt with paedophiles all over the globe was just plain evil in his mind. “Tell me about Achmed.”

“He has been investigated for extortion, counterfeiting, arson, people trafficking, prostitution and, wait for it, arms running.”

“What type of weapons?”

“Everything, he’s in charge of British operations for a huge crime family based in Marrakesh. They have supplied several militias with weapons, ammunition, explosives, and according to the Americans they sent a shipment of Stinger missiles to the Taliban. We have loose ties to extremist groups in Somalia, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Yemen.”

“Do we have enough evidence to justify stepping into the investigation?”

“No, and I think we’re too late anyway.” She slowed the vehicle before pulling out onto Lovely Lane. It was a ten-minute drive to the main police station in the town centre, where Alfie Lesner had just finished his amazing confession. She had a feeling that’s where he’d want to go.

“Why do you think we’re too late?”

“Alfie Lesner has just spilled his guts to the Major Investigation Team detectives.” Grace brought up an LCD screen built into the centre console, and a series of communiqués from the Cheshire police began to scroll down. “He’s admitted being an intermediary between Jack Howarth and a Moroccan mafia family headed by Hajj Achmed.”

“Where did he take the twins?”

“The uniformed division has dispatched a chopper and three armed response teams to a farm near Delamere Forest. Lesner claims that the twins were taken away in a horsebox: they’ve issued an all-ports bulletin to find it. Every uniformed officer in the country will be looking for it.”

“It should just be a matter of time before they find them then,” Tank said.

“It might be time for us to step back and leave the police to their investigation.” Grace glanced sideways to catch his reaction.

“Does the Major know?” Tank asked, ignoring her last remark.

“Yes, he’s patched into everything.”

“How are Karl and Hayley holding up?”

“Not good, she’s thrown him out.”

“Oops. Not good, but not completely unexpected.” Tank looked out of the window as they drove over the main West Coast railway line. A soap factory towered above the tracks, ten thousand lights making it look like a metropolis illuminated in the darkness.

“What’s next then?”

“I want to talk to Alfie Lesner myself.” Tank was adamant that he wasn’t going to walk away from the investigation yet. “He’s just small potatoes in this, but he can tell me where Hajj Achmed is. Achmed and his employers are responsible for this; I’m going to make sure that they don’t do it again.”

“The police will be all over them by now,” Grace said.

“I don’t think a man like Achmed will be that easy to find, especially if he knows the police are on to him.”

“If he’s dealing arms to gangs in the city then the chances are that he has informers in the force.” Grace carried on the thread.

“Exactly, in which case he’ll be on the run already, but Lesner will know how he travels in and out of the country.” The Shogun turned left on a ninety-degree bend in the road. Bank Quay railway station was on the right, and the aging Victorian police station was on the left. It was a three-storey redbrick building with a turret built on every corner of the roof. The station was built to act as a fortress in the event of civil unrest, and the ornate turrets were in effect gun towers. The rear of the building was surrounded by a high brick wall, which was topped with razor wire. There was not a single police car in the pound at the rear. It was obvious that the bulk of the force had been deployed to secure the stable block at Delamere Forest.

“It looks like no one’s home.” Grace commented as she pulled the Shogun around the front of the building. There were parking bays marked out along the front and the right hand side of the police station. Private vehicles that belonged to on-duty officers filled every parking bay. A public car park across the road was empty and Grace headed into it.   

“They’re on a wild goose chase in Delamere Forest,” Tank laughed as he spoke.

“You think Achmed will be long gone by now?”

“Don’t you?”

              Grace was about to answer him when two cars parked in front of the police station exploded.

Chapter Twenty-two

Woolton Village

Patrick Lesner woke up with a start. It was pitch dark, which told him that it was the middle of the night. He rarely woke before dawn, even though he was getting old. His prostate cancer was under control now, and he didn’t need to pee every half an hour. The doctor had diagnosed him eighteen months earlier, and he and his wife Margaret had decided not to tell their children about his illness, to save them from the worry. Something had dragged him from his sleep, but he couldn’t work out what it was. He decided to get up and check that the house was secure, just for his peace of mind.

