Hot Blood (Bloodwords Book 1) (50 page)

‘Then the third death.
Pawel
Lewinelsky
was not just the
same nationality as
Krawiec
. As well as that and a
common cause of death, his PM threw up traces of oil or grease, as did those of
both
Krawiec
and Archer. So, three common links
between all three Frank.’

Leaning back in his chair and
swivelling towards his fellow DI, Radcliffe looked him directly in the eye.
‘This is where it gets interesting Frank,’ he said. ‘From what’s been carried
in the papers, particularly in the Drum for which we can thank that little
ponce Les Starr, there have been leaks right left and centre. There was some
speculation too, but all wrapped up with some solid inside information. As you
know, when Arthur gave me the car thefts I didn’t want them. But recently we
found some tentative connections with the murders and I got more interested.’

‘I can’t sit here and listen to
all this drivel,’ burst in Davies. ‘It is as though I am on trial here. In case
you two have forgotten, I am a policeman, a detective, a DI for fuck’s sake. I
found the identity of Archer and I found out about the reason for the family
feud – the guy in London where Archer was supposed to be going,’ pausing
to get his breath before continuing. ‘I also gave you the car repair bloke,
what’s his name? Wilson. You brought him in and then screwed it up so bad that
you had to let him go. Don’t blame me for your failures Don. If I hadn’t been
pushed off to the Ramada I would have had that case tied up.’

Handley looked across at
Radcliffe and said just three words ‘Don, continue please.’

‘When we raided the Catholic
College I expected to find a number of expensive cars and perhaps even some of
the people involved. What we actually found were a number of quite legal
classic cars belonging to Mr Wilson and somebody pinned underneath a car lift.’

‘I know all that Don. I was there
– remember? The bloke was close to death. Might even be dead by now from
what I hear.’

Ignoring Davies comment,
Radcliffe continued. ‘Yes Frank, you were there so you know what happened.
Other cars had been stored there but they had been removed, along with any
evidence, no doubt as a result of yet another leak.’

‘Are you trying to fit me up with
that as well?’

‘We’ve heard your theory Frank,’
said Handley. ‘Now, just hear Don out so that we can discuss everything and
move forward. I am not looking for scapegoats, just trying to get to grips with
the facts, whatever they may be. I have to present this to MIT and I will not
be able to do that if I do not know as much about these cases as possible.
You’ve been on the conference plan for a couple of days Frank, so just let Don
update us on what’s been happening while you have been drinking coffee down by
the Marine Lake. Go on Don please.’

‘Like I said, you were at the
college bust so you know what we found, but we also went out to the farm at
Burscough
and once again everything had been moved out
before we got there. Now that can happen once but twice is either an
unbelievable coincidence, a very astute team of car thieves that’s always one
step ahead, or another internal leak.’

‘They must be astute Don,’ cut in
Davies, a big grin on his face. ‘You’ve got to give them that at least. If they
can nick and export as many cars as we think then they’ve really got a good
organisation and I bet they are watching us all the time like we watch them. I
wouldn’t mind betting that the cars are no longer around, for my money they
could already be bobbing up and down on the deep blue sea on their way to a
wealthy buyer in some Middle East fleshpot.’

‘But we weren’t watching them
were we? We didn’t know who to watch for a start. But to continue, the oil or
grease found at the three PM examinations gave us a potential link between the
murders and the car thefts, so we went back to Archer’s caravan site. We’ve
found those links Frank. I can’t prove it yet, but it looks as though Peter
Archer was involved with the car thefts and paid for that with his life.’

‘What a bloody nonsense,’ burst
in Davies. ‘If Archer had been nicking cars and pocketing the proceeds then he
would have been able to spend some money on his ratty little caravan site. Have
you seen the state of his house? His son calls it a chalet but it’s more like
an old garden shed.’

‘Quite so Frank, but I didn’t say
that he was inside the operation, I said he was involved. I meant involved as
in knew something about what was going on. I think that he then got himself
bumped off before he could cause anyone any trouble.’

‘Really Don. That’s a bit far
fetched.’

‘Maybe, but I’ll have a better
idea this evening when I’ve talked to the poor sod that got himself crushed out
at the college.’

‘I doubt it,’ replied Davies.
‘The whole thing sounds a bit far fetched to me – and the bloke was still
in a deep coma the last I knew.’

