Ambush (25 page)

‘Apparently crime is rife in Las Palmas and he thinks a serial killer is on the loose. He wants me to head the team.'

‘Wow!' Flynn said admiringly. ‘You should get back for that. Could be a career maker.'

‘Except I don't want to go back.' She pouted and batted her eyelashes. ‘I want to be with you … I've had a brilliant time, just don't want to go …'

He embraced her and she moulded herself against him. ‘I don't want you to go, either, but I'll be back soon and maybe we can, y'know, see how we can change things. I mean … and I'm just spit-balling here, as they say … if I could get this Ibiza contract every year from May to September, perhaps you could, uh …' Flynn was having problems putting the words together.

‘Be with you full time?' she ventured.

‘Yeah, something like that. There'd be enough money from that to make sure I could fish from October to April in Gran Canaria, enough for both of us … but you'd have to work your ass off, y'know?' He gave said ass a playful pat. ‘I'm a hard task master.'

‘I'm liking that scenario.'

They were in their hotel room at the Ibis at Broughton. It was early evening and they had just showered after their long day. Both were groggy with tiredness but knew they only had a short time remaining before Flynn had to drive her to the airport to board the flight she had so unwillingly booked.

Each had a bath sheet wrapped around them.

‘What are you going to do?' she asked, snuffling her nose into his neck and then biting gently.

‘I need to get back to Ibiza. There's a charter in the day after tomorrow and I don't want to let Barney down. What's happening here is for the cops to sort now and I know Rik will do a great job. He's a good man hunter and once he confirms Tasker is alive and well, the game will change.'

‘But you'll still be in danger.'

‘I'll keep my head down and watch my back,' he promised. ‘And we need to warn Jimmy Blue, too … once that's done, I'll jump on any flight I can get back to Ibiza.'

‘Separate ways,' she said wistfully.

‘Another month in Ibiza, then I'll be back to Puerto Rico and we'll be together.'

Flynn looked down into her eyes, just a little overwhelmed by his feelings for her, trying to fight them, if he was honest. The two of them had gone through serious hell to get to this point and maybe the future would be fantastic with her. He knew, as he stood there with just towelling separating them, that he was willing to give this a go and make all the effort needed.

‘You really do need to watch yourself, though,' she warned him. ‘Tasker moves quickly.'

‘I'm good at running away,' Flynn said.

‘You never run from anyone or anything.'

‘Whatever … but he has to find me first, so that's a plus. And I don't think he's the one who's actually killed Craig, Jerry and Dave. That's the work of a hired hand. A good one, mind, but not Tasker himself. I think he's holed up somewhere, directing operations. He won't get me, honest.'

Santiago held him tightly.

‘Under the circumstances, and as time is of the essence,' Flynn said, feeling a surge of blood and shortness of breath, ‘we should mark our parting in the traditional manner, don't you think?'

He stepped slightly away from her.

Apart from snagging on his erect penis on the way to the floor his bath sheet slid off fairly effortlessly, and Santiago's followed suit. A moment later there was no gap between them.

Flynn watched her walk straight through to the international departure lounge, where she turned at the very last moment and, with her eyes still shining from sex, blew him a sultry kiss, which he found himself catching and planting on his lips while trying to ignore the sniggers of two half-drunk youths who witnessed the moment.

‘I,' he said to himself, ‘have truly morphed into a soft-arse.'

Then she was gone and he was alone.

He bought a coffee from a kiosk and took it out across to the multi-storey, which had been so packed with cars he'd had to leave his on the third level. He waited patiently for the lift to disgorge a family of four plus luggage, then stepped in and pressed button three.

As the doors hissed shut a man stepped in and stood across from Flynn.

He was youngish with tightly cropped blond hair and a gaunt face, slim built but tough-looking. He had an ex-military air about him. Flynn gave him a nod which was not returned. They both then stood, three feet apart, facing the lift doors.

Flynn sipped his coffee, feeling slightly vulnerable.

