The Last Big Job (48 page)

‘
Mr Drozdov,’ Henry said slowly, ‘I’m-’

‘
I know who you are,’ Drozdov cut in sharply, speaking
perfect, accentless English. His voice was forceful and
authoritative, belying - again - his appearance, which was that of
a doddering old man. ‘Detective Inspector Henry James Christie. You
are the Senior Investigating Officer in charge of the investigation
into the death of my grandson.’ He watched Henry’s reaction and
smiled. ‘I make it my business to know such things. Now let us
proceed. Serov,’ he said to his huge companion, ‘stay with
us.’

‘
Yes, that is the body of my grandson, Nikolai Drozdov,’ the
old man said. Henry saw him intake breath sharply and steady
himself on his walking frame. Then Drozdov shuffled out of the
identification room, backed by the huge bear-man. Henry drew a
white linen sheet over Nikolai’s face and stepped out after
Drozdov.

‘
I must speak to you,’ he insisted.

‘
Why? What can you do for me that I cannot do for myself?’ he
responded, not pausing on his unsteady route back to the traffic
car.

‘
Mr Drozdov,’ Henry said sternly, ‘I am investigating the
murder of your grandson as well as that of seven other people.
You
must
talk to
me. If nothing else I need to inform you of the legal procedures
and give you details of when you can expect to be allowed to take
Nickolai’s body back to Russia.’

‘
Allowed?’ Drozdov snorted, stopping in his tracks, turning
slowly, but angrily on Henry.
‘Allowed?
My grandson will accompany
me back to Russia now.’

‘
No, he won’t. This is England and you will abide by our
rules, regulations and laws. You do not call the shots here like
you do on the streets of Moscow. Nikolai’s body will remain in this
country until released by the coroner - and believe me, I have a
great deal of influence in that decision.’

‘
Are you trying to intimidate me?’ Drozdov rallied.

‘
Merely stating facts.’

Astonishingly, the old man wilted like a daffodil, hanging his
head. Serov reached out, ready to catch him if he fell. Then
Drozdov pulled himself together.

‘
Nikolai was my only living blood relative.’ A tear formed in
the old man’s eye. Henry’s heart went out to him fleetingly, but he
spoke to him in the same, measured tones he had used
before.

‘
In that case you will be eager to take him home at the
earliest opportunity.’

‘
You are a hard man, Detective Christie.’

‘
No, you’re wrong there, but I have a job to do and I’ll do it
to the best of my ability.’

Drozdov nodded in graceful acquiescence. ‘In that case, we
shall talk.’

Old he might have been, but very cautious he remained – which
was probably why he had lived to such a grand old age, Henry
surmised. Drozdov refused to talk whilst sitting in the back of the
traffic car, which was Henry’s suggestion. Nor did he wish to go to
Lancaster police station, where protecting him would have been
easier. Instead he said he would be willing to sit in the back of
one of the firearms team’s cars because it was less likely to have
been bugged - and only then if Henry agreed to be searched by
Drozdov’s travelling companion. Henry, who was sick of being
searched for wires, said OK reluctantly.

After a quick but thorough pat-down, Serov grunted some thing
which must have meant Henry was clean.

Serov then assisted Drozdov into the car and after quickly
briefing the firearms team to be patient, Henry got in beside
him.

‘
I’ll lay my cards on the table,’ Henry opened. ‘As you know,
I am in charge of a multiple murder investigation, coupled with a
robbery, and one of the victims is your grandson. And this is how I
shall view Nikolai - as someone’s grandson. It is a terrible
tragedy and no one, from whatever walk of life, should lose a
grandson in such a manner. To me, murder is the most serious crime
there is and I will do everything possible to bring the offenders
to justice. That’s my solemn promise to you.’

This had been the seventh time of saying something similar in
the last forty-eight hours. As SIO, Henry thought it only right and
proper for him to visit the immediate families of all the victims,
those of the security guards, and those of Thompson and Elphick,
and to make this promise to them. When he spoke to Elphick’s
father, though, he had not really meant the words, because he was
glad the bastard was dead.

Drozdov said, ‘Thank you for that.’

‘
However. . .’ Henry went on.

‘
Ahh.’ The old man raised his head knowingly. ‘Here comes the
“but”’

‘
No, no buts. What I want to say is this. I know full well who
you are and what you are, Mr Drozdov. What I want to do is make a
plea. I know that you and your organisation are probably capable of
tracking down and killing the person you think is responsible for
Nikolai’s death. I beg you not to do that. If you do know who is
responsible, please feed that information to me and let the legal
process take its course. Let me convict the offender. Let them
suffer a life in prison. Killing is too good for such a person, too
easy. . .’ Henry’s words drifted away.

‘
An interesting little speech,’ Drozdov said with a trace of
pity. ‘You make assumptions about me which could be upsetting. But,
in the confines of this car, I will admit you are correct. It is
the plan for my “organisation”, as you call it, to hunt down and
destroy Nikolai’s murderer. You see, in Russia, we believe blood
for blood. Whoever killed my grandson will die for it. I have
already lost my son in similar circumstances. I allowed the Russian
police to use the due process of law on that occasion and the
killer was acquitted on a technicality - which told me the friends
of the killer paid the judge more than I.’ Drozdov pushed his thick
glasses up to the bridge of his nose. ‘That judge judges no more.
So my faith in the law, if I had any to begin with, was not
justified and the man who killed my son met a very messy
end.’

‘
This is British justice, not Russian justice,’ Henry argued,
jolted by hearing such revelations - two admissions of murder in
one breath - and feeling powerless to do anything about
it.

‘
Then there is an even greater likelihood of failure. If the
corrupt Russian system did not convict my son’s killer, how can I
hope that a fair and just system will be any different?’

‘
I will ensure it.’

