The doctor drew the curtain back.
‘ Whisper wants to talk to you,’ he announced.
Kovaks and Sue exchanged a surprised glance.
‘ Where is he?’ she asked.
‘ We’ve just admitted him. He’s down on the ward, first bed on the left.’ The doctor pointed.
‘ How is he?’ Sue enquired.
‘ He’ll live.’
Curtains had also been drawn around Whisper’s bed, denying the other occupants of the ward a view of the prison hard man beaten to a pulp. Kovaks and Sue ducked in and stood next to the bed.
Whisper looked bad. A real mess.
Other than the facial injuries inflicted by Sue, the warders had really gone to town on him. Obviously a lot of grudges had been exorcised. His left arm, wrist and all five fingers were broken; he had several broken ribs, as well as a smashed collarbone and a shattered kneecap. His face and upper body were a mass of welts, cuts, bruises and swellings. Several of the deeper cuts had been stitched and blood dribbled out of them onto the pillow and sheets.
His eyes were closed. His left had swollen up like a boxer’s, round and big as a tennis ball, the colour purple. The other was merely bruised. He opened this one and peered sideways at his visitors.
‘ You wanted to see us,’ Kovaks managed to whisper hoarsely.
‘ Can’t hear you,’ the big man said.
Kovaks leaned forwards, his mouth close to Whisper’s ear.
‘ You wanted to see us.’
‘ Yeah… why you whisperin’?’
‘ Some bastard did my throat in.’
Whisper chuckled and winced with the pain which arced through his chest like an electric shock. When he’d reached equilibrium he said, ‘Is it true — what you said?’
‘ It’s true.’
‘ Fuck!’
‘ Help us,’ Kovaks’ voice grated painfully, ‘and we can help her, Whisper. We’ll get her in a re-hab scheme, set her up somewhere else and give her some cash to start a new life with Cassie — away from Corelli. ‘
‘ Nobody gets away from Corelli,’ said Whisper, dismissing the idea. Then, ‘But she’s a good girl. She deserves a break. Will you do what you say?’
‘ I will,’ said Kovaks, nodding.
‘ If you don’t, I’ll kill you when I get out of here… after I’ve killed Corelli. ‘
‘ I said I will,’ said Kovaks, believing him.
‘ So what d’you want?’
Kovaks held out his hand. Sue gave him the photos.
‘ Who is this guy?’ Kovaks held the prints so Whisper could see them without having to move. ‘We need to know — urgently.’
Whisper looked hard at the photographs with his good eye. His breathing was painful and laboured. The analgesics were only just beginning to take effect.
‘ Why?’ he asked.
‘ We think he killed a lotta people — including a busload of kids — on Corelli’s orders.’
Whisper winced. ‘I don’t know him.’
Kovaks stood up, disappointed. ‘Shit.’
‘ I mean I don’t know him personally, but I know he’s Corelli’s top hired killer. Jimmy Hinksman, that’s his name. Corelli keeps him pretty much tucked away. Talk is he used to be Special Forces but got kicked out for some girl trouble. That’s all I know about him. Real mystery figure. Ahhh…’ He gasped as he adjusted his position slightly. He waited a moment for the pain to settle.
Someone walked down the ward and stopped near to Whisper’s bed. Kovaks heard the sounds of the doctor’s voice murmuring in muted conversation. A female voice replied — a nurse. Footsteps walked past the bed. Kovaks returned his attention to Whisper.
‘ I only seen him once and I got the evil eye when I asked who he was. Real arrogant bastard. Did he do Danny Carver?’ asked Whisper.
‘ How the hell did you know that?’ said Kovaks, taken aback.
‘ News travels fast — even in here.’
‘ Where do we find him?’
Whisper shook his head slightly. ‘In America he could be anywhere. But if he’s in England, I know somewhere you could try.’
Chapter Eight
Donaldson perched on the Allocator’s desk in the incident room, a phone cradled between his left ear and shoulder. ‘Hey, Joe,’ he was saying, ‘you done good, pal. I’m real sorry about your injuries.’
The fax machine in the corner of the room beeped into life. ‘It’s coming through now,’ Donaldson said into the phone.
At the machine, Karen Wilde and Ken McClure stood bleary-eyed.
It was 7.30 a.m. They had worked through the night interviewing the man arrested at Lytham the evening before. They had pushed to the limits allowed by the Police and Criminal Evidence Act, initially denying him access to legal representation in the hope of making a quick breakthrough. They had also broken the rules during the course of the interview — by their oppressive and intimidatory conduct, but in the end they had nothing on him. His driving licence had either been lost or stolen but he didn’t know where or when. They dusted him down at 5 a.m., promised to pay for any damage caused at his home and sent him on his way without an apology. They hadn’t been in the mood to apologise to anyone.
As they packed up, the phone rang.
Kovaks.
The first sheet came off the fax. It read, With the compliments of Joe Kovaks, FBI, Miami, Florida, US. There was a little photo of him beneath the wording. Karen groaned as she saw it. Under her breath she muttered, ‘Another idiotic Yank.’
The next one came through with excruciating slowness. It was so damn slow that Karen was sure the machine had gone on the blink. She tapped her toes angrily. When the printing was complete, she grabbed the paper and read it several times before handing it to McClure.
She could hardly contain herself.
McClure read it out loud: ‘Fingerprints identified from military file as belonging to James Clarkson Hinksman.’ He looked up and grinned. ‘Got the bastard.’
Page three came off the machine. It was the photo from Corelli’s file, showing the big Italian and Hinksman at a restaurant.
Page four showed an old photograph of Hinksman, passport size, dressed in a military uniform. Page five contained brief details of a military career which had come to a halt four years previously when he was dishonourably discharged following a court martial. The next four pages were an expanded summary of his service record. The last page listed all the murders of prostitutes that the fingerprints linked him with.
There was nothing else.
‘ At least now we know who we’re looking for,’ said Karen, ‘although we haven’t got a clue where he is. He may no longer be in this country.’
‘ Perhaps we should get his mug splattered all over the media,’ McClure suggested.
‘ We will.’ Karen turned to Donaldson. He was still on the phone, scribbling something on a scrap of paper.
‘ Thank your colleague for me,’ she said. ‘He’s done a fantastic job.’
Donaldson finished writing. ‘My new boss says thanks, Joe. Me too.
Great job.’
He hung up and, smiling broadly, picked up the fax of Corelli and Hinksman. ‘I knew I’d seen that face before. We have literally thousands of photos of Corelli but I remembered this one. I think I did quite well.’
‘ I do too,’ Karen conceded with more warmth than she intended.
‘ So, we’ve got a real top hit man on our hands. Now, what’s all this nonsense about not knowing where our Mr Hinksman is?’ He held up his scrap of paper. ‘He’s on vacation in Blackpool.’ He attempted a poor Lancashire accent. ‘Land of cloth caps, donkey rides and mucky postcards, tha’ knows, lass.’
‘ Give me that!’ laughed Karen. She snatched the paper. She read it and punched the air with a fist. ‘Yes, YES, YES!’
Joe Kovaks leaned back in his chair and interlocked his fingers behind his head. He chuckled in disbelief, but consoled himself that even the best brains sometimes failed to see simple solutions to complex problems. He couldn’t believe they’d never checked the military file, yet all it had taken was the press of a button on Damian’s magic fingerprint machine and — hey presto! Mr James Clarkson Hinksman, Mafia killer extraordinary, was exposed. Jeez, how could they all have been so dumb, he thought. That bastard could have been fried over a year ago. If that harpy Lisa Want ever got hold of this, she’d have a field day exposing the inefficiency of the FBI.