‘What?’
He was on the verge of saying something, but held back and shook his head. ‘Nah, nothing.’
‘I’ve fixed up for you to use Jenny’s room,’ Henry said, referring to the bedroom once inhabited by his eldest daughter. It was now a guest room with a double bed and new furniture. ‘Karen’s coming up, I gather.’
Donaldson gulped. ‘Yeah, thanks, matey,’ he said, affecting an English accent for the last word and trying to sound jolly. Henry could see something behind the eyes.
‘You two still going through a rocky patch?’
‘Something like that.’
‘Not serious, though?’ Henry probed. He’d known Karl and Karen for many years. Mostly their marriage had been solid, happy. Two point four kids. Nice house within commuting distance of London. Good jobs, probably the best part of two hundred grand coming in. But the cracks had started to show when Donaldson became obsessed with hunting down the terrorist who almost killed him and Karen began to doubt his commitment to the family. Ultimatums had been made. On the face of it, they seemed to have got their act together, but Henry knew they weren’t completely OK.
‘Thing is,’ Donaldson blurted. ‘I’ve cheated on Karen.’
Henry almost collided with the central reservation.
Coffee again, this time from Costa situated inside the motorway services at Charnock Richard on the M6. Two medium Americanos carried carefully by Henry out to Donaldson, who sat on the litter-strewn terrace overlooking the car park. Henry had pulled in because he thought it was important to show a bit of empathy to his friend. And, using the power of rank, he’d called Alex Bent and told him to delay the morning briefing, get everyone a brew and a bacon butty, then get them out on the road, knocking on doors.
Donaldson eased the lid off the coffee and emptied two mini-milk cartons into it, stirring with the wooden stick.
‘Strangers in the fucking night,’ he said, whirring the coffee around and around. ‘Fucking a stranger in the night,’ he amended the song title.
Henry sat down opposite.
‘You know me, Henry,’ Donaldson said plaintively. ‘I’m a one-girl guy. I’m loyal, like a freakin’ puppy. I don’t do infidelity.’
Henry muttered encouragingly. ‘Mnhuh.’
‘But I just couldn’t help myself. Things are not exactly hunky-dory at home. I don’t think we’ve had sex for over a month now
…’ Henry squirmed at the revelation and was about to interrupt, but Donaldson held up a hand. ‘That’s a hell of a long time, believe me. We’re a once a night couple, me and Karen, seven nights a week, at it like hot knives.’ Henry squirmed even more and winced at the image of his friends doing it. ‘So when we don’t do it, something’s wrong. Problem is,’ Donaldson concluded, ‘I loved it doing it with a hot Scandinavian babe.’
‘First things first, eh? See what you think.’
They’d reached Blackpool after a longish heart to heart about cheating, wives, lovers, relationships and adultery, both men finding it hard to express their feelings and were relieved to get back on the road.
At Henry’s suggestion, the first task on the agenda was for Donaldson to have a look at a dead body on a slab, which meant going directly to the mortuary at Blackpool Victoria Hospital.
On entering, Henry spotted Keira O’Connell in the office. She saw him and rose from the desk, a confrontational look on her face.
Donaldson picked up on this and hissed, ‘Not you too?’
‘You know me so well. But no, not this time. I resisted temptation.’
‘And that’s what she’s fuming at?’
‘Probably.’
The two men approached her. Henry introduced Donaldson to her and they shook hands perfunctorily. ‘He’s come to have a look at Petrone’s body.’
‘Fine… Henry, can I see you? Inside? Alone? It’s important.’
Henry followed her meekly into the office. She turned to him, arms folded under her bosom.
‘Two things,’ she began frostily. ‘First off — another murder? You didn’t call me out and yet it’s more than likely to be connected to the other two. Why not? What about the chain of evidence? One pathologist carrying out all the related post-mortems would surely make evidential sense.’
‘I thought it better to let you get some rest. I was just thinking of you. You’re going to do Rory’s PM today and I wanted you to be firing on all cylinders. The pathologist who turned out was more than capable.’
‘As I said, I’m talking continuity of evidence here — and I think I should be the judge of whether or not I’m fit enough to do my job, don’t you?’
‘Point taken,’ Henry conceded. ‘I would like you to do the PM on Billy Costain, though.’
‘And secondly,’ she said as though she hadn’t heard him, ‘I sent you a text. I expected you to come around on a personal basis.’ She arched her finely plucked eyebrows.
‘I’m sorry. I’m very flattered. Old bloke like me, and all that, but I’m happily married, so it’s not going to happen.’ He pointed at her, then himself to make his point and shook his head. ‘Sorry.’
She nodded begrudgingly.
Henry slid out the drawer on which the old man’s body was lying, post-mortem. Donaldson inspected the face, then the old bullet wound. ‘That’s him — Rosario Petrone, one of Italy’s most murderous Mafia dons.’ He gazed over the body at Henry.
‘You know, one thing’s for certain pal,’ Henry said. ‘If Karen ever finds out you’ve been unfaithful to her, you can wave goodbye to your bollocks. She must never find out.’ He waved an admonishing finger at his friend and said, ‘No, no, no, no, no. No.’
Henry, Donaldson, Rik Dean and Alex Bent had commandeered the TV lounge adjacent to the top floor dining room at Blackpool police station. Out of the meagre FMIT budget (FMIT being one of those departments that expected divisions to fund their expenditure wherever possible) Henry had ordered more coffee, bacon sandwiches and toast, and the three English detectives gathered around to listen to what Donaldson had to say.
‘We had an undercover agent, deep undercover, in the Marini clan of the Camorra Mafia who was basically killed on orders from Petrone at the beginning of a very violent dispute between two clans…’ The door opened and a tray bearing wonderful smelling food and drink was wheeled in by one of the canteen staff. The detectives descended on the free food like hyenas on a dead wildebeest. ‘The short story is that I was assigned to the task of trying to track down the hit man Petrone brought in for the kill, someone we know only as the American. Unfortunately…’ Donaldson bit into a toasted sandwich and made a pleasurable grunt, ‘I got shot doing something else, which kinda blocked my enquiries… however, I got better, but discovered no one else had got anywhere with tracking this guy down, so I got back on the case little by little. In the meantime, Petrone went to ground, no one knew where, but there was a lot of killing going on. Next, I got information about the arrest of the guy suspected of providing the weapon for the American, a guy called Fazil. I went to Malta to interview him but before I could persuade him to come across, he got blown away in his cell, as did a Maltese sergeant and a constable. At the same time I heard Petrone had been found here — a bit unwell.’
‘What are your conclusions, Karl?’ Henry asked him.
He shrugged. ‘That a rival gang has a hit squad operating and that they’ve taken out Fazil and Petrone and your witness. These guys don’t give a shit about human life, they’ll kill you as soon as look at you.’
Henry took a sip of even more coffee. ‘How do you think they found out about Fazil being in custody and were able to operate so quickly?’
‘That I don’t know. We, the FBI, found out pretty quickly via Interpol, and I was there talking to Fazil within hours of the arrest.’
‘They must have good communication and intelligence channels,’ Alex volunteered.
Henry considered what Donaldson had said, feeling a great disquiet about it all. ‘Just how good are those channels?’ he posed.
‘I’m not sure what you’re getting at.’ Donaldson said.