Nightmare City (53 page)

‘
Bastard Conroy!’ she wailed. ‘And now you’re working for him,
aren’t you? Just like all the other cops on his payroll.’ The
expression on her face taunted him. ‘I hope you’re proud of
yourself. Guilty or not, you’re going to get him, aren’t
you?’

She buried her face in her hands. ‘He’ll be an old man when
he comes out,
if
he comes out, and I’ll have had a completely wasted life.’
Suddenly she flared up without warning, anger bubbling over. She
propelled herself at Henry and attacked him, pounding her fists
into his chest.

He grabbed her hands and bent them roughly back. She screamed.
He tossed her away from him. She skittered across the floor and
landed in a heap next to the washer where she continued to
cry.

Henry rubbed his chest. Too many people were hitting
it.

‘
Y’allreet, Sarge?’ A couple of the PCs had abandoned the
search on hearing the commotion in the kitchen.

Henry nodded. ‘One of you make sure she’s OK and the other one
take me back to the nick. Then come back and finish the
search.’

Before leaving, Henry wrote his home number down on a scrap of
paper and left it on a work surface. ‘If you feel like talking,’ he
told Isa, ‘bell me.’

Henry ensured he was dropped off at the front of the station.
Siobhan, if she was waiting, would probably expect him to come back
via the rear yard, one floor below. He wanted to avoid her at all
costs. He dashed in through the public enquiry area and was buzzed
into the building. He dropped down a flight of steps into the
custody office.

No sign of Siobhan. Good.

‘
Duty solicitor arrived yet?’ he asked the Custody Sergeant,
who was dealing with a couple of juveniles.

‘
Nope.’

‘
I want to speak to Rider, about a matter not concerned with
his arrest, not a criminal matter.’ Not strictly true, Henry had to
admit to himself, but probably the only way he’d get to see Rider
alone now.

Two minutes later they were face to face again.

‘
I won’t speak to you without a solicitor present.’

‘
I think you will. I’ve been to search your flat.’

‘
You won’t find anything unless you put it there.’

‘
I found a woman called Isa. She told me something very
interesting.’

Rider sniffed indifference.

‘
You’re being well and truly shafted here, aren’t
you?’

‘
You should know.’

‘
You’d be surprised how little I know. The name Conroy was
mentioned.’

Rider bit the inside of his mouth with a squelch.

‘
Get to the point, Sergeant.’

‘
I may be able to help you, but in return you have to help me
first.’

‘
Look - you’re out to get me, come hell or high water, and
probably at Conroy’s bidding, so why should I help you? I mean,
this whole thing’ Rider waved his hands at the room - ‘could be a
set-up, just to get me to admit something. How do I know there
isn’t a hidden mike somewhere?’

‘
You have my word.’

Rider nearly fell off his seat. ‘The word of a man who has
already verballed me up? What’s that worth in real
terms?’

Henry pushed himself to his feet. He walked to a corner of the
small room and lounged there.

‘
I need a fag,’ Rider complained.

‘
Sorry, no smoking. Force policy.’

‘
Fuck force policy!’ Rider leaned his forearms on the table
and intertwined his fingers. He twiddled his thumbs, rotating them
against each other.

‘
You’ve got something together with Isa, haven’t
you?’

‘
Did have.’

‘
She’s devastated, you being in here. Really fucked
up.’

‘
Did have, I said.’

‘
You still could have, John - if you’d trust me. At the very
least, what you’ll get out of this is a fair and honest
investigation. If there is evidence of murder against you, you’ll
get charged. If not, you’ll be released. But I promise there will
be no evidence fabricated against you.’

‘
Sounds fucking great,’ he said cynically. ‘The devil and the
deep blue sea.’

‘
It’s better than what you’ve got at the moment,’ Henry said
pragmatically.

‘
What’s going on, Sergeant?’ Rider looked across at Henry with
eyebrows raised. Henry strode back and sat down opposite Rider
again.

His voice was earnest. ‘Isa says she believes you’ve been set
up for this murder by a man called Conroy. Is that what you
think?’

‘
You, him - and others, probably.’ Rider spoke guardedly, not
wanting to say anything which might go against him.

Henry saw the look. ‘I’ll tell you why you can trust
me.’

‘
Go on, astound me.’

‘
Do you think I’m doing this shite willingly? Well, I’ll tell
you, I’m not. I’m doing it because if I don’t, I lose my job, my
wife, my pension, my reputation, everything - and may even end up
in prison. Yeah, it’s true. I’ve been set up too. In a different
way, for a different reason - or maybe the same reason, I dunno.
Maybe there’s some connection between us two. But there’s something
I do know. If I convict you on false evidence I’ll be trapped for
ever and I’ll be a bent copper for ever, unless I do something
about it . . . and you’ll be in prison for the rest of your life.
We could be the key to saving each other.’

Henry had been leaning forwards, becoming more and more
intense as the words torrented out. ‘But if you’re not interested,
let’s go down the road to hell together.’

The next official interview was over fairly quickly, much to
Siobhan’s disgust. They presented Rider back to the custody officer
and he was returned to the cells.

‘
Speaks,’ Siobhan demanded.

They adjourned to the interview room and closed the
door.

‘
That was a poor performance, Henry. You didn’t seem to be
trying very hard.’

‘
Just feeling my way, getting used to the
situation.’

‘
Find anything useful at the flat?’

‘
Don’t know yet. Going to go back and check. Then we’ll move
onto his club and do that.’

‘
Leave the club!’ Siobhan said sharply.

‘
Why?’

