Nightmare City (33 page)

Munrow withdrew with a ‘plop’. To his credit, despite
everything, his manhood towered majestically, sparklingly damp, up
to his belly button.

He opened his mouth.

This was no place for a debate. Not wanting to miss the
chance, Rider inserted the gun into that orifice. ‘Now then,
Charlie,’ he growled dangerously, ‘this is a double-action revolver
with the hammer cocked, so I don’t even have to pull the trigger,
just touch it, and I’ll blow your fucking brains all over this
pretty wallpaper. I want you to remember that because we’re going
downstairs now with this gun stuck in your mouth, so you need to be
very cooperative, otherwise you’ll be brain dead and she’ll be
dickless. Get my point?’

Jacko jumped. The security lights at the front of the house
came on as Rider and the naked Munrow came out of the door, down
the steps and walked towards the car - an old Ford Granada, like
something out of
The Sweeney.

Jacko could see the gun stuck in Munrow’s gob.

Nausea ripped through the barman’s insides. ‘Oh shit,’ he
breathed. He coaxed the gear lever into first, released the
handbrake, then the clutch gently - but could not stop the van from
kangarooing the first few metres as the engine and gearbox merged
into one entity. One day he’d get the clutch fixed
properly.

By the time he had pulled onto the driveway, Munrow had been
forced unwillingly into the boot of the Granada which was akin to a
freezer. Rider had slammed the lid down over his shivering
body.

Ski-masked, gun in hand, Rider walked casually up to Jacko who
wound his window down. ‘Follow me.’

‘
Where we going?’

‘
Fuck knows ... just follow me.’

Rider got into the Granada and pulled the mask off. He slid
that and the gun underneath the seat.

The car started first time.

From the boot he could hear Munrow’s muffled banging and
shouting.

There was no going back now.

The real bad weather had hit London. Public transport was at a
virtual standstill. Traffic hardly moved in the heavy
snow.

Even so, the conscientious Karl Donaldson crawled into his
office at 7.30 a.m., having left home at 5.00 a.m. in the
Jeep.

Some faxes and correspondence had appeared on his desk
overnight.

One of the faxes gave the result of the second autopsy on Sam
Dawber.

It came to the same conclusion as the one performed on
Madeira. Some more specks of human tissue had been found underneath
her fingernails and was being DNA profiled. The bruising on her
body was inconclusive.

‘
Goddam,’ he sighed, resigning himself even more to the fact
that he would probably never be able to prove Sam had been
murdered. His only hope was a lead from the tissue, but being a
pessimist at heart, Donaldson doubted anything would come of
it.

A large fat envelope underneath this fax was from the New York
Office and contained a photocopy of everything the FBI had ever
filed on Scott Hamilton. Donaldson shuffled the papers out onto his
desk. The file was almost half an inch thick. He scanned through it
quickly.

Hamilton’s main claim to fame was that he had trained as an
accountant, had then been briefly jailed for skimming his
employer’s profits, and moved on to handle the financial matters of
a well-known New York hood - i.e. laundering money for him. The
Feds and the DEA had blown the racket sky high. The hood had been
jailed (and since escaped), but Hamilton evaded incarceration by
the skin of his teeth.

He branched out into some classy white-collar crime,
defrauding people who should have known better. Currency and
commodity frauds were his favourites.

He had been caught for a tobacco scam which backfired when the
buyers turned out to be Fibbies. In particular, one Samantha Jane
Dawber.

So that was how she knew him, Donaldson thought.

Hamilton got eight months for that.

He was not considered big time, as in mafia terms, but he was
wealthy and worth watching as his activities sometimes straddled
state and international boundaries.

He also had a violent streak and was suspected of dealing with
a rival in a fatal manner. Nothing was ever proven. He was also
believed to be a fixer, arranging things for third parties such as
burglaries. Again, this was only intelligence, not hard
evidence.

Since his prison release for the tobacco scam, he had dropped
out of sight. There was nothing on file for almost two
years.

Except the FBI now knew where he was - Madeira, running a
timeshare. Donaldson wondered what type of criminal activity the
Jacaranda was fronting. He knew one thing for certain - it was
going to be investigated ruthlessly.

He cast his eyes over the rap sheet for the cigarette fraud.
Sam’s name was down as Case Officer. It was a good bust. One to be
proud of.

She probably couldn’t believe her eyes when she spotted
Hamilton on sleepy Madeira.

So why had she died?

Accident? Donaldson was convinced this was not right. More
likely revenge for the jail sentence. Or had she stumbled across
something more? And would he ever know? Probably fucking
not.

The phone rang. He closed the file and answered it.

In days of yore, Rider would have known exactly where to take
Munrow for a little chat.

Times change. He had no contacts to speak of any more, owned
no suitable properties of his own, so was therefore forced to play
it by ear.

After half an hour’s driving he was heading up a steep winding
road against merciless snow, out of the border town of Todmorden
towards Bacup.

Halfway up the hill he turned off the road onto a farm track,
where he pulled up out of sight of the main road. There was no
sound coming from the boot. He prayed that Munrow hadn’t died of
hypothermia or inhaling exhaust fumes.

Jacko drew the Transit in behind.

Rider climbed out of the Granada and opened the boot. A
shivering, numb Munrow lay curled up in the foetal position, arms
folded tightly around his knees which were drawn up to his chest.
He looked up at Rider, full of hate.

Rider produced the gun. He reached for Munrow’s arm and heaved
him out. He pushed the naked man roughly towards the back of the
Transit, opened the doors and forced him in, climbing in behind,
squatting on his haunches, gun held loosely. With immense
satisfaction Rider saw that the huge throbbing erection had
shrivelled to sub-acorn size. Now Rider didn’t feel quite so
threatened.

