The Last Big Job (32 page)

Gillrow came back with a long, cool lemonade. Danny thanked
him.

‘
I’ll bet you do most of your eating out here. It must be
wonderful. I love eating in the open air. Food tastes so much
better.’ She was out to do a little softening by flattering his
lifestyle if nothing else.

‘
Yeah, we do eat out here mostly.’

‘
What’s the social life like?’

‘
OK. I’m a bit of a loner anyway, so I’m not bothered about
mixing all the time, but my wife gets out and about. There’s a lot
of ex-pats around here.’

‘
What made you decide to come out here?’

Gillrow opened his arms, looked around and said,
‘This.’

Danny nodded, sipped the lemonade: real lemonade.

‘
OK,’ Gillrow said. ‘Niceties over ... what do you
want?’

Danny shrugged as if to say, ‘You pushed it.’ She opened her
folding clipboard. ‘Malcolm Fitch was found murdered in Blackpool,
shot through the head. He was dumped into a vehicle inspection pit
with two other bodies, both of whom had connections with the drugs
trade from Tenerife. Fitch used to be one of your informants. He
hasn’t been seen, or at least we’ve had no recorded sightings of
him, for about fourteen years.’

‘
I had a lot of informants. He was one of many, as I
remember
,’
Gillrow said, making a great show of trying to jog his memory
by screwing up his face. ‘He didn’t really give me much. I didn’t
use him much, either. So you see,’ he apologised, ‘you have had a
wasted journey.’

‘
Mr Gillrow, your record suggests you were a very diligent,
highly motivated cop. I’ve got to say, I find it hard to believe
you can’t remember more about Fitch.’

Gillrow’s face dropped and set like concrete. ‘I’ve been
retired for eight years, Miss. And you are talking about someone I
had dealings with - what, fourteen years ago?’ He leaned forwards.
‘I don’t remember - OK?’

Danny swallowed, completely dissatisfied by him, but aware
there was nothing else at all she could do about his attitude or
his memory loss. She gulped the lemonade, which tasted
superb.

‘
If that’s the way you want to play it, fair enough. But
remember this, Mr Gillrow. We’re investigating a triple murder with
drugs connections all the way from Lancashire to here, Tenerife. I
am
not
going to
let that connection go cold, because sometimes it’s those tenuous
ones that make a case.’

‘
Are you threatening me, young lady?’

‘
All I’m doing is telling you that I am a very thorough
detective - just like you were, no doubt, and I don’t let go
easily. There’s every possibility that I’ll be back to see you
again - I because I think you’re telling me porkies.’

They eyed each other like two boxers. Danny sipped the last
part of her lemonade. The ice cubes crashed against her teeth. She
nodded almost imperceptibly and folded her clipboard closed. ‘Thank
you for your time, Mr Gillrow. It was very
enlightening.’

The atmosphere between them was as cold as the ice in her
glass. Danny swilled it round and placed the glass on the table.
The interview was over. She handed him her business card on the
back of which was the name of her hotel and room number. ‘Call me
if you get your memory back,’ she said sweetly.

Gillrow closed the apartment door behind her, went into the
kitchen and pulled a bottle of cheap whisky out of the
refrigerator, poured a long measure into a glass and stalked out to
the balcony. Troubled, he watched Danny walking across the poolside
area of the apartment towards an exit. She glanced up and saw him,
gave a nod of acknowledgement. Gillrow did not respond, his eyes
blazing towards her, a lump of fear growing in his stomach like a
tumour. He swallowed a mouthful of
the
whisky and it burned his mouth with its cheap coarseness. Then he
emptied the rest of
it down his throat as
he saw Danny disappear down the road towards the centre of
the resort.

It had always been at the back of
his mind that one day his past would catch up with him and
destroy him. Now
it was beginning
to
happen.