‘
Just leave it, that’s all. It’s an order. We’re not
interested in the club.’

‘
Sure, fine,’ he said. ‘Who am I to argue?’

‘
Exactly. Who are you?’

Henry left her in the custody office, telling her he was going
for a dump, which might take some time.

Instead of going into the station, he turned right out of the
custody office, after checking Siobhan didn’t see him, and sprinted
down the rear yard to get into a CID Metro for which he had the
keys in his pocket. He gunned the small car out of the garage and
into Blackpool town centre where he whizzed up and down a few
streets, including going the wrong way down a one-way street. He
wanted to know if he was being followed and was fairly satisfied he
wasn’t.

He pointed the car in the direction of Lytham.

Behind him, Jim Tattersall tapped Tony Morton’s mobile number
into his own, hardly able to suppress a laugh at Henry’s
anti-surveillance tactics.

Morton told Tattersall to stick with him.

Morton ended the call and placed his mobile on the desk. He
drummed his fingers agitatedly and asked himself what the
significance could be of Henry’s departure from the police station
without Siobhan, his chaperone.

The internal phone rang.

‘
Morton.’

‘
Siobhan, boss. Just seen the custody record. Henry’s had an
unscheduled conversation with Rider before I got here. It says on
the record it was in connection with a matter unrelated to the
investigation.’

‘
Do you know where he is now?’

‘
Having a shit.’

‘
Wrong, you stupid bitch! He’s in a car and he’s heading out
of town, for fuck’s sake. I thought you were supposed to be keeping
an eye on him?’

Morton slammed the phone down.

Morton had ordered a two-car tail on Donaldson. And Mr
Donaldson, FBI employee, didn’t spot it until quite late because
they were good. By the time he saw them, he and Karen had visited
the other two witnesses and taken statements.

He swore when he realised, but there was nothing more to be
done about it - other than to lose them for the fun of
it.

But by then, both addresses were on a piece of paper in front
of Tony Morton.

Morton asked Siobhan to check the voters’ register to put
names to them. He was beginning to feel very uncomfortable; also
that he had been too generous with Henry Christie by allowing him
to live. The challenge of corrupting an incorruptible officer was
proving to be a headache of epic proportions.

It would have been far easier to have had him whacked straight
away.

Henry drove quickly, pushing the Metro hard through the
mid-morning traffic which, due to the season and the weather, was
fairly light.

He picked up the coast road and was soon in Lytham. He had a
vague idea of where he was going because a few years ago he had
delivered a message there, about what he could not recall. He did
not know the town well, but it was only a small place and he
trusted his memory and sense of direction.

He found the road in about ten minutes. Thirty seconds later
he stopped outside the house, a large, bow-windowed
semi.

He looked at the building for a while just to make sure he
wasn’t mistaken.

Yep. It was the right one.

He got out of the Metro and went through the garden gate,
failing to see the car which had drawn up two hundred metres behind
him.

Tattersall was quickly on the blower.

‘
Boss ... we could have problems here.’

Morton paced his temporary office. Siobhan was sitting
watching him with a fearful expression.

He had four names and addresses on his desk which still meant
nothing to him.

And Henry Christie had spoken to Rider alone for about twenty
minutes. And now he was at an address which sent goose bumps down
his spine.

‘
I don’t like this one little bit.’ He rubbed his
chin.

‘
He’s wriggling,’ Siobhan said. ‘That’s all.’

‘
He should’ve been killed like the two others. I regret not
having him done now. I protected him and he could well be causing
me problems.’

Gallagher came in bearing the statements which had been
amongst Luton’s other paperwork in the plastic bag.

‘
Got the statements back,’ he said triumphantly.

He handed them to Morton who glanced at the top one and tossed
them onto his desk. Then his neck craned down as he saw the name on
the top one. He fanned all four out, his face turning
ashen.

‘
These are the people that Donaldson guy has just been to see.
He’s been visiting the witnesses again on Henry’s
behalf.’

‘
What?’ asked Gallagher, who had not been privy to these
developments. He’d been making a show of running the murder
enquiry.

‘
Some guy called Donaldson and a woman have been visiting our
witnesses again. Where have you been for the last twenty-four
hours, numb-nuts?’

‘
Somebody has to make it look like we do policework
occasionally,’ he griped.

‘
Yeah, yeah.’

‘
Did you say Donaldson?’

‘
Yeah, why?’

‘
Name rings a bell.’ Gallagher was thoughtful for a moment
whilst he wracked his brains, the tip of his tongue resting on his
lower lip. ‘Got it! FBI agent linked to that big trial Christie was
involved in about eighteen months, two years ago. The mafia guy,
remember? Yeah, I’m sure Donaldson was the name of the FBI agent
who was a major witness.’

‘
So an FBI agent and a female who we don’t know are going
round visiting witnesses?’ Siobhan wanted this to be cleared
up.

‘
Probably his wife. She’s a policewoman, ex-Lancashire now in
the Met. Works at Bramshill these days, I think.’

‘
I know her,’ Morton declared. ‘She was one of my course
tutors on the senior command course.’

Morton looked at the statements again. His mouth sagged as
something else dawned on him. ‘These are photocopies of
photocopies.’

Gallagher’s brow creased.

‘
Luton screwed his copies up when I caught him. These should
be creased, for God’s sake! Look, look at them. You can see that
the ones they’ve been copied from were creased. I am surrounded by
imbeciles.’

‘
Let me look.’ Gallagher took them from his boss. It was true.
They were photocopies of creased statements. Gallagher’s despair
showed on his face. ‘So they’ve still got the copies Luton
made?’