Ambush (20 page)

‘Let me walk and there's a million in your bank account tomorrow,' he said, panting.

‘Wow, let me see,' Flynn said mock-seriously.

‘If not, you're a dead man walking and your family is dead, too,' Tasker said, wiping his face with his hands.

‘Oh, it's the money, then,' Flynn said. ‘Obviously.' He let the gun swing on his finger.

For one moment Tasker actually believed him.

‘T
he two guys who came out of the farmhouse all guns blazing just dropped their weapons when they were empty and stuck up their hands in surrender. Even though the cops did return fire – eventually – no one was injured in the shoot-out, which was amazing, but it just goes to show how hard it can be to shoot someone.'

Flynn was talking to Santiago.

It was the morning after and they were having breakfast on the rear deck of Flynn's boat in Santa Eulalia harbour.

She had fallen properly asleep at the point where Flynn had described Tasker's arrest in the middle of a field and the ineffective attempt to bribe him with a million pounds.

Flynn, too, had dropped off then, but had resumed the story over breakfast when Santiago asked what happened next.

He told her some more about the two men with the guns.

‘It had been their job to provide cover so Tasker could get away – y'know, give him a few more minutes' grace … unfortunately they didn't know I was in the woods – obviously.' Flynn paused. ‘So they dropped their guns and were arrested without a fight … subsequently it turned out they were the team who'd sprung Tasker from our custody when he was being transferred from the hospital to the police station. The taxi driver was in on that, too.

‘What we didn't know until then was just how long Tasker had been in the north west. Long enough to put his business together, get a girlfriend and a baby. He'd set up with Braceford, but they'd had a huge fallout over money and percentages and skimming and Tasker thinking Braceford was a grass – he wasn't. Braceford, our very own nasty, nasty local drug lord didn't realize he'd got into bed with the devil going under the name of Brian Tasker.

‘Anyway, they all eventually went to trial and got their just deserts and Tasker's evil was put on display for the world to see. He got … I can't remember … five, six concurrent life sentences.

‘On his way down from court he stopped and pointed at each one of us who were in that photograph Jerry sent me. One of those very deliberate points, y'know? You, you, you, you, you and you – Craig, Jerry, Dave Carver, Jimmy Blue, Lincoln Bartlett and me.'

Flynn chortled at the memory, recalling every word.

‘He paused when he got to me. “You're all dead, you know, and I will never, ever forgive you … you all made me do it … and I will get my revenge, and it will be hot and sweet.” Then they dragged him away.'

‘Made him do what?' Santiago tore a chunk off her croissant and placed it in her mouth.

The fire service took over two hours to douse the flames in the farmhouse and damp it down enough for anyone to be able to enter the building. They had tried to get in while the fire had been raging but the intense, hell-like heat had beaten them back. It frustrated them because they knew people were trapped inside, but their brave efforts ultimately proved futile.

Flynn watched from a distance, noting the passion with which they attacked the fire that had so quickly engulfed the farmhouse, spreading downstairs from the first floor. They had been brilliant, brave, but ultimately all they could do was extinguish the flames.

All the while Flynn's eyes had flickered to the child's buggy parked by the front door which, as the fire service had tackled the blaze, was thrown aside, almost discarded, so as not to cause an obstruction.

Flynn knew what would be found upstairs.

His heart had been whamming throughout the incident, a cold rage in him, a numbness, as his eyes constantly looked at the buggy.

A baby. A mother.

Eventually the flames were extinguished and damped down. Several firefighters tramped out of the building removing their breathing apparatus, leaving black outlines around the perimeter of their faces. Their expressions were grim.

There was little use for the two ambulances at the scene.

The firefighters talked in a huddle, then with Craig Alford and the other high-ranking police officers who had materialized on the scene. Flynn was beckoned over by Alford and asked if he wanted to put on a forensic suit and go in with him and a CSI.

Flynn said he did.

He had seen death in many forms, particularly during his years as a Marine and in the SBS. He had seen death on the streets of British cities and African jungles, but he had never become completely immune to the death of a child.