Eight years of
placid retirement,
shaken like the walls of
Jericho by a
phone call and then a visit from a woman detective. A bloody woman
shaking him up! He had not
liked her on
the phone; in person he detested her with a passion because she had
got
her foot
in
the door and now
all she needed, possibly,
was a bit of
muscle and she would have
forced an entry.

He was trembling like an alcoholic on his next visit
to
the fridge, filling his glass with an
even greater measure of
Scotch. Then he
slumped down on one of
the sofas and
shuddered as if he had the flu. It didn’t bear thinking about, but
he had to
get this detective to
back off. Quick.

With reluctance he picked up the phone and dialled a well
remembered number.

‘
I need to
speak to
Billy Crane - urgently,’ Gillrow gasped when the
phone was answered.

A detective can only work on actual words spoken during an
interview. Body language is not
evidence
of
anything, no
matter how much it might say. And Danny Furness, during her
years on the Family Protection Unit before joining the CID, had
interviewed numerous people with dark, horrible secrets to
hide. Whether they admitted them verbally or
not,
Danny could always tell the truth
from the NVCs.

Over seventy per cent communication is by way of
non-
verbals, it’s just
that most
people don’t know how to
read them consciously.

Danny had been reading the signals for
years, trying to
interpret them,
just as she did whilst walking back to
Los
Cristianos in the sunshine.

Barney Gillrow’s hands, eyes, head, posture, had all told
Danny he was one big fucking liar. She knew this, not just because
of his highly defensive body language, but because even in the bad
old days of slack procedures and loose guidelines, informants
needed handling, nurturing - and sucking dry of everything they had
to offer. They take time and effort. They take money and
reassurance. And because of that, they do not fade in the memory
unless you’re suffering from Alzheimer’s disease. Barney Gillrow
was as sharp as a knife still and could easily have been in the job
had he so wished, because Inspectors and above can work up to the
age of sixty before enforced retirement.

So what had he got to hide? Danny asked herself as she reached
the promenade and turned left towards Los Cristianos. Informants
were always a dirty business. She guessed that Gillrow was probably
hiding some deep, dark secret concerning his involvement with
Fitch. The question Danny posed for herself was - how do I prise
the top off this particular can of worms?

The massive doors clattered open and Terry Briggs reversed the
Mercedes Box Van fully into the unit. The doors closed as soon as
the vehicle was inside. He jumped down from the cab and trotted
round to the back doors, which he opened. He then started to load
the boxes of whisky into the back with the assistance of another
couple of U/C cops who were killing a bit of time between
jobs.

Henry was on the landline to the FBI office in London,
speaking to Karl Donaldson.

‘
Thanks for the fax. Sobering stuff.’

‘
You’ve got some major problems up there, I’d say.’

Henry agreed. ‘I think we probably do need an operation to nip
this in the bud, if possible. This whole thing started off as a
murder enquiry and it seems to have snowballed. I need to get my
thinking cap on and see if I can think of a way of scamming the
Russians at the same time as my other targets.’

‘
If you’d like us to get involved, the offer is there,’
Donaldson said. ‘We have good intelligence on these guys and we’d
be happy to share it with you. Well,’ the American qualified the
statement, ‘up to a point.’

Henry understood. Intelligence was power and influence. You
don’t just chuck it at people, whoever you are. Cops are
notoriously tight-fisted with it; it’s a cultural thing.

‘
There is another twist as well.’

‘
What’s that?’ Donaldson asked.

Henry told him about the sudden, unexpected appearance of
Billy Crane on the scene, which Henry hoped he had weathered. Crane
had shown no sign of recognising him. After all, it was twelve
years since they had confronted each other in the Casualty
Department at Blackburn Royal Infirmary and Crane had been well out
of it at the time. Henry had not seen him since as he had pleaded
guilty at trial. But Crane surfacing like that had nearly given him
a thromb. He would have to be very careful in future.

‘
I don’t know what’s going on, but Crane has been remarkably
quiet since he got out of jail, and now here he is, back
again.’