‘
How? Shall I bribe you?’ chuckled Drozdov.

‘
That won’t be necessary,’ Henry said coldly. ‘I will ensure
it by means of my skills as a detective and the skills of my team.
Your grandson’s killer will be tried and convicted. I guarantee
it.’

‘
I’m afraid your guarantee is worthless.’

‘
So you will not do as I ask?’

Drozdov leaned back and closed his eyes. Henry thought he had
fallen asleep, but then he said, ‘No, but I will offer you a
compromise of sorts. If you arrest the man who killed Nikolai
before I get to him, I will allow British justice to run its
course. However, if there is an acquittal, he will die; if he is
convicted and sent to prison, he will be allowed to serve the term
imposed by the court. On his release, he will die, even though by
that time I will be dead myself. At ninety-one there are not many
years left for anyone, but his death will be my legacy for
Nikolai.’

‘
That is not very helpful. You are saying that whatever
happens, he is a dead man.’

‘
Yes, that is all I can offer. I am an old man in grief. I
want revenge. It is as simple as that.’ He touched Henry’s knee.
‘You are a good man, Henry Christie, but I live in a different
world with different values and you should understand
that.’

Henry shook his head despondently. It had been worth a try,
to get Drozdov on his side, but he had half-expected the response
and he wasn’t unduly surprised. The sooner he got back to the
MIR
the better. He was involved in a race
to catch the killer now. He had to make an arrest before Drozdov’s
henchmen struck first, and therefore there was not much time to
play with. The slow-moving police machine needed a huge kick up the
rear.

‘
What information can you give me?’ Henry asked. ‘What, for
example, was Nikolai doing in this country, associating with known
criminals?’

‘
Furthering business interests is how I would summarise
it.’

‘
Did that include murdering Jacky Lee? Is that one of your
methods of “furthering interests”, as you put it?’

‘
Do I detect a trace of anger in your voice, Mr
Christie?’

‘
What would be the point of anger?’

‘
Exactly. As I said - different values. We work differently to
you ... and now, I think I am getting tired of this.’

‘
Me too,’ said Henry. ‘This detective here’ - he pointed to
Dave Seymour - ‘will take a short statement from you about your
identification of Nikolai’s body, then you may go - but I stick
what I said earlier: no one should lose a grandson in such
circumstances, even if the grandson was deeply involved in violent
crime himself. Because of that, I will not falter in my efforts to
bring this killer to justice and unravel the sordid goings-on
behind it all.’ Henry raised his eyebrows. ‘Different
values.’

He got out of the car.

Whilst waiting for Seymour to take the statement, Henry
drifted into the mortuary and found himself standing by the fridges
in which the bodies were stored. He could not resist pulling out
the sliding tray on which Gunk Elphick’s body was resting after the
post-mortem. He was wrapped in a linen shroud. Henry looked round
to see he wasn’t being watched and unravelled the shroud from
around Gunk’s head.

Henry simply wanted to wish him one last thing.

‘
Rot in hell, you evil bastard.’ Childish, he knew. Nor did it
achieve anything. But it made him feel much, much
better.

With a signal from one motorcyclist to the other, the police
escort pulled away from the mortuary. Henry and Dave Seymour
watched it leave.

‘
Let’s get back to Headquarters,’ Henry said quickly and
climbed into the firm’s Mondeo.

In the back seat of the traffic car, Alexandr Drozdov spoke
quietly into the ear of his bodyguard, whispering two words. ‘Yuri
Ivankov.’

Less than three-quarters of an hour later, the two detectives
drove into police Headquarters. Henry, at the wheel, drove past the
front of the HQ building on his right, the sports-field on his
left. The grass still bore the charred, vivid scars where the Force
helicopter had been destroyed. The wreckage had been removed
piecemeal to the Forensic Science Lab down at Euxton, near Chorley,
and was being examined by experts there. First indications fed to
the MIR were that a couple of grenades were responsible for blowing
the machine to smithereens.

Henry drove over the speed ramps too quickly, jarring the
unsuspecting Seymour out of his seat, and headed towards the LEC
building which had been commandeered by Henry and his Murder Squad
- now totalling forty officers and support staff - for the enquiry.
He stopped in the yellow hatch markings outside the front door and
abandoned the dirty Mondeo there. Inside he went directly to the
main room which was being used for the incident. Danny and several
others were working away, heads buried in masses of
paper.

‘
Danny,’ he called across the room. ‘Got a minute? Pretty
urgent.’

She grimaced and held her hands wide as if to say, ‘I am busy,
you know.’

‘
Aren’t we all,’ he said. ‘Come on,’ and gestured her
out.

‘
OK, boss,’ she said with resignation.

‘
And bring everything,’ he instructed as an afterthought -
although he wasn’t specific as to what ‘everything’ actually meant.
He ducked out of the room and went to the one he had claimed as his
office, throwing his jacket over a chair and helping himself to a
coffee from the filter machine. He thudded down into his chair,
mind churning.

There was a light knock and Danny entered, carrying a few
sheets of printed paper. She clicked the door lock behind her and
leaned against the door, adopting a provocative pose.

‘
If you were any sort of boss,’ she pouted, ‘we’d be screwing
on that desktop right now.’

Henry perused her from head to toe. His teeth grated together
with the memory of her body. He shifted uncomfortably to allow a
surge of blood to pass into his loins.

‘
I only have to look at you to get a hard on,’ he
said.

‘
And I only have to look at you to want you inside me.’
Breathless.

Henry stood up slowly, maintaining eye-contact with her. He
walked towards her. She raised her chin, exposing her long neck,
looking down her nose at him with a ‘let’s do it now’
expression.

He stopped inches away from her, his fingers at his trouser
fly. Then, unable to maintain the charade, he burst out giggling.
She did the same.