One Dead Witness (57 page)

She returned a few days later when she discovered she had
nothing to lose by giving evidence against Gilbert and, possibly,
Bussola.

Danny frantically recorded everything on a witness statement
form. It took four hours to write. When the statement had been
completed and signed, Danny sat back and thought for a moment. At
length she said, ‘There are a couple of questions which are nagging
at me, Tracey. They’re not really answered in the statement and I
haven’t pushed you - but one is
why
didn’t Gilbert kill you as well as Annie? He’s a
ruthless bastard.’

Tracey squirmed uncomfortably.

Danny kept quiet, using the weapon of silence to her
advantage, putting Tracey under pressure.

‘
I don’t know.’

‘
Yes, you do,’ Danny said quietly.

Tracey closed her eyes. A look of self-loathing crossed her
thin, drug-ravaged face. She swallowed and then admitted: ‘I helped
him to bury her body. Me and Ollie - we both helped
him.’

‘
Shit.’ Danny sighed. She was going to need some advice on that
one. ‘Right,’ she said slowly. ‘The other question is, you said you
had nothing to lose by giving evidence against Gilbert. What does
that mean?’

Tracey took a long juddering breath. ‘When I ran out on Myrna
I learnt something.’ Her voice was weaker than it ever had been. A
tear appeared, clung to her eyelid, then rolled tiredly down her
cheek. ‘I’ve just found out I’ve got full-blown AIDS. Gilbert and
Bussola can’t do anything to hurt me now. If they killed me, they’d
only be doing me a favour. I don’t have long to live
anyway.’

‘
Oh, Tracey,’ Danny cried. She twisted in her seat and closed
her arms around the young girl.

The remainder of the flight was spent dozing, eating and
movie-watching.

And three rows back, Patrick Orlove’s slitted eyes kept
observation on the back of their heads. In the flight bag by his
feet was the pistol which Ira Begin had thoughtfully managed to
have placed in the life-jacket pocket, by one of the airport
cleaning staff employed on a casual basis by Bussola. It was a good
gun. Light, accurate and would do the trick.

But when? Orlove had to think this one through.

To shoot someone in a pressurised aircraft cabin, so the
movies would have one believe, could have extremely dangerous
consequences. Orlove was no martyr; he didn’t want to cause the
plane to plummet to earth. To strangle her when she visited the
toilet was one option he considered, but it was messy. There could
be witnesses and no doubt cops would be waiting to greet the plane.
So that was ruled out.

He knew he had to hit her at the airport. Somewhere between
customs and the arrivals lounge would probably be ideal.

As the flight touched down, Orlove was calculating how far a
quarter of a million dollars would go. He had heard Portugal was
inexpensive. Maybe he’d crash out there for a few months and
reassess his future then.

The plane finished taxiing and linked up to the terminal. The
‘fasten seat belts sign’ was extinguished. The doors heaved
open.

Hello, Manchester, Orlove thought. So long, Tracey. Whoever
you may be and whatever you may have done.

Henry slammed down the phone. Near hysteria gripped his voice
when he said to the woman at the information desk, ‘What stage are
the passengers at from the Miami flight?’

‘
Should be collecting baggage very shortly.’

Henry ran towards the doors which led to the customs channel.
In his ears, the words of Karl Donaldson rang out. ‘Shit!’ Henry
burbled repeatedly as he ran to the doors - which he found to be
automatic sliding doors which only opened when approached from the
opposite side. Henry inserted his fingertips between them to try
and prise them apart. They refused to respond.

There was, of course, no need for Danny and Tracey to wait to
collect luggage. They had none.

Once clear of passport control, and after a slight delay when
the customs officer carefully read Tracey’s emergency
documentation, they were en route to the baggage reclamation area
which they had to pass through to get to the green
channel.

Patrick Orlove was right behind them, having been first in the
queue for holders of non-EEC passports. He had presented a passport
bearing the name of Daniel Harrison; it was forged, but good enough
to fool even a close inspection by a customs official.

‘
What do you think you’re doing? You can’t go through there,
mate.’

A hand crashed down onto Henry’s shoulder and spun him away
from the automatic doors. He was ready to punch whoever it
was.

‘
Jesus, thank God for that!’ he breathed in relief when he saw
the heavily armed police officer staring sternly at him. An MP5 was
draped across his chest, a handgun was in a holster at his side and
he wore body armour and a peaked cap. The epitome of a friendly,
helpful bobby.

Henry pulled out his warrant card.

They were so far ahead of the other passengers, having gone
through the green channel unchallenged, that when they hit the
corridor between the customs and the international arrivals hall,
there were only the three of them walking down it - Danny, Tracey
and Patrick Orlove.

This is easy, Orlove thought. Portugal, here I come! Pop her
here, and the other one, then I’m away and two dead bodies will be
lying there ready for collection.

He was only a matter of feet behind his targets. His hand went
underneath his jacket and withdrew the gun from his waistband. He
upped his pace slightly.

The women were strolling casually along, totally oblivious to
his presence.

He concentrated on the spot at the back of Tracey’s head
which, when penetrated by a bullet, would take the girl down as
effectively as a vet shooting a horse with a captive
bolt.

The firearms officer could not believe this was happening. The
moment for which he had trained so hard, for which he’d been put
through his paces so many times. And now, just like the cinetronic
screen, it was being enacted in front of him. But this was no video
clip.
This was for real.
He clearly saw the gun in Orlove’s
hand.

It was coming swiftly up.

There was no time to shout a warning, as had been drummed into
him, time after time in the training environment.

