He had almost reached the foothills of the mountain of paperwork. He quickly signed off an Intelligence bulletin from Madrid without reading it too carefully, then a name in one of the paragraphs caught his eye.
It was a surname: Mayfair.
The item referred to the fact that a sharp-eyed FBI operative who happened to be on a surveillance job at Madrid Airport had spotted two people whom he believed were the Mayfair brothers, Tiger and Wayne. They had arrived on a flight from Lisbon, both using assumed names and not travelling together. It was an unconfirmed sighting but the agent was reasonably sure it was them… the two men believed to be responsible for a number of contract killings throughout the US and Europe. Wherever they went, death seemed to follow, but as yet no law-enforcement agency had tied them evidentially to actual murders.
The item went on to state that a photograph of the two was to follow, taken by airport security cameras. Donaldson skimmed through the most recent Interpol bulletins from Portugal and saw nothing which would indicate that the Mayfair brothers had been active professionally.
He took a photocopy of the bulletin and updated the office file on the Mayfair brothers as this was his responsibility.
Next on the pile was a teleprinter message. Donaldson read it and his eyebrows rose with pleasure on reading the name of the originator.. Acting DI Henry Christie… which was why he read the whole thing a second time. He was glad he did. He picked up the message, cleared a space on his desk, pulled his portable PC towards him and logged into the FBI system.
‘ The way I see it,’ Morton said pensively, ‘this is a three-sided thing. Firstly, Harry, there’s your angle: Christie’s a digger, a stubborn guy who doesn’t mind who he upsets. This means he’ll be on your case until he cracks it, or it defeats him. My guess is that he’ll crack it because it’s nothing more than a run-of-the-mill murder case. He will get you, given time.’
McNamara winced and drew on his cigar.
Conroy cackled with laughter, which ceased as soon as Morton turned to him and said, ‘And in your case, as Christie himself stated to me, he doesn’t like people taking pot-shots at cops. If only for that reason he’ll net you along the way.’
‘ Not a fuckin’ chance.’
‘ He will,’ Morton assured him. ‘He’s already searched all those premises and-’
‘ And found nothing. He’s way off the mark.’
‘ Just practising his aiming.’
The three men were all now seated, in positions where they could easily see and hear one another. There was invisible tension in the room, caused mainly by Morton’s assessment of Henry Christie and his abilities.
‘ And how does he affect you?’ McNamara pointed at Morton.
Morton sat back and thought for a moment. ‘Firstly, I’m pretty sure it was Christie who put the seeds into the mind of the unfortunate DC Luton about there being two gangs operating. Luton brought it up, but we laughed him out of the office. But it worried us. Then, last night, we found Luton reading through the witness statements we’d amended. I’m sure he was dealt with before he spoke to anyone else. Having said that, he seemed to be expecting Henry Christie at his front door, but that says to me they haven’t yet talked.
‘ Which means that Christie doesn’t actually know shit about anything yet, but him being the person he is, it won’t take him too long to make connections… and then he becomes a problem for me, Harry, in answer to your question.’
‘ Then top him,’ said Conroy. ‘If he poses a threat, do him.’
‘ Yes,’ McNamara agreed. ‘We’ve done it before.’
‘ No,’ said Morton firmly. He stood up and paced the room. ‘We only take out police officers in exceptional circumstances. That’s always been agreed. It causes too much interest. Too many people want those sort of murders solved. We only get rid of the people who know too much and who are likely to cause us immediate damage. People like Geoff Driffield and Derek Luton. They were both too near.’
‘ But you said he’d find out,’ complained McNamara.
‘ Look, at this stage he knows fuck all,’ the detective said. ‘And if we kill him now there’ll be so much heat that some bugger might crack. Two cops are already dead in Blackpool; one is still in ICU. If another one gets it…’ He left the implication floating in the air like a bad smell and shook his head.
‘ Accident?’ suggested Conroy.
‘ They need to be arranged,’ Morton pointed out. ‘Not easy to do without arousing suspicion.’
‘ Pay him off then,’ said McNamara. ‘Pay him to look the other way.’
‘ Mmm, I thought about that… but I know a little about Henry Christie because of that big mafia case he was involved in a while back, and I don’t think money would work. He once turned down an offer of several million dollars to look the other way. He arrested the man who made that offer, saying he liked to be offered bribes because he enjoyed locking up the people who made them. So, no. That won’t work.’
‘ Put the fear of God into his family.’
Morton looked sharply at Conroy. ‘We don’t intimidate wives and kids,’ he said.
‘ So what then?’ asked an increasingly irritable McNamara. ‘I want the cunt off my back — now.’
‘ Well,’ said Morton, ‘he’s a very talented detective.’
‘ Yeah, Detective Sergeant Perfect by all accounts,’ said Conroy snidely.
Morton went on, ‘A good investigator, bit of a ruthless touch, but straight as a dye… Think about it.’
Conroy was first to catch on. ‘Just the sort of honest detective you’d want on your elite squad.’
‘ Exactly — and funnily enough, we have a vacancy for a Detective Sergeant right now. The last one died on the job.’
Chapter Twelve
Henry Christie’s ears were not burning. He was far too busy to even contemplate that others could be talking about him, as once again his sleep pattern had been very much interrupted. It was past midnight when he finally got into bed, having spent much of the evening cruising the streets, seedier pubs and guest-houses in Blackburn with Lucy Crane to try and find some of Marie Cullen’s colleagues who might be able to add a bit of background to the dead girl. It was a fruitless and frustrating night.
A uniformed cop knocking on his front door at 6.30 a.m. had been the precursor to another horrendous day in Blackpool.
Henry, in a deep, dreamless sleep, had been the only member of his family to hear the knocking, or at least the only one to respond to it. He dragged himself downstairs, feeling like the man in the toothpaste advert with halitosis-laden germs dancing a jig on his furred tongue.
When he opened the door his heart dropped. He thought he was about to be given bad news concerning Nina. He had phoned the hospital from home before going to bed and was told she had taken a turn for the worse: critical-likely to prove. Henry assumed the Police Constable was here to tell him the news personally. He steeled himself for the punch.
He expected an upper cut from the right.
The head-butt to the bridge of his nose caught him completely by surprise and toppled him over, figuratively speaking.
He had to make the PC repeat it three times because his brain refused to take it in.
Derek Luton dead? Found shot to death on his front doorstep? Looks like his brains have been blown out? Wife almost catatonic? Derek Luton?
Dead?
Henry couldn’t get his head round the enormity of it. Not enough sleep. Head’s a shed. Too much going on in too short a space of time.
Degsy Luton dead?
Henry finally raced upstairs, threw on yesterday’s gear, underwear included, then got into his car and drove directly to the scene, Luton’s house in Blackpool north shore, which had not yet been touched by scenes of crime.
Yep, Henry could confirm it. He had had his brains blown out. What a fucking mess. Henry had to steady himself as a flash of memory snapped into his mind’s eye — another world away, but still vivid and recurring — of a man who had had his brains shot out right in front of him.