‘ Hang on, hang on.’ Kovaks fumbled in his jacket for his electronic diary. ‘I gotta number here you can use.’ He pressed a few buttons. ‘Damian, you still there?’
‘ Yeah,’ he said tiredly.
‘ This is the number of one of the phone booths opposite the office you know, the ones we use for delicate calls?’
‘ Yeah, I know ‘em.’
‘ You gotta pen?’
‘ Yeah.’
Kovaks read the number out and got Damian to recite it back.
‘ Is this kosher?’ Damian asked suspiciously.
‘ Yeah. Leave it five minutes for me to get down there, then call the number, OK?’
‘ Right. ‘
Kovaks hung up and put his diary back inside his jacket. He immediately called Ram Chander in Homicide but was unable to contact him. He decided not to leave a message.
He glanced quickly around the office. ‘Bill, do me a favour, will ya? Call Ram Chander and tell him Damian’s recontacted me, right? Tell him I’m gonna try and make a meet with him. He’ll understand. It’s pretty urgent. Can you do that for me, pal?’
‘ No probs,’ the other agent said, scribbling.
Kovaks left the office quickly. Eamon Ritter stood up and followed. In his hand he had a mobile phone which he began to dial.
Henry Christie sat staring dead ahead as Donaldson drove him back down the motorway. It was 5 p.m., and it had been a frustrating day. No progress had been made; and Henry was the subject of an official complaint, yet again.
He’d spent most of the morning with Karen, briefing the small team of detectives which had been assigned to their line of enquiry. Their first task was to go and see a tame magistrate and swear out two warrants which were to be executed later that afternoon.
Around lunchtime Henry walked up to the public mortuary at the hospital where Dr Baines, the Home Office Pathologist, was carrying out post mortems on the police officers killed the day before.
Baines was deep inside a chest cavity. His gloves, sleeves and apron were covered in blood. The scene reminded Henry of MASH, except there was no one to be saved here. They nodded to each other. Baines’s hands emerged with a heart that had been shredded by bullets. He placed it carefully down by the body.
‘ Henry! How are you, old man?’ he asked rather incongruously in a mock-Etonian accent.
‘ As well as can be expected under the circumstances.’
Both men looked down the room. There was a body on each slab. In one corner was a bloodstained pile of police uniforms.
‘ Glad to see you’re fighting fit though,’ Baines said. ‘Believe you’ve had some, er, problems.’
‘ Yeah, but I’m over the worst now — I hope.’
‘ That double murder at Whitworth never got solved, did it?’
‘ No, we got nowhere with it. And I got kicked off the case.’
‘ I’m damned sure I know something important about that,’ Baines said. He thought hard for a moment or two, eyebrows knitting. ‘Nope, won’t come, tried before. Anyway, must get back to work, so if you’ll excuse me… Perhaps we should have a meal out sometime?’
‘ Yeah, why not?’
Henry meandered back to the station. FB was just driving into the car park.
‘ How’s it going, Henry?’ he asked as they walked into the building and made their way to the canteen for lunch.
‘ So so,’ Henry shrugged.
‘ Just to let you know, just to warn you — I’ve let the Chief have copies of everything on Hinksman. He wants to know every move we make, so keep me informed please, bang up to date on everything, OK?’
‘ By all means.’
‘ So, what’s planned for this afternoon?’
‘ Gonna scare the shite out of Lenny Dakin.’ For the first time that day Henry’s scowl was replaced by a grin. But it was a wicked one.
The warrants authorised the police to enter, by force if need be, two properties belonging to Lenny Dakin, and to search for a person unlawfully at large who was reasonably believed to be therein, namely Hinksman.
One warrant was for Dakin’s home in the Ribble Valley and the other was for his flat over his supermarket in Blackburn. Henry knew of several other addresses but didn’t want to overplay his hand at such an early stage. His idea was to panic Dakin, put him under surveillance and hope that he did something stupid, like lead the cops to Hinksman.
However, the afternoon turned into an utter shambles. Both premises were searched, but Dakin wasn’t at either of them.
Henry and a squad of armed officers, including an unarmed Donaldson, hit Dakin’s farmhouse. Another team, led by Karen, did the rooms over the supermarket.
As both teams reassembled back at Lancaster, a man purporting to be Dakin’s solicitor telephoned the incident room and asked to speak to Henry. He demanded to know on what evidence the application for the warrants had been based.
‘ I cannot discuss anything over the telephone,’ Henry said officiously. ‘I don’t even know if you are who you say you are.’
‘ Oh, I am definitely Mr Dakin’s solicitor,’ the man said. ‘And there is also the question of compensation and theft. The front door of Mr Dakin’s house has been severely damaged by police as they entered the premises… ‘
Henry held his breath. The door had been battered down and a joiner had been called to repair and secure it before the police left. Fortunately Henry had taken a Polaroid camera along with him for ‘before and after’ pictures.
‘ The door is several hundred years old, an antique in fact and is valued at two thousand pounds. We will be claiming that amount in compensation. ‘
‘ Bollocks,’ uttered Henry, declining to disclose the existence of the photographs.
‘ And of course there is the problem of Mr Dakin’s Doberman Pinschers. Both dogs have disappeared, presumably allowed to escape by the police.’
Henry made no comment. The Dobermans had been a problem all right; they’d bitten two detectives’ arses before being shepherded out of the house where they immediately hurtled away down the garden, over the wall, never to be seen again.
‘ A large amount of gold jewellery has gone missing,’ the solicitor went on smoothly.
‘ Oh, for God’s sake! Are you accusing me of theft?’
‘ Not specifically you, Sergeant Christie, not yet anyway. But by a process of deduction either you or one of your team or your whole earn has stolen it. There will be an official complaint made shortly to tour Discipline and Complaints branch. I’ve no doubt that when the Police Complaints Authority is informed, you’ll find yourself deeply investigated. ‘
‘ Not half as deeply as your client will be,’ Henry rasped.
‘ Tsk, tsk, threats now, is it? I’ll add that to my list.’
Henry slammed the phone down.
Fuck Dakin to hell and back!’ said Henry.
‘ Don’t worry about it,’ Donaldson soothed.
They had reached Blackpool and were driving along the promenade.
‘ Right now, Dakin will be scared shitless,’ the American decided. ‘After all, it’s the first time he’s been implicated with Hinksman and, by association, with Corelli. Trust me. He won’t be a happy man.’
Progress through traffic was slow but steady. They approached the traffic lights outside the Manchester Hotel at the junction of the promenade and Lytham Road. The lights went to red.
Donaldson’s hands tapped the steering wheel while he waited for the green light. Idly he watched a car come down the promenade, then turn left into Lytham Road. It looked very familiar.
‘ Just like your pile of garbage, that one,’ he said to Henry.
Henry looked across and saw the car sail through the lights. It only took a second. Then, ‘It is bloody mine! And that little git John Abbot is driving it. Go after him,’ he yelled.
‘ You look pretty much like death warmed up,’ Joe Kovaks commented to Damian. He sat down opposite the little man and pushed a Styrofoam cup of black coffee across the table. Damian took it with a trembling hand.