This man looked fit, healthy and maybe dangerous. He wore slim jeans, trainers and a black zip-up jacket … did he have an unnatural bulge underneath the left armpit?

Flynn's insides tensed, but he tried to fight his paranoia.

Could this man be an assassin? Come to kill Flynn?

Flynn eyed him surreptitiously and removed the lid from his steaming hot coffee, the first thing that would go into the man's face, followed by a devastating series of punches, if there was even the slightest indication something was amiss.

The man's right hand casually pulled down his jacket zip. His hand went slowly inside.

Flynn visualized the next move, saw the coffee in the face, the pivot of his hips, the blows.

The hand came gradually out of the jacket.

Flynn readied himself, knowing that how quickly he reacted in the next two seconds might mean the difference between survival and death.

The hand emerged with nothing in it.

Flynn relaxed slightly.

The hand dropped to the man's side.

The lift stopped on three, the doors opened.

Flynn made a polite gesture, allowing the man to step out ahead. He turned right. Flynn gave him a couple of seconds, then stepped out to see the man walking along a row of cars.

He exhaled shakily, eased the lid back on to his coffee and went to find his car, muttering, ‘You've become a soft-arse in more ways than one, matey.'

F
lynn knew that resorting to violence or threats of violence wasn't always a successful way in which to obtain a confession from a suspect, but sometimes needs must. And because he was no longer constrained by the Police and Criminal Evidence Act, or by any rules whatsoever, he didn't even have to think of a way round it.

He knew he needed a result and needed it fast and sometimes the only way to get it was to go straight for the jugular – although, to be honest, he didn't actually intend to kill anyone that night.

He left the airport unmolested and gunned his little hire car back down the motorway and eventually towards Preston.

On the way he scolded himself for letting his imagination run riot in the lift, telling himself that not every salty dude he encountered was a killer out to get him – although he imagined quite a few were, not all of them connected to Brian Tasker; and then he recalled the last time he had bundled someone into the boot of a car in order to extract the truth from them.

The villain in that case so long ago was someone suspected of knifing and almost killing a sixteen-year-old lad on a council estate in Blackpool – and there was a suitable, sweet irony to the story as he remembered it while he sped along virtually deserted motorway lanes.

Following a mini-riot on the Shoreside council estate Flynn, then a uniformed constable just out of his probation period and already angling to become a detective, had gone to great lengths to investigate the offence and arrest the youth responsible for initiating the disturbance by sticking a blade into the son of an Asian shopkeeper on the estate.

Once the public order side had quietened down – basically an Asian gang retaliating against the white ‘rulers' of the estate – Flynn had homed in on the knife wielder, a young buck called Brent Costain, a member of the notorious Costain clan based on Shoreside. They were an extended family into drugs, theft and intimidation in a big way. Brent was only a peripheral cousin, not really one of the core family members, but was trying to up his street cred by using the knife.

All it did was bring unwanted police attention upon the family.

Flynn ‘lifted' Brent as he walked through the maze of streets in South Shore. Costain had spotted him and done a runner but had been brought down by the super-fit Flynn, who in those days ran five miles a day, went to the gym twice a week and played squash and men's hockey.

Flynn had speed, strength and stamina and ran Brent down like a hunting dog, enjoying every moment as the unhealthy youth sagged to his knees, his young body already undermined by drugs, alcohol and cigarettes.

In the police station Brent remained silent and defiant, sitting with his arms folded, staring disrespectfully at Flynn, who, to be honest, was a little naive in those days and did not have a great deal of actual evidence against the lad. Flynn knew for certain that Brent had done the stabbing, but fearful witnesses were not keen on putting pen to paper. Much relied on Brent's confession, which was not forthcoming.

During the course of Brent's time in custody, Flynn was assisted by the CID in the shape of Terry Mulligan, a spiv-like detective constable with the pencil moustache and slicked-back hair of a con man, a super-smooth operator who, Flynn had already heard, was more style than substance.

Mulligan was on the verge of losing his temper throughout the interviews and only the hawk-like presence of Brent's solicitor kept him in check.