‘
Well, stick in there, buddy - and keep looking over your
shoulder because I wouldn’t trust any of these people, even the
cops,’ he chuckled.

Words which turned out to be prophetic.

Loz had been left in charge of Nero again and, by implication,
in charge of the businesses whilst Crane was away from the island.
What it really meant was that Loz should feed Nero and clean up his
piss and shit and not do anything to rock the boat businesswise
whilst Lord and Master Crane was abroad.

Loz was on the rooftop of Uncle B’s Bar and Disco with a
six-foot-long piece of bamboo cane in his hand, staring
disconsolately at the beast, having poked the mean bastard evilly
several times just to annoy him. And annoyed the animal was,
angrily pacing the small cage, grunting with each step, his eyes
burning towards Loz who pushed the cane pole through the mesh and
jabbed it at the cat again. Nero’s temper was worsened by the fact
that a bucketful of bloody horsemeat was at Loz’s feet, the aroma
driving the hungry cat madder and madder.

‘
Come on, you bastard, suffer like you made me do.’ Loz held
up his bandaged hand and waved it at Nero. With his other hand he
poked the bamboo into the cage. Nero reacted this time by turning
quickly, swiping at the -offending stick and dragging it out of
Loz’s grasp.

‘
Shit!’

Nero licked his lips and looked down his long nose at Loz and
growled.

‘
In that case, you can wait for this, you swine.’ Loz kicked
the bucket at his feet.

Loz was now a very unhappy person. Following his faux pas in
hiring a stupid girl with an even stupider boyfriend to deliver
drugs which had ended up in the hands of the cops, Billy Crane had
been treating him very badly indeed. After the incident with Nero,
Crane had virtually shunned Loz, used him as a gofer and a waiter
and told him to forget about hiring any more mules. ‘Your judgment
is so clouded,’ Crane had once screamed at him, ‘that I wonder if
you’re a junkie yourself.’

Loz had denied it, even though it was beginning to be
true.

When he had started in the game, he’d been clean. But then he
got a taste for it, bit by disastrous bit. Until he reached a point
where he was skimming for his own use, something Crane did not
know, but may have suspected.

Now he was being denied access to free drugs and he had been
forced to go buying himself - and it was a problem. Money was
getting tight. He’d dipped his fingers into a few of Crane’s tills
even though he was aware that this was a quick way to a very dusty
death if he wasn’t very careful. The thieving had to stop, but
unless he could persuade Crane to let him get back into the trade,
it would be a struggle.

Crane had also cut him off from everything else that was
happening.

Loz could feel something big was in the air, but did not know
quite what. The appearance of Smith and that pathetic little turd
called Colin had signalled something on the horizon. Try as he
might, Loz could not quite work out what.

Then Crane and Smith had suddenly departed for the UK,
separately, leaving a festering man ‘in charge’.

Loz desperately needed to get back into Crane’s good
books.

Teasing Nero, he suddenly thought, was not the way to do it.
He emptied the disgusting horseflesh into the feed tray and kicked
it through to the lion. Nero grabbed a huge chunk with an enormous
roar and began to chew it. ‘Choke on it, you bastard,’ Loz
said.

No, teasing Nero was not the way, but possibly acting on the
phone call he had received earlier might be. Time to meet the guy
and see what it was all about. It was 7.55 p.m.

At 8 p.m. Henry still had not heard from Thompson or Elphick.
He was beginning to think the deal might be off. He and Terry were
still at the unit, the only two police officers there at that
moment in time. Henry had just finished a phone call to Kate and
had also had a quick chat with both his daughters. The conversation
with his wife had been strained, to say the least, but the girls
were chatty and full of news, including the fact that the older
one, Jenny, now had a boyfriend who had his nose pierced. Henry’s
heart skipped a beat or two backwards at the news. It made him
realise how grown-up she was, and how much of her growing up he had
missed. It was a horrible feeling.