He was learning at supersonic speed that no amount of time on
a firing range, or dealing with situations in a training
environment, could prepare someone for the real thing. Fuck the
psychological tests. They meant nothing when you were actually
faced with a life-and-death decision right in front of your
eyes.

If he did not shoot now, an innocent person would die. Orlove
increased his speed. He was right behind the intended victim. The
gun was almost there, at the back of her head. The officer needed
to shoot, to bring him down, to kill him, if that’s what it took to
stop the bastard.

And if he missed there was an awfully good chance of killing
one of the females.

The time for considered thought was over.

It was a sound, not unlike someone slapping a table top with
the flat of their hand. Smack, smack.

Danny turned to look.

The male passenger walking behind her crumpled to the ground
and the gun in his hand clattered across the tiled
floor.

Behind him was an armed cop, of the type seen so often in
British airports these days, except his MPS was in his hands,
having just been fired. Beyond him stood the figure of Henry
Christie, now moving towards her.

Tracey turned and saw the tableau.

She did not scream, cry, become hysterical. She just looked
through tired eyes at it all.

A dead man and a cop with a gun.

So what else was new in her life?

‘
I’ll swear out a warrant this afternoon,’ Henry said quietly
to Danny. She lifted her head from Stanway’s letter which was in
her lap and looked at him, her eyes glazed as she thought of all
the misery, suffering and death wrought by Gilbert and Spencer over
the years. ‘Then,’ Henry went on, ‘I’ll get some search teams
together and start digging up his lovely garden. Probably first
thing tomorrow.’

They were heading north on the M6, filtering into the lane
which would take them west towards Blackpool.

‘
He claims at least twenty bodies,’ Danny said, referring to
the letter.
‘At least,’
she said, stressing the words. ‘I can’t get my
head around that.’

‘
Fred West, eat humble pie and God rot your soul,’ Henry said.
He nodded back towards Tracey, splayed out asleep across the rear
seats. ‘She was one of the lucky ones.’

Danny snorted. ‘That’s a matter of opinion.’ She closed her
eyes and sighed. ‘At least twenty ... and that’s only in his
garden. What about all those buried elsewhere?’

‘
I imagine they’ll stay buried and undiscovered, unless Gilbert
or Spencer start blabbing, which I doubt. Twenty’ll do for a
beginning.’

Danny felt silent. Then she touched Henry’s thigh. ‘Thanks for
saving her life, and mine probably.’ She negotiated her seat belt
and leaned across, pecking him on the cheek.

‘
Pleasure ... but I do want payment in kind, you
know.’

‘
Henry, you can have me any time. I’m too knackered to resist
anyway. Just pull my nightie down when you’ve finished.’

The prison mini-bus trundled laboriously up Richardson Street
towards the rear doors of the police station yard at
Blackpool.

A killer lurked near the pay and display car park which
overlooked the street, waiting for the chance to strike, but not
really knowing where. Just looking for the right moment.

The ‘why’ was known and fixed in the killer’s mind.

That was no problem.

The ‘how’ was in the killer’s pocket. That was no problem
either.

The mini-bus transporting the three prisoners pulled up at the
entrance to the police yard, and waited for the roller door to
rise. And now the killer saw a chance. The door rose slowly;
controlled by a button in the comms room and when there was enough
headroom, the vehicle moved slowly forwards into the
yard.

The killer ran down the steps from the car park and strolled
casually in behind the bus, all the way to the top of the yard
where it stopped.

The killer walked to the front of the vehicle, trying to look
confident, not out of place.

The side door of the bus opened. A prison guard stepped down,
closely followed by the first prisoner, Ollie Spencer, wearing
rigid handcuffs.

Next came the immense figure of Charlie Gilbert, wearing the
specially ordered cuffs which fitted his enormous
wrists.

Then came Louis Vernon Trent, also cuffed, looking as nasty
and as evil as ever.

All three were made to stand in line behind each other. The
‘where’ now became real easy.

The killer stepped quickly forwards. There was a fully
licensed .38 Smith & Wesson in the killer’s right hand, loaded
with wad cutters.

It was over in seconds. No one reacted until all of the six
bullets had been discharged into the prisoner in the middle of the
row.

Then, Mrs Ruth Lilton dropped her husband’s weapon and stood
there waiting to be taken into custody for the murder of Charlie
Gilbert and of her husband Joe Lilton, who was lying dead at their
home, another six bullets in him.

Ruth Lilton felt good. The two men who had destroyed her
daughter Claire were now incapable of doing the same to any other
child.

Louis Vernon Trent was the first person to take advantage of
the situation. Handcuffed though he was, he was always on the
lookout for any chance, slim or fat, to escape. He turned and ran
for the rear door of the police station yard, his instinct to be
free driving him on.

He fully expected to be brought down by a flying rugby tackle
at any moment.

It never happened.

He ran through the pedestrian entrance, out across Richardson
Street, up the short flight of steps to the car park and, keeping
low, ran for his life and freedom.

Seconds later, Henry Christie turned his car into Richardson
Street, Danny’s hand resting on his thigh, blissfully unaware of
anything that had just taken place in the back yard of Blackpool
Central police station.

Epilogue

Danny stood underneath the shower. Jets of hot water cascaded
down her body and she soaped herself again and again, luxuriating
in the sensation which was making her tired body feel
alive.

Henry Christie had been as good as his word and, with FB’s
blessing, had said she could take as much time off as she wanted to
recuperate from the rigours of the last two weeks. But, because
circumstances had changed so dramatically today with the death of
Charlie Gilbert and the escape of Louis Trent, it was typical of
Danny that she did not want to miss any developments. She knew that
if she was sat on a beach on some Greek island or other she would
be bored, lonely and consumed with curiosity about what was
happening at work.