Brent admitted nothing and was released on police bail pending further enquiries.

During the release process, as Brent signed to receive his property from the custody sergeant, Mulligan took Flynn aside and hurriedly whispered in his ear at the same time as fumbling a set of car keys into the palm of his hand.

‘CID car, the old Montego, get in it, reverse to the back door, quick.'

Flynn frowned, puzzled.

‘Don't you want to get this little fuck-faced cunt to cough?'

‘Yuh, course.'

‘Then do what I say … stand by it, have the boot open and follow my lead. We'll take this little shit for the ride of his life.'

Flynn scuttled out and found the Montego, which had seen much better days. It was on the ground floor covered yard of the police station, a dark concrete place with many shadows in which he imagined people might hide. He reversed it back to the door leading to the custody suite, climbed out and opened the boot – which, as he recalled, was quite spacious.

DC Mulligan and Brent Costain appeared from the custody corridor, apparently quite chatty, as though neither had a care in the world.

‘Yeah,' Flynn remembered Mulligan saying, ‘just one of those things.'

‘Well, you'll never find anyone to go up as a witness against me,' Costain boasted.

‘Maybe not, maybe not.'

They walked towards Flynn.

Mulligan glanced around. The car park was devoid of other people, so no spectators.

As they drew level with the Montego, Mulligan had a hand resting on Brent's back between his shoulder blades. A non-threatening, friendly gesture.

Until Mulligan's eyes caught Flynn's and he gave him the nod.

Flynn frowned again, unsure about what was about to happen or what was expected of him, though he did have an inkling.

Mulligan took control. With one powerful thrust he propelled Brent towards the open mouth of the boot, then, in a well-practised movement while Brent, taken by surprise, was off balance, he grabbed him by the shoulder, tripped him and shoved him into the boot.

He held Brent face down on the grubby, oily carpet, pulled his hands behind him and cuffed him expertly, then forced an oily rag into his mouth.

Though he struggled and kicked out ferociously, Mulligan easily slammed the boot lid down and said to Flynn, ‘Let's go for a country ride.'

He jumped in behind the wheel while the bemused and wary Flynn got into the passenger seat.

‘Sometimes,' Mulligan said with an evil smile, ‘needs must.'

The bouncy ride through the countryside, the hinterland behind Blackpool, was worthwhile.

A dazed and battered Brent Costain eventually decided that his best course of action would be to admit the offence. Although he threatened to expose the two officers, Mulligan claimed that no one would ever believe him. Kidnapped? Tortured? Interrogated under duress? In the boot of a car? The end result was a pathetic police caution for Costain, but it was a result of sorts.

Mulligan spent the next few weeks leaning on Flynn so he wouldn't crack and admit to anyone what had happened.

‘No one,' he said, ‘will keep the secret, except us two.'

Flynn had no intention of saying anything but he did learn a valuable lesson at Mulligan's hands – never involve anyone else in iffy schemes; always carry them out alone, because you are the only person you can trust.

It was a good lesson for Flynn as he matured as a cop and became more confident at leaning on crims to scare them.

A few years later Mulligan went too far and a very scared young cop who had become entangled with him – something involving a drunken man in a pub, an assault, a theft … a very murky scenario, Flynn seemed to recall – could not live with what had happened and made a furtive call to the ‘rubber heel' squad, the Discipline and Complaints Department as they were then called, the cops who police the police.

Mulligan went soon after that, career and life wrecked.

Flynn pulled off the M6 on to the M55 at Broughton, where he returned to his room at the Ibis. He took another shower and ten minutes later drew up in a cul-de-sac on a council estate in Preston, switched off the engine and sat in the shadow between the arc of street lights, watching a particular block of flats.

He deliberated on whether there was enough room in the boot of his hire car in which to compress a fully grown man.

Folded carefully, he thought there would be, as he visualized it. If a dead spy could be stuffed into a holdall he was fairly certain he could get a live man into a hatchback.