Nightmare City (41 page)

They browsed through the tailoring department, Munrow glumly
at her heels. His body language mirrored his state of mind. Fed up
with shopping, impatient for her to get her money out. Shoulders
slumped. Dragging his feet. Stifling yawns between scowling at her
back. He was like a husband being hauled around. He also felt
ludicrously out of place.

‘
I’d really like you to get some bespoke tailoring,’ he heard
her saying ahead of him. ‘Fit you out in a really nice,
made-to-measure suit. But that’ll have to wait. For now, how about
a couple off the peg?’

She stopped, turned unexpectedly, a broad smile of pleasure on
her lovely lips. Her indulgence was making her extremely happy and
at the moment she did not care who knew about it, or saw them. Even
her husband.

Munrow thought he had changed his expression in time, but he
was wrong.

‘
You’re tired, aren’t you, lovey?’ she said sympathetically,
misreading the signs. ‘This is the last stop, promise. Then we’ll
book into the Post House and have a fashion show. And then we shall
fuck.’ She said those last five words in a dark, husky whisper.
‘How about that?’

‘
Sounds good’

‘
Now, what about this one?’ She unhooked a suit off the rail
and held it up against him.

They finished the reports in about an hour, sitting in the CID
office in Lancaster.

It was four o’clock. Henry was having trouble keeping awake.
The week had shattered him anyway, but now his sore body and soul
was the icing on the cake.

He yawned and slouched back in the chair, glancing very
quickly through the statement he’d concocted.

‘
You look whacked, Henry,’ Siobhan said softly. She was
sitting on the other side of the desk, gazing at him.

‘
I admit it. Been a long week.’

Yes, it had.

Beginning with kneeing Shane Mulcahy in the nuts last Saturday
evening and ending here, almost a full week later, having been
shot. And in between, what had there been? The murders in the
newsagents. The dead girl on the beach. Boris the gorilla - Christ,
he’d forgotten about the gorilla. The chase with Dundaven after
Nina had been shot (Christ, he’d almost forgotten about her too).
McNamara. Degsy dying. Long hours. Meeting John Rider for the first
time. Virtually no sleep. Dead cops, injured primates. Gun finds
and fights. Helicopters. Arguments with Kate. The NWOCS. Being
teamed up with Siobhan Robson. That kiss ... which seemed to make
it all worthwhile.

Henry’s back was to the door. Siobhan looked past him and
nodded at someone entering the office.

It was Gallagher, having completed the first interview with
Anderson, who was being represented by a duty solicitor. Not
surprisingly he’d said nothing. The interview sessions with him
were going to be long and drawn-out, like pulling teeth, only much
more painful. Henry was glad now that it was someone else’s
problem. He enjoyed interviewing suspects but all his energy had
drained out.

Gallagher told them how difficult Anderson was being, but he
wasn’t worried. ‘He’ll be well stitched-up by the time we’ve
finished,’ he said. It transpired that a search of Anderson’s flat
had produced a Dolce & Gabbana T-shirt, a pair of two-tone
shoes and a white pork-pie hat. Exactly the gear the gang had been
wearing on the robberies.

The term ‘stitched-up’ left Henry somewhat cold. It had
ominous overtones and wasn’t a world away from ‘fitting-up’.
Falsifying evidence and other such illegal practices was a road
that Henry would never go down. He believed it was his job to find
evidence, root it out, even if the way he found it was occasionally
off-centre. He had never resorted to anything underhand. He was
just too straight.

Maybe ‘stitched-up’ was simply one of Gallagher’s favoured
phrases and meant nothing. Henry let it pass. It would soon come
back to haunt him.

‘
Right, Henry, time to go home now,’ said Gallagher. He
swapped a quick glance with Siobhan which Henry caught but did not
comprehend. A furrowed brow, a questioning look, a brief nod to
each other, then the DI said, ‘Oh, I forgot. That surveillance van
needs to go back to Blackburn. Siobhan, do you mind? Henry - sorry,
pal. The other team’ll need it tonight. Pick up one of the other
cars to get you home.’