In that farmhouse, the death he saw was as bad and as brutal as any he had witnessed, death caused simply as a diversion to facilitate escape.

Both bodies had been roasted black. Smoke still rose from the corpses.

It transpired that Ellie Davenport had been shot through the head before the bedroom had been doused with petrol and set alight. The baby had simply been left on a blanket on the floor and had died of smoke inhalation before being consumed by fire.

Just so a man could evade justice.

Flynn looked at Santiago, who was mesmerized by his retelling of these awful events. She had stopped eating her breakfast and drinking her coffee.

Her eyes became moist.

‘Steve,' she gasped.

He was staring into space, recalling the scene.

‘A man with no redeeming features or qualities. I've come across some villains in my time. But Brian Tasker, psychopath …' Flynn did not finish. He shook his head at the memory, which until that moment he had never discussed. It was usually locked away and internalized in a cellar room in his mind, a place where nut jobs were kept at bay, and the key was rarely found.

‘Steve,' Santiago said, feeling useless.

‘Some images are with you for ever,' he said. He sighed and looked at her. ‘It's what you sign up for … the irony was, he blamed me, us, for forcing him down that path, but I guess that's just the way his perverted mind works. That said, we treated him with professionalism and courtesy. He was questioned by me and others without emotion.'

‘So you never …?' Santiago asked.

‘Never what?'

‘You know – kapow!' She punched the air with a few boxer-like digs.

He turned face on to her. ‘Of course I fucking did.'

‘Thought you might have.' She smiled at him and her voice softened again. ‘I can see why it affected you.'

He nodded. ‘In more ways than one.'

Santiago narrowed her eyes questioningly.

‘I also found out why my so-called mate, Jack Hoyle, was so reluctant to get involved with Ambush … because it meant I would be away, and he and my wife,' Flynn said peevishly, ‘could continue their illicit affair behind my back and Jack's wife's back … but I only found that out quite a bit later when other stuff happened.'

‘I'm sorry, Steve.'

He shrugged. ‘Such is life.' He did not go on to mention that he did find some solace in the arms of a very pretty lady doctor and an even prettier Flower Girl. As to those two assignations his lips would remain for ever sealed.

There was a nice charter in for the day, two chilled-out, almost horizontal and very wealthy couples who just wanted to swim, sunbathe and eat. Flynn and Santiago took them out around Tagomago, the private island just off Ibiza owned by a zillionaire German industrialist, then dropped anchor at the tiny inlet of Es Pou des Lleó where they swam, ate at a beachside café and swam again in the tepid water.

Flynn was back by five p.m. and, after receiving a very generous tip, he and Santiago cleaned down the boat and prepared it for the next day. Then they strolled out to the Babylon Beach restaurant for an evening meal on the cliffs.

He had immersed himself in work for the day and forgotten about the real world, although there were a few pensive moments at Babylon Beach when he mulled over Brian Tasker and the deaths of Craig Alford, his poor family and Jerry Tope.

Undoubtedly Tasker was more than capable of committing these atrocious crimes. Yet he was in prison, incarcerated for the remainder of his lifetime … though Flynn wasn't convinced that Tasker could not have done them. Maybe he had contracted someone to do his dirty work for him and make his death promises come true.

But from a prison cell? Maybe …

Looking out across the calm sea to the Illa de Santa Eulalia and the S'Argamassa headland, Flynn made a decision and picked up his mobile phone. Tasker had to be checked out.

It rang before he had the chance to make a call.

‘Flynn,' he answered.

‘Steve? Rik Dean,' came a flustered voice.

‘I was about to call you.'

‘Oh, right … look … some more bad news, I'm afraid …'

Flynn glanced at Santiago and mouthed, ‘Rik Dean.' He leaned towards her and tilted the phone so she could hear the conversation. ‘Go on,' he said.

‘Dave Carver.'

‘What about Dave Carver?' Flynn's guts tightened ominously.

Dean drew in an unsteady breath. ‘He was in a nursing home, suffering from dementia.'

‘I know that.'

‘He's dead.'

‘You may have to expand on that, Rik.'

‘Shot in his room in the home.'

‘Suicide?'