Patrick and Margaret lived in a gardener’s lodge at the entrance to Reynolds’s Park, in Woolton Village. The park had once been part of a large estate owned by a rich merchant’s family, but was now part of the city’s portfolio of public parks. The park was twenty acres of sloping grassed areas and plush gardens surrounded by a high sandstone wall, with the gardener’s lodges guarding the entrances. Patrick loved the park, and the village that it was situated in, so when the park’s buildings came up for private ownership they’d used their savings to buy the lodge. It was a dream home for them, and their grown-up children visited them frequently. Christmas was a special time for them and they had to add chairs to the family table every year to accommodate their growing number of grandchildren. All of their children had kids now – all of them except Alfie. Alfie was always too busy ‘chasing tail’, as he so eloquently put it, to settle down with one woman. “I’m still playing the field, Dad,” he used to say whenever he was goaded about his philandering ways. Alfie was very different from the rest of his children, but Patrick loved him all the same. He worried sometimes about where his money came from, but he’d decided a long time ago that it was better not to ask.

Patrick swung his creaking legs out of bed and wriggled his feet into a pair of red slippers. Although he had thin blue cotton pyjamas on there was a chill in the air. He could hear rain pattering on the roof too, which made him feel colder still. Patrick reached for a thick woollen cardigan that was on a wicker armchair next to the bed, and he pulled it on. He yawned as he headed for the bedroom door, trying not to wake his elderly wife.

“What are you doing?” She muttered as he opened the door.

“I’m sorry to wake you darling, something disturbed me so I’m going to get a quick drink,” Patrick lied.

“You’re going to check the locks more like,” Margaret chuckled. She always teased him about his obsession with security. He was continually checking that the windows and doors were locked tight. The problem was that age was dulling his mind and he couldn’t remember if he had locked the doors or not, and so he’d have to check them all again.

“Better safe than sorry, you go back to sleep,” he said as he walked out of the bedroom.

“Silly old fool,” she called after him. She loved him dearly, but she could see his faculties fading fast. Arthritis was rotting his joints, and he couldn’t walk far without a stick. The cancer treatment that he’d endured had stripped the muscle mass from his frame, leaving him frail. They had been together since school and it broke her heart to see the love of her life wasting away before her eyes.

Patrick was glad the lodge was all on one level: stairs would be a trauma for him to navigate nowadays. His walking stick was leaning against an ornate telephone table in the hallway, and he decided to use it while he did the rounds of locks and latches. He wasn’t absolutely sure, but he thought that he’d felt a breeze on his face as he walked down the hallway. A creaking sound in the kitchen stopped him in his tracks. The lodge was hundreds of years old and creaking noises were not uncommon as the ancient timbers expanded and contracted. The chances of there being an intruder in his home were slim, but he had to check. Many years ago he would have taken his chances with any would-be burglars that invaded his home and threatened the safety of his wife and children. Now though he was not as confident, age and illness having taken their toll on his body. He listened intently for any sound, but everything was still. Patrick gripped the walking stick like a cricket bat and walked towards the kitchen door. It was closed too. He placed his ear flat against the cold wood and listened for any intruders. There was nothing but silence.

“Maybe I am a silly old fool,” he whispered under his breath, but it didn’t stop a chill running through him. Did he feel a draft on his skin again, or was it all in his imagination? He turned the handle and twisted it slowly. The hinges creaked as the door opened an inch at a time. Patrick peered into the darkness and gripped his cane tightly with his left hand. His right hand fumbled along the wall for the light switch. A blast of cold night air hit him, and he could hear the rain as if it were around him. The hairs on the back of his neck tingled as he realised there must be a door or a window open somewhere. He scrambled for the light in a panic and found it at last. The economy bulb flickered and then illuminated the kitchen with a dull glow.

Directly in front of him was the back door, and it was open wide to the elements. Rain blew into the kitchen at an angle and a puddle was growing across the red tiled floor. There was a wood-burning stove in a stone fireplace to the left. The mantelpiece was shoulder high to a man of average height, and there were deep recesses behind the stove where a man could hide. He looked into them, but they were empty. On the right was a long pine table surrounded by eight chairs, and next to it were the sink and a wet area for a washing machine and a dishwasher. He couldn’t see a burglar or a bogeyman anywhere. All he could see was the back door flapping in the wind and the rain pouring in because a silly old man forgot to lock it. Patrick stepped into the kitchen to close the door. If he was honest, he couldn’t remember for sure if he’d locked it or not. Patrick lowered his walking stick and shook his head. He scolded himself for growing old and senile. He was a few steps in when he realised that he hadn’t checked behind the door in case someone was hiding there. Patrick had realised too late.