‘
Sure, boss,’ she said.

‘
Henry?’

‘
No problem,’ he said wearily. However, the prospect of a trip
all the way to Blackburn before heading home to Blackpool was
fairly daunting. It would add at least ninety minutes to the
journey time - on a good day - and this was a Friday, rush hour.
Yuk! He was beginning to need his bed desperately.

‘
I like that one, I really do,’ she said admiringly, a
thoughtful finger on her chin, pretty head tilted to one side. ‘It
makes you look sexy.’

Munrow said, ‘Good, let’s get it.’

It was a nice suit and fitted him perfectly. He liked it. At
two hundred quid, he loved it.

‘
Yes, let’s,’ she said gleefully, but grabbed another one from
the display, ‘and try this one too. It’s lovely.’

She handed it over to him.

He turned the beginning of a scowl into a smile of acceptance
and reluctantly took the suit. ‘Then we go - and fuck,’ he
said.
And you give me plenty
money.

Her eyes sparkled. ‘Yes, darling.’

Munrow went back into the fitting room and reversed into a
cubicle, drawing the curtain behind him.

He tugged the jacket off and dropped it deliberately onto the
floor in a little display of petulance. He unzipped his trousers
and let them slither down his legs and kicked them off over his
shoes.

The curtain was yanked back.

He was about to tell whoever it was to fuck off out of it and
maybe give the bastard a push in the chest for invading his
privacy, but he didn’t get the opportunity to do either.

‘
No John,’ he gasped instead, terrified. He stepped backwards
against the wall and raised his hands defensively. ‘No,
don’t.’

They were the last words he spoke.

The gun in John Rider’s hand roared twice and deafeningly in
the confined space of Debenhams men’s fitting rooms.

The first of the .357-calibre bullets left the barrel of the
revolver and flashed its short way through the air, entering
Munrow’s face by way of his top lip, blowing a huge hole below his
nose, destroying the upper set of teeth, tearing through the back
of his throat and exiting through the base of his skull.

The next one whacked into his cranium, above and to the right
of his left eye. This one did not exit, but remained inside the
skull, ripping his brain to shreds with the glee of an angry bull
in Debenhams China shop.

Rider was gone before Munrow’s twitching body shimmied to the
floor. A mass of blood, deep red, almost black blood, full of
oxygen, and particles of bone were smeared down the cubicle wall. A
fine haze of pink spray hung in the air, mixing with the smoke from
the gun.

His new suits were ruined.

Chapter Eighteen

Henry was never completely sure how it started. He didn’t
think he was responsible, nor did he think he did anything to
further it. There was a blur, then he found himself almost at the
point of no return before his senses clicked into gear.

Siobhan drove from Lancaster, all the way to the NWOCS offices
in King Street. It was a fairly uncomfortable journey in the
high-seated Transit but Henry, well strapped in, dozed off quickly.
His head rolled and jerked with the motion of the van and his
partly opened mouth allowed spittle to dribble down his chin and
jacket. He was away with the fairies and would have been no use in
an emergency.

Before he knew it, they were in Blackburn, pulling into the
secure yard.

Siobhan parked in one corner whilst Henry shook himself into
wakefulness and rubbed the dried saliva from his face with a
sheepish glint at Siobhan to see if she had noticed. She
had.

‘
Ole sleepy head,’ she said with a soft chuckle.

He had a painful crick in his neck from his sleeping position
and a heavy sensation behind his eyelids, as if grains of sand had
been surgically implanted. His eyes were gritty and sore, his chest
was throbbing and his ear screaming.

He was not in good shape.

