The Last Big Job (23 page)

‘
What about the killer himself? Anything further on
him?’

Davison shook his head. ‘No, looks like a pay-per-kill job. In
and out, no trace, no leads.’

‘
What about my wire?’ Henry asked, referring to the tape
recorder he was wearing at the time of the killing. ‘Anything from
that?’

‘
No - too much rustling and banging and
distortion.’

‘
The getaway car?’ Henry asked hopefully. There were a lot of
negatives.

‘
Not turned up. We reckon it’s been recycled. Loads of scrap
yards in the region are being visited, but there’s nothing yet.
Either that or it’s in a deep quarry somewhere. I’ll be getting the
diving branch to check the best-known dumping places.’

‘
Anything from my description of the driver?’

‘
Nothing concrete, but we do have a suspect. A young lad from
a council estate in Salford, suspected of driving at robberies.
He’s being looked into. . .’ Davison paused mid-sentence and
quickly said, ‘but very discreetly, of course, as part of the wider
picture because your description of him doesn’t exist, does
it?’

‘
No, it doesn’t, does it?’ Henry said sourly. Maybe he was
prejudging Davison, but he had dropped the question in about the
description purposely and got the reply he didn’t want to hear. He
breathed in, eyeballing Davison. Not a happy chappie.

‘
I want you to swear to me that our statements have not been
used in any way to further this investigation,’ Henry
insisted.

The air turned cold as an atmosphere settled on the
room.

Davison squirmed, as if his anus had contracted and
relaxed.

‘
Because if they have,’ Henry continued, ‘I’m not going back
in.’

‘
They haven’t,’ the Superintendent said firmly, but a little
too quickly for Henry’s liking.

Colin Hodge should have enjoyed the ninety-minute hydrofoil
crossing to La Gomera more than he did. A sense of impending doom
about the whole scenario which he himself had engineered blinded
his senses. He sat on the upper deck of the Fred Olsen ferry,
totally unmoved by the magnificent sight of a school of dolphins
accompanying the ship, his guts churning with fear rather than
sea-sickness.

The ferry slowed and manoeuvred into San Sebastian, disgorging
foot passengers and vehicles on to the harbour side.

Hodge stood by the water’s edge underneath the burning hot
sun, looking towards the town, shading his eyes. An old, dusty
brown Mercedes drove slowly along the dock towards him, against the
flow of traffic leaving the boat.

Loz tapped Hodge on the shoulder. He had also been a passenger
on the ferry, easily keeping out of Hodge’s view amongst the
holidaymakers and locals on board. Hodge spun quickly and
recognised Loz as the mysterious guy who had delivered the poolside
message to him earlier. The bandaged hand gave it away for sure.
This time Hodge could see Loz’s features properly: a pointed,
rather mean face, thinning hair drawn back into a pony tail tied
with a red ribbon. The face displayed the bruises of a recent
assault. His mouth was twisted into a permanent half-grimace,
showing discoloured and crooked teeth. His bandaged hand was laid
across his stomach, supported by his other hand. Hodge thought the
facial expression was probably connected with the pain from his
hand.

‘
Get in the car.’ Loz pointed to the brown Benz. It had
stopped close by.

‘
Not until I know where I’m going.’ Hodge dug his heels in
with a show of bravado.

‘
To see the boss.’

‘
Not good enough.’

Loz eyed him with pissed-off contempt. ‘Look, I don’t give a
monkey’s fart whether you get in or not - and nor does my boss. You
can fuck off back on the ferry if you want, but don’t even think of
going back to the apartment if you do. The hospitality will have
ended. Just fuck off back to England.’

‘
I’ve got something your boss wants.’

‘
Yeah, sure,’ Loz sighed. ‘Just make your mind up.’ He walked
to the car and opened a rear door, made a sweeping gesture with his
good hand, as a footman might, and raised his eyebrows.

The spur of the moment saw Hodge climb in. The prospect of a
share in fifty million pounds overwhelmed him and made the danger
seem worthwhile.

Loz sat in the front seat next to the driver. He slid on a
pair of shades and gave a quick wave to a cop lounging by a police
car. The Mercedes swung round on the harbour and headed towards San
Sebastian.

‘
What happened to your hand?’ Hodge asked.

‘
I stuck it in a lion’s mouth.’

It is never a good thing to walk out of a briefing feeling
that you have been lied to, but that is exactly what Henry Christie
did that afternoon. He left the classroom and wandered out of the
training school into the car park which had once been a parade
square.

Henry easily and affectionately remembered the early days of
his police service - the mid-1970s - when drill had still been a
big part of a Probationer Constable’s curriculum and he had marched
everywhere. Now very little drill was done. The modern philosophy
was that discipline and responsibility should come from within a
person, rather than from the parent-like authority of the
organisation, via a drill pig.

Henry had hated drill. Not having any natural rhythm (on the
dance-floor he was a ludicrous spectacle), he had been
uncoordinated and gangling - particularly as a spotty, pasty-faced
youth of nineteen; he was often out of step, having to constantly
readjust and re-time his stride with a series of silly shuffles. He
could never take marching seriously. Even then, when he knew no
different, he thought it was a complete waste of time. Consequently
he had suffered much ritual humiliation and tongue-lashings by
Drill Sergeants, usually for his lack of timing, often for having
hair that was too long (very early in his service, he had been
literally dragged to the Force joiner, a position no longer in
existence, who also doubled as a barber: the man scalped Henry
without mercy) and for his untidy uniform and non-regulation socks
and shoes. In those days, being a bit of a rebel, he insisted on
wearing black socks with coloured flecks in them and black brogues,
as opposed to the prescribed black socks and plain-fronted black
shoes or boots.

These days, he in turn often complained bitterly about the
standard of recruits, their cockiness and slovenly appearance ...
such was the perspective of age.