‘Not as far fetched as you might
imagine. Patrick Ainsworth regained consciousness earlier today so I am going
down to Town Lane after we finish here. He is still in intensive care but able
to talk to us according to the doctors. Debbie is there at the moment holding
his hand.’

‘I’ll come with you then,’
remarked Davies. ‘It will be interesting to hear what this bloke has to say.’

‘It will indeed,’ responded Radcliffe.
‘The big picture is beginning to come together and with a little bit of luck we
should be able to wrap this all up before MIT take it away from us. Not
forgetting their help of course.’

‘You must be bloody joking. Don’t
put my name on all this,’ opined Davies. ‘I don’t want to be included in so
much conjecture. You know my position. No connection between the three deaths
and certainly no connection between the deaths and the car thefts. You are way
out of your depth here Don.’ Turning to his superior, Davies added, ‘And I
suggest that you make sure that you are happy with this before you pin your
name to it Arthur – there’s so much that’s circumstantial or conjecture
that it leaks like a sieve. Somebody is going to look foolish when MIT start
going through it.’

‘Oh I don’t think so,’ offered
Radcliffe. ‘We have recovered quite a bit of hard evidence that CSI are working
on now. It should all be wrapped up by tomorrow morning don’t you think
Arthur?’

Before Handley could answer,
Davies snorted and laughed. ‘You must be bloody joking,’ he said with a
chuckle. ‘You’ve nobody in clink yet and only the guy from the college in
prospect. And by your own admission, you’ve not recovered any documentation
either. These blokes are good Arthur,’ he directed at the DCI, ‘you’ll need
more than you have got to catch them.’

‘Frank,’ said Handley rather
sombrely. ‘Just keep an open mind on this. We need to think like a team, or at
least discuss things in a gentlemanly fashion.’

Gentlemanly fashion? What sort of
words were those for a senior policeman? Davies raised his eyebrows – a
movement that all three had used within the last few minutes.

“I think that the time has come
to move on,’ said Handley, opening a drawer in his desk and bringing out some
printed documents, turning to look at Radcliffe and nodding.

‘Thanks Arthur,’ responded
Radcliffe. ‘I think we’ve worked out how the team work. When the guy nicks a
car he’s wearing mechanics overalls so he doesn’t look out of place and isn’t
challenged. It’s only taken a short distance for the tracker to be disabled and
false plates fitted. That all takes less than ten minutes. The car can then be
driven to wherever they store them and if our ANR picks it up, all that happens
is that it shows up as a valid registration so the car won’t get stopped.’

‘That sounds neat Don, but
tracker units cannot be disabled like that. That’s the point.’

‘I grant you that. Actually, I
thought they were
foolproof
too, but according to one
of the CSI lads you can buy a unit on the Internet that jams trackers and
mobiles. I suppose that they must disable them properly when they get them to
wherever they store them.’

Pausing to get his breath,
Radcliffe held his hand out to Handley, who passed over the documents he had
taken from his drawer.

‘We’ve picked up some V5
registration documents – I don’t know yet if they are genuine or fakes
– but it looks as though they alter the identity of the cars, you know,
engine and chassis numbers, to make it a clone of a car legally on UK roads that’s
not been stolen, then complete a
reg
doc to go with
it. Then they can export the car.’

‘You’ve been watching too many TV
programmes I think,’ replied Davies. ‘You don’t need a registration document to
put a car on a ship.’

‘I’ll take your word for that
Frank, but when it comes to legalising the cars at the destination, valid UK
documents will be required. They can’t use the car’s real registration can they
even if they forged a duplicate V5, because it would come up as stolen when any
check was made.’

‘Nice theory Don, but a bit
fanciful. And all guesswork too. I doubt MIT will buy it. Like I said, you’ve
no suspects and no hard evidence.’

‘We’ve got four blokes downstairs
Frank that have started to blab like babies. We know who lifts the cars, where
they are stored, who changes all the numbers and where they do it,’ said
Radcliffe.

‘And we know who’s at the top
too. We’ll have them all locked up before the night’s out Frank.’

Davies looked at them both
incredulously. ‘So have we been going through all this just so that you can
gloat?’ he asked Radcliffe. ‘Is this just to show what you have done while I
have been on other tasks?’

‘Not at all Frank. We need your
help here,’ replied Radcliffe.

‘They’ve been bloody clever,’
added Handley. ‘As well as using cloned plates to move the cars around, they
are also using them for their own cars too.’

Handley had then outlined how
they believed that the car thieves had cloned the registrations