Siobhan unbuckled her seat belt and dropped lightly out of the
van. Henry duly followed suit. His movements were like an old
man’s. His injuries had tightened him up and the pain in his chest
on moving was initially like a heart attack until he straightened
up. He was also beginning to appreciate how hard Anderson had
punched him in the face during their fight.

A couple of minutes later, having negotiated the alarm system,
they entered the deserted offices and signed their guns and
equipment back in. Henry was switched on enough to see that Morton
had not countersigned the firearms log-sheet. Siobhan told him not
to worry. It was something that often happened. He would do it
later.

Henry was holding his bulletproof vest in his hand. He
proffered it to Siobhan, who was holding hers.

‘
Come on, I’ll show you where we keep stuff like
this.’

‘
I thought the other team would be on duty,’ Henry
remarked.

Siobhan just shrugged.

They went back downstairs and walked across the car park to a
door to the right of the garage doors. She keyed in a number on the
pad and opened it. They entered a small vestibule. The main garage
was through a door to the left. A staircase was dead ahead. Siobhan
went straight up in front of Henry. He glanced into the garage
which housed three saloon cars. He assumed they belonged to the
unit. Then he was right behind her, with her compact bum at his
face level, her flesh packed into the tight jeans she’d been
wearing all day. Henry attempted not to notice. And
failed.

Upstairs there were two offices. The larger was a
store-room-cum-equipment room with shelving and large metal
cabinets lining the walls. An old settee and table were also in the
room, probably remnants from previous occupants, Henry
guessed.

Siobhan unlocked one of the cabinets and hung up the body
armour. Henry stifled a yawn.

‘
Am I boring you?’

‘
Far from it.’

A wave of
déjà vu
skittered through him as once again he found
himself within inches of her face. Inexplicably he became weak and
open for offers.

‘
Henry,’ she said hesitantly, ‘I was terrified today - when
Anderson opened up and Dave got shot right next to me. I thought
I’d be next.’ The words tumbled out, becoming increasingly shaky.
‘I’ve never experienced anything like that. It happened so fast,
too. I mean, suddenly I was on the ground and Anderson was firing.
It was all so unreal, yet so utterly frightening. I can’t find the
words to describe it.’

‘
I know.’

‘
You’ve been through it before.’

‘
Doesn’t get any easier. I was frightened too. There’s nothing
wrong admitting it. If you bottle it up, it’ll do your head
in.’

‘
Henry.’

‘
Yes?’

‘
Will you hold me? I need some ... comfort. I feel all
dithery.’

He nodded.

She fell into him, crushing herself against his chest. Very
painful for him, actually. He steeled himself and took it like a
man, without complaint. Her breasts pushed up against him and her
warm body clung desperately to him, wanting to find some
reassurance from him that she was safe now. He closed his eyes and
tilted his head back, his arms wrapping around her shoulders and
gently squeezing.

He wasn’t sure how long they stayed like that. Probably only
seconds. Then he became aware that she was looking up at him. She
drew back slightly and said, ‘That was nice, Henry. I needed
that.’

‘
So did I.’

‘
And I still want to kiss you.’

There was a pause between them when time stood still. And from
that moment on, things became very mixed-up and confused for
Henry.

He lowered his head, she went up onto her toes, and their lips
came into soft contact. An electric shock pulsated through him.
Initially they tentatively explored each other’s lips. Then their
mouths forced themselves hard onto each other. Hard and passionate.
A whimper of pleasure escaped from somewhere deep inside Siobhan’s
throat. Her tongue slithered into his mouth. He took it. Bit it.
Bit her lips. Sinking his teeth firmly into the soft wet flesh,
driving her into a frenzy.

Her fingers gripped his hair. He grew hard quickly. She felt
it and responded by spreading her legs around his thighs and
grinding herself urgently against him. Her breath came in short
pants. Through the denim of her jeans Henry could feel the
pulsating heat of her sex.

She threw her head back and Henry’s mouth moved down to her
beautiful throat, where he could see her jugular throbbing
wildly.