Henry perched his backside on the wing of the XJS and unhooked
his mobile phone from his belt. He tapped in a number.

It was, as they say in the world of the undercover cop, ‘scam
time’.

This was the most enjoyable part of the job. Daily trying to
think up ways of setting up villains for a fall, yet protecting all
the players and informants along the way. Plotting against the
bastards with the only limit being imagination and creativity. The
beauty of it being that no matter how outlandish the plot, if it
seemed remotely feasible, then it would be attempted.

Henry had once concocted a beautiful one which had taken only
a few weeks to jack up and execute. It had been the ‘scamming’ of a
bent solicitor in Carlisle who was strongly suspected of laundering
money for the criminals he defended. The set-up had included going
into a police station posing as contracted painters and decorators
without anyone who worked there, other than the Superintendent in
charge of the station, knowing they were undercover cops. Henry and
a small team actually redecorated the custody suite and at the same
time installed miniature cameras, which recorded sound too, in one
of the interview rooms. These devices were connected to a
transmitter fitted secretly on the roof of the police station which
beamed sound and pictures a mile across town to an office which had
been rented for the operation.

The next part of the scam involved the use of two U/C officers
from the South of England and their real arrest on suspicion of
possession of drugs; the timing of this had to coincide with a
period when the bent brief was on call as the duty
solicitor.

It worked like a dream. The solicitor was requested by the
‘prisoners’, who then embroiled him unwittingly into the seam, but
willingly into a conspiracy involving £300,000, a stash of cocaine
and some false passports. He was subsequently arrested and
convicted, and received six years for his troubles.

The operation highlighted another danger facing U/C cops:
sometimes they got arrested together with their targets and there
is no possible way of saying to the Custody Officer, ‘Oh, by the
way, I’m really a cop.’ For one thing, they won’t believe you, but
if they did, they would still detain you and then your troubles
would really begin.

Henry had once been arrested. It had been a real
arse-twitching, bottle-testing time, sitting in a cell with a dry
mouth, wondering if it was going to work out without his cover
being blown, or whether he would be spending a week on remand where
the possibility of recognition was very real.

Henry held the mobile phone to his ear. It rang for a short
time and then was answered, making his stomach lurch.

‘
Is that Gary Thompson? . . . It’s Frank Jagger here. . .’
Scam time had begun.

They drove out of San Sebastian and immediately began to climb
the excellent but winding highway which snaked across the centre of
La Gomera. Soon they were on top of the island. The air was clear
and the brilliant blue sky seemed close enough to touch.

Then they were in the cloud forest, high trees either side of
the road, obscuring views but with occasional breaks through which
spectacular vistas could be glimpsed.

‘
I need a cigarette,’ Loz said to the driver, who had yet to
speak. ‘What about you?’ he asked over his shoulder to
Hodge.

‘
You bet.’ He was gasping.

‘
Pull in here,’ Loz indicated to the driver. It was a lay-by
next to the road with a sign indicating a viewpoint.

The Mercedes slowed and edged off the road, tyres scrunching
on the loose stones. Loz dived out and meandered to a bench which
he leaned against, blinking at the scenery.

Hodge came up behind him, cigarette in the corner of his
mouth. ‘Where we going?’

‘
You’ll see soon.’

They smoked in silence until Loz stamped his cigarette out and
turned to Hodge who had just finished his. ‘Time to go.’

The driver, who had approached quietly, slid a black hood over
Hodge’s head, drew a string tightly around his neck and wrestled
him to the ground. Loz assisted him to strap Hodge’s hands together
with tape and drag him to the Mercedes, where they threw him bodily
across the back seat.

Danny spent the day reading everything that had accumulated
from the murders of Cheryl, Spencer and the unidentified male. Even
in such a short space of time, masses of material - intelligence,
evidence and dross - had accumulated. She studied it all carefully
in the hope that her detective’s mind would find the missing link,
or hit on that one vital piece of information everyone else had
missed, slot everything together and come up with some
answers.

It did not happen.

Although she acknowledged her ‘action’ was probably a key to
the whole thing, the most likely avenue for a result in the short
term was through the garage owner, Peter Maynard. Three people
don’t just get murdered in your business premises without you
knowing something about it.

In interview he had admitted nothing and in the end he was
released on police bail.

He was now under covert surveillance and permission was being
sought from the appropriate authority to tap his phones at home and
work. Sooner or later he would let something slip. At least, that
was the hope.

Most resources were concentrating on him, others were trying
to trace the source of the drugs that Cheryl had been
carrying.

Danny closed the big fat ring-binder and leaned her elbows on
it, cradling her face. It was almost nine o’clock, Monday evening,
four days into the enquiry. In a few minutes there would be a flood
of officers in the Incident Room for the evening debrief. Each one
would have to report on progress made or, in Danny’s case, progress
not made. After that, most of them would probably go for a
drink.

Danny decided she would be going straight home and hitting the
sack.

Chapter Ten

That night, as Henry Christie cruised through the streets of
Manchester in the firm’s Jaguar XJS, eventually finding a parking
spot, the city was heaving with bodies. It was a cold night, but
that did not stop most of the young men on the prowl from dressing
in jeans and skimpy T-shirts or vests. The women were no more
sensible; their skirts were nothing more than wide belts,
displaying a mixed variety of legs and ankles, and their tops were
paper-thin and appeared to be several sizes too small for their
chests.

Henry, with his leather jacket slung casually over his
shoulder, did not look too much out of place. He might have felt
like the oldest swinger in town, but in the persona of Frank Jagger
he swaggered confidently amongst the crowds, smiling at the women,
scowling dangerously at the lads who were happy to avoid this
older, tough-looking guy, giving him a wide berth.