He sighed at the stupidity, but wasn’t too upset because it wasn’t normal procedure to cross-check the military files.
Just then, Sue appeared in the doorway, virtually filling it. She’d just showered in the ladies’ rest-room and changed into a jogging outfit which she kept in her locker. At least she would smell all right for a while, Kovaks thought cruelly, but then regretted it. She’d more than proved her worth today.
‘ Good result,’ he said pleasantly, his voice carefully low.
‘ Yep,’ she agreed.
‘ Good ole Damian. Workaholic, that guy.’
‘ I like him,’ she admitted.
Kovaks took a deep breath and consulted his watch. ‘Look, I know it’s late and all that, but would you like a drink on the way home? Just a quickie, by way of celebration.’
‘ I’d love one,’ Sue said, ‘but… I’ve made other arrangements.’ As if on cue, Damian appeared at the office door. Hair combed, jacket brushed, tie straight. Like a nervous teenager on a first date.
‘ Damian’s offered to take me home,’ Sue said apologetically.
‘ Raincheck?’
Relieved somewhat, Kovaks nodded. ‘Raincheck.’
Sue danced as lightly as was possible towards Damian, breasts bouncing uncontrollably, lighting up Damian’s eyes with lust. She gave Kovaks a salacious wink, then disappeared with the slightly built fingerprint expert, arm threaded through his.
‘ Rather you than me, pal,’ Kovaks said under his breath.
As he pulled on his jacket the phone chirped. It was the switchboard operator. ‘Joe?’
‘ I’m just on my way home.’
‘ Dade County Correctional Institute left a message for you. You went to see one of the inmates earlier.’
‘ Yeah?’ Kovaks’ stomach dropped.
‘ He’s been knifed to death.’
It was 11 a.m.
The unmarked police car raced at 120 mph down the motorway towards Blackpool. The driver was a PC from the motor driving school. McClure and Donaldson sat silently in the back of the car rereading the faxes from America. Karen Wilde sat in the front passenger seat, brooding, staring intently ahead. Angry.
The confrontation she’d recently undergone with Crosby and Fanshaw-Bayley had set the whole thing back several hours, although in the end she’d got her own way and a firearms team had been deployed to Blackpool for a briefing.
After receiving the information from America, Karen had decided to see Crosby face to face to ask for a team this time. She walked straight into his office. Fanshaw-Bayley was also there.
‘ Ahhh,’ said Crosby looking up from his desk. ‘I was just about to summon you, miss.’
‘ I need authorisation for a firearms team,’ she began breathlessly.
‘ We think we’ve located-’
Crosby slashed his right hand through the air as if he was executing a karate chop, stopping her in mid-sentence.
‘ You deliberately disobeyed my orders yesterday, miss, and now you want me to sanction another team?’
‘ What d’you mean, sir?’
‘ I said “No” to your request yesterday.’
‘ You did, yes.’
‘ Yet you utilised the Blackpool ARV,’ he stated.
Her mind whizzed. What was going on here? ‘It was a compromise,’ she said defensively.
‘ It was disobedience of a direct order,’ he shouted. ‘Implicit in my “No” was the fact that you were not, repeat not, to use armed officers for your little fiasco.’
She looked quickly at FB who smirked, enjoying her discomfort.
‘ I didn’t use a team,’ she said, trying to regain her composure. ‘You used armed officers!’
‘ Yes,’ she said, exasperated. ‘I used the ARV. They are on twenty-four-hour cover in every division and can be used for day-to-day jobs just like any other patrol in the county. They were there as insurance. They didn’t draw their weapons, neither did they get involved in the raid. It was a sensible move, if you ask me.’
‘ No one’s fucking asking you! You disobeyed my orders, pure and simple.’ His face was red with rage; he was screaming in classic Scouse.
‘ I protected my men,’ she insisted. There was no way she was going to back down and admit she was wrong — particularly with FB looking on.
‘ And it wasn’t even the man you were after, just some poor innocent bloke…’
‘ Whose driving licence was used by the biggest mass murderer since Lockerbie.’
Crosby wasn’t to be diverted now. He was in full flow. ‘You used excessive force in entering his house and now I believe we’re faced with a huge bill for trashing the place.’
‘ Trashing is not the term I would use. Damage was caused, yes, but it was minimal. The cost of repair will be relatively small.’
‘ I am tempted to have you disciplined for this,’ Crosby growled.
‘ What? So you can have your investigation back? Because your beloved CID aren’t running the show? Grow up, Mr Crosby… I know you don’t like me, or the fact that I’ve got this job, but I’m doing it to the best of my ability and I’m that far off getting a result.’ She held up her thumb and forefinger with just a sliver of daylight between them. ‘And I won’t be browbeaten or bullied by the likes of dinosaurs like you two…’
‘ Dinosaurs!’ he blasted.
‘ If you want to sulk, then do so. But if you hinder the investigation, so help me God, I’ll bring you down — and you, FB.’ She pointed a finger at Fanshaw-Bayley.
‘ So what’s it going to be?’ she demanded. Her mouth was a tight angry line. Her eyes had large bags under them the colour of prunes and she’d been wearing the same outfit for a long twenty hours. Her hair felt like straw and she needed a bath followed by twelve hours’ sleep. What she didn’t need was this shit!
‘ The answer’s no,’ Crosby said.
She wheeled round and marched out of the office.
Two minutes later the tension that had been welling up inside Crosby’s chest reached a climax. It burned up through his arteries like razor blades on fire, from his heart to his left arm and up the side of his face.
He clutched himself.
Then keeled over off his chair onto the floor with a crash, taking the contents of his desk with him.
FB looked on bemused for a moment before he realised what was happening.
His boss was having a major heart attack.
Whisper had been moved to a side ward, but other than that no one had touched him. He still lay on the hospital bed in his dying position: head lolling to one side, arms hanging loosely off the bed. The nurse who’d discovered him had tried to save him. She’d ripped the bedclothes off him and torn open his pyjamas, but it had been too late for Whisper. Despite all his gurgling and blowing of bubbles of blood through his nose and mouth, he was already dead.
Kovaks’ weary but sharp eyes gazed at the wounds. There were at least twelve punctures in the chest around the heart and innumerable ones in his face and neck. One of his eyes had been gouged out, an ear sliced off and his cheek carved open. Kovaks could see Whisper’s teeth through that particular wound.
Blood was everywhere. The bed was soaked, his body was drenched in it. Crimson was splashed ten feet up the wall behind the bed and’ across the floor. It had started to congeal in tar-like clods on the tiles. There were many footprints in it. It had been a frenzied attack. Kovaks was puzzled.
He looked quickly from the body to the blood splashes and back to the body. A police photographer asked him to step aside while he took more shots from a different angle. Another photographer was videoing the scene for evidential purposes.