Blood oozed out of it immediately.
She replaced the bloody flannel, stared blankly at herself, thinking what a god-awful-tired-weary mess she looked.
‘ Dan?’ came a voice from the foot of the stairs. It was the night-duty Patrol Sergeant, Lesley Elvin, one of Danny’s best friends. She, along with two of her PCs, had attended Danny’s 999.
‘ Yep?’ Danny came out of the bathroom and teetered unsteadily down the stairs towards Lesley who waited at the foot, a concerned expression on her face.
‘ You okay, honey?’
Danny nodded, knowing she wasn’t.
‘ You look as white as a sheet.’
‘ I’m okay,’ she insisted.
Lesley shrugged. ‘A twenty-four-hour glazier will be here soon to board up the window. Once it’s done I would not recommend you sleep in that bed until you’re sure all the glass has been removed… and you need to go to hospital to get that cleaned up. There could be some glass in it.’ She pointed at Danny’s face.
‘ I don’t think I’m very likely to go back to bed now. I’ll probably drop in to Casualty before work.’
‘ Do you want a lift? I can arrange one.’
Danny placed a hand on her friend’s shoulder. ‘No, it’s okay. I’ll see to it myself.’
Lesley’s personal radio crackled, requesting her to attend the custody office at Blackpool to assist with processing some prisoners.
‘ Gotta go, hun.’
‘ Yeah, thanks.’
‘ The lads’ve had a good look around… can’t see anyone. I’ll tell ‘em to keep a passing eye on you until we go off-duty at six, though I doubt there’ll be a problem.’
‘ Mmm.’ Danny sounded unsure.
‘ You got something to tell me?’ the Sergeant enquired. She was usually pretty intuitive with things like this.
Danny shook her head.
She went to the front door with Lesley, offered her thanks, watched her walk away up the driveway past the Mercedes. Something in the light, the shimmer of the trees against the street lamp focused Danny’s eyes on the front radiator grille of the car. For a moment Danny could not see what it was that made her look. Then she groaned out loud and rushed to the car.
Lesley spun round.
‘ The bastard!’ Danny uttered.
She stared down at the top of the radiator grille and the jagged stump of metal upon which the famous three-pointed star used to proudly sit. It had been snapped off.
Danny’s mouth tensed angrily. Anger boiled up inside her.
When she checked the rest of the car, she found what she feared. A track of scratches had been gouged down both sides, from front wing to rear, making some sense of the noises Danny had heard earlier.
Kruger thought it pointless to leave Kelly outside in the comms van whilst everyone else was inside the club and they knew the precise whereabouts of their target. Accordingly he teamed her up with Jimmy Armstrong and, as a couple, they came into the club after a lengthy period of queuing.
Dale played the part of a single, unattached male, targeting various females throughout the evening. It was a part he played well.
Meanwhile, Kruger and Myrna danced the night away. He began to enjoy himself, despite sweating profusely because he was unable to remove his jacket for obvious reasons.
Keeping tabs on Bussola was easy.
The mobster, his fat friend, and the two bodyguards occupied a table in one corner of the room, constantly being attended by waitresses. The two minders remained detached and alert, whilst their boss and his buddy were fawned upon by a stream of sexily-clad women, who mostly looked like hookers. The two men spent some time on the dance floor, gyrating as rudely as their bulk would allow with a number of these women who all seemed to be very impressed with them.
Kruger hazarded an educated guess that if Bussola was playing away at all, it was probably with prostitutes or women who were only interested in screwing him because of his exalted position in low-life. Having been fucked by the biggest mobster in Florida was probably quite a thrill, Kruger assumed. They were probably not any sort of threat to Felicity, other than by way of sexually transmitted diseases.
Myrna enjoyed herself too. This was the first time in years she’d been to a nightclub and although it was work which brought her here, she decided to get full value.
She moved slinkily to the beat. So slinkily that Kruger often found himself transfixed by her mesmeric gyrations. The sweat poured down from her scalp, temple, neck, shoulders and cleavage, making Kruger’s tongue flicker in anticipation of being able to lick it off her body.
So near yet so far.
It was just as well he was a man of high moral values, otherwise he could easily have been driven by lust.
Just before two o’clock, Bussola and company made a move to leave.
Kruger and his employees left quickly, discreetly, ahead of him.
Kelly returned to the comms van; Dale and Jimmy went to a car each. Kruger and Myrna got into Myrna’s Lexus.
They had only a short wait.
Bussola’s stretch limo drew up to the hotel entrance. A doorman opened the rear door in readiness. The two bodyguards appeared ahead of Bussola, checking.
Moments later the man himself emerged from the hotel. His friend — or whoever the hell the other guy happened to be — was at his shoulder. They squeezed into the limo and the bodyguards got into the front seat next to the driver.
‘ No women,’ Kruger observed. ‘He’s had plenty of opportunity to pick one up.’
‘ Perhaps he’s faithful after all,’ Myrna suggested.
‘ And lions don’t have big teeth.’
The limo pulled smoothly away into the night.
Kruger’s team began to follow.
Despite the early hours, tailing the limo through Miami was an absolute breeze because Miami is one of those cities which never sleeps and the amount of traffic about was phenomenal. Kruger found the experience exhilarating, though he would have preferred to have been behind the wheel rather than passenger. It was too many years since he had been involved in mobile surveillance. He’d almost forgotten how much fun it was. He was also pleased to note that his people had following techniques off a ‘T’ — because he’d taught them all he knew.
The limo worked its way out of South Beach, down to MacArthur Causeway, over the Miami Channel and into the city. From there it meandered south. For a few blocks Kruger thought the tail had been spotted, particularly when the limo executed a series of V-turns, sudden stops and block-loops. The team held its nerve and after five minutes of these anti-surveillance manoeuvres continued its journey. Bussola was obviously going through the motions as he probably did on every journey he undertook. However, they were moves that a good following team should be ready for and act accordingly.
The limo hit the Latin Quarter and eventually landed in Shenandoah where it stopped outside a parade of rundown shops and offices. Jimmy Armstrong just happened — to be the eyeball at the time and the rest of the team, following his instructions, parked discreetly in an arc 200 to 500 metres away, but not in visual contact with the limo — which was intensely frustrating for all concerned. They had to rely totally on Jimmy’s commentary.
‘ It’s like some sorta shop,’ Jimmy said over the radio, trying to describe the place where Bussola’s limo had pulled up. ‘Low rise… dunno… difficult to see properly without getting much closer.’
‘ Roger,’ Kruger acknowledged.
‘ Well, boss, what we gonna do?’ Myrna asked with a yawn. Since leaving the club her energy had dissipated and she needed her bed quite badly. Suddenly she felt her age.
‘ Sit tight, I suppose.’
Myrna slid down her seat, reclined it and closed her eyes.
Jimmy watched all the occupants of the limo, with the exception of the driver, get out and go into what was probably once a shop with a couple of floors above which could have been storerooms, offices or apartments. The shop at ground floor, with a massive plate-glass window white-washed from the inside, seemed to be derelict.