‘No … a nurse was killed, too, undoubtedly a witness … signs of a struggle … looks like Dave put up a fight … and the security tapes have been taken too … a professional hit … he's been murdered.'

‘Shit.'

‘That's three out of the six guys in that photograph, Steve – Craig, Jerry, now Dave.'

‘That is not lost on me … look, Rik,' Flynn said earnestly, ‘I've been thinking about this. It's got to be Brian Tasker. He's the link and it doesn't take the Brain of Britain to work that one out, even if he's – and I use this word advisedly – “masterminding” it from his cell.'

‘I'd go with that one hundred per cent, except for one thing,' Dean said.

‘That thing being?'

‘Because he'd have to be masterminding it from the grave … he'd have to be a ghost.'

‘Grave? A ghost? What d'you mean?'

‘Brian Tasker died three months ago in a fatal fire in his cell in Lancashire Prison.'

F
lynn studied the photograph, the six men, the Lancashire contingent on Operation Ambush, the ones who led the hunt for Brian Tasker, self-styled drug cartel leader (UK version), ruthless killer and not one to shoulder blame for anything. Nothing was his fault, everyone else was responsible.

The six men who had been there, literally, at the death.

The cops who were responsible, as he saw it, for making him kill his girlfriend and baby son. And Flynn, the one who had brought him down in a field and, just for an instant, had made him believe he would take a bribe.

Flynn had been a hard-edged cop, often broke rules and heads, but there was only one thing he wanted and that was to see bad men, and occasionally women, face justice.

He was beyond bribes.

No amount of money would ever have made him deviate from his goal and he had been offered money many times because drug squad officers chasing down wealthy villains were open to it.

In fact, the more money on offer, the more pleasure he took in saying no and then slotting a reference to the attempted bribe into his witness statements, just to make the defendant cringe in court.

He had loved seeing Brian Tasker marched away down the Crown Court steps never to see real light of day again, and Tasker's death threat had made it even sweeter.

Flynn had laughed in his face, which had had the desired effect of riling him into a rage.

Flynn rubbed his face, thought it through.

Three – Craig, Jerry and Dave – murdered in quick succession. Lincoln Bartlett was already dead through natural causes, thereby leaving Jimmy Blue and himself still breathing and possibly the next two targets.

It was always possible Jimmy had already been murdered and the news had not yet surfaced. According to Rik Dean, Jimmy's whereabouts were currently unknown, but he was making enquiries with the pension and HR departments, who should know.

Flynn glanced at Santiago.

They were back at the Mirage, mid-morning, the day after the phone call from Rik Dean. Both were at a loose end after a charter party cancellation, although Santiago was on the phone to her boss in Gran Canaria, who wanted to know when she was coming back to work. Something was bubbling that he needed her for.

Flynn sighed. Although the facts as outlined by Rik Dean stated otherwise, one thing he did not believe was that Brian Tasker was ashes.

Santiago ended her phone call, but almost immediately her mobile rang again. She rolled her eyes and took it, but Flynn didn't listen in. It was in Spanish anyway and his grasp of the language, even after all the years he'd lived in Spain, was pretty tenuous, although Santiago was giving him some personalized tuition and he was becoming quite good at it in some situations, such as ordering food and drink and asking for sex.

She ended the call. ‘That was the detective in charge of investigating the armed robbery we interrupted. Would you believe it …?'

From the look on her face, Flynn did. ‘They got bail?' he guessed.

She nodded. ‘The police found their apartment, they'd been renting it for a couple of months, so the magistrate was happy enough there was a permanent residence.'

Flynn wasn't surprised. Even though they had terrorized two shop assistants and been happy to use firearms, the courts were probably more concerned about their human rights. He said, ‘So they're as stupid here as they are in the UK.'

‘So it would seem.'

Flynn watched the boats in the marina. A big motor cruiser owned by an American billionaire had just berthed and disgorged various occupants, mainly middle-aged ladies shrouded in gold and diamonds and wafting kaftans, stepping into stretch limos on the quayside. Flynn assumed they were being whisked away somewhere glamorous to have their toenails done or bikini waxes updated.