‘
Get out, pal,’ Rider ordered Jacko. ‘Go sit in the
car.’

There was no need to tell him twice. He was gone in a flash,
leaving Rider and Munrow alone.

Munrow’s whole body was shaking with the cold. His skin had
turned ice-blue. His teeth chattered audibly.

‘
I’ve brought you here for two reasons,’ Rider said, giving
the impression this was a pre-planned halt. In truth, he was
winging it.

‘
Which are?’ his captive managed to stutter.

‘
So you are obliged to listen to what I say and know I’m not
bullshitting.’

‘
Why the fuck should I listen to you?’

‘
Your own interests, Charlie boy. I mean to make a point and
doing it this way is the only way you’ll take it
seriously.’

‘
Get fucking talking then.’

‘
OK. I don’t give a monkey’s ass about what’s going on between
you and Conroy. I’m not involved, never was, never will be. Your
guys saw me with him because he wanted something from me, not
because we’re in business together. Understand?’

‘
You shot one of ‘em.’

‘
Self-defence,’ Rider said quietly.

‘
Don’t believe you.’

‘
Your choice, Charlie. But think about this. If I was with
Conroy, do you honestly think we’d be having this conversation
right now, especially after your two goons beat the shite out of me
the other night? Your head would be in pieces and they wouldn’t
find you until the snow melted ... would they?’

Rider raised his eyebrows.

Rider wasn’t sure whether he succeeded with Munrow. The other
man could merely have been conning him just to get out of an
awkward situation.

In the end, Rider had two choices - to kill him, or let him go
and see what happened.

Rider always knew he would choose the latter. Just to make a
point and ensure that Munrow realised Rider was no soft touch, he
threw the Granada ignition key into a field adjacent to the lane
where it disappeared in a snowdrift. He left Munrow standing there
stark naked in the middle of nowhere, mouthing obscenities at him
as Jacko reversed the van out of the lane, back onto the main
road.

The man who only hours before had orchestrated vicious attacks
on three nightclubs, now found himself helpless and freezing,
scrambling over a dry stone wall into the field to search for his
key.

A humiliation he would never forget for as long as he
lived.

Henry’s heart went cold because he recognised the voice on the
other end of the telephone line immediately.

Superintendent Guthrie. Discipline and Complaints.

Allegedly the most ruthless bastard they had in that
department. A man, it was said, who dedicated his life to
prosecuting police officers, who investigated each complaint with
fervour. A cop who loved screwing other coppers.

‘
Henry. Need to come and see you. Have a bit of a chat. Think
you know what it’s about,’ Guthrie said affably in the clipped way
he spoke.

‘
Shane Mulcahy?’

‘
Spot on. You working Saturday - say three-thirty
p.m.?’

No, I’ll be in South America by then,
Henry wanted to say. ‘Yes,’ he replied meekly.

‘
Good. See you in your office then. Bye.’

‘
Bye, sir,’ croaked Henry. He replaced the receiver. A bead of
sweat trickled irritatingly down his forehead. His hands trembled
ever so slightly. The investigation process had begun.

He refocused his mind. There was a busy day ahead.

The team investigating Derek Luton’s death were parading on at
ten. Ronnie Veevers, the Detective Superintendent assigned to run
the case, would not be arriving until noon. Henry was required to
kick-start the job.

After this he wanted to see how the officers dealing with
Marie Cullen’s murder were progressing and to warn them about
McNamara making smells at a higher level. Henry dearly wanted to
arrest the man but knew that, at the moment, there was nothing to
connect him to her murder, other than gut feeling. Which would not
stand up in court.

Then he needed to know the current position of other
enquiries. Dundaven was in the cells on a three-day lie-down and
needed to be interviewed with a purpose.

And maybe, if he could find time, he’d look into the shooting
of Boris, the gorilla, and dig deeper into John Rider, see what he
could unearth.

Lots to do. Not much time to do it in.

Firstly he called the hospital.

Nina had pulled through after a fraught night when they
thought they were going to lose her. She had not regained
consciousness, but showed slight improvement. She would undergo
another operation today.

The news made Henry feel better and put his own problems into
perspective.

The zoo told him Boris was much better too. But still in a
real bad mood.

A cup of coffee was placed down on his desk. Henry spun round
in his chair to see two smiling Chief Superintendents - FB and Tony
Morton. They both looked smug, pleased with themselves - rather as
if they were in co-hoots.

‘
Morning, Henry,’ they said.

‘
Sirs.’

‘
Got some good news and some good news for you. Which do you
want first?’ Morton asked, beaming.

‘
I’ll start with the good news.’

Chapter Fifteen

Detective Constable Dave Seymour was a raving homophobic. He
could not countenance the thought of men ‘doing it together’.
Despite Equal Opportunity training, which sought to raise his
awareness in such matters, gay men left him cold. ‘Shit-shovellers’
he called them.

The thought of lesbians was a completely different matter.
When he visualised two women rolling around naked, frigging each
other off, he was quite turned on. To him, a lesbian was just a
woman who hadn’t found the right man yet, whereas gays were
dangerous, perverted individuals who should be put to
death.

Which was why he wasn’t too concerned to be taken off the
Dundaven enquiry at short notice and drafted onto the Marie Cullen
murder case, where he was teamed up with Lucy Crane. Lucy was a
lesbian - a well known fact because she had openly ‘come out’, and
Seymour felt that, although married, he could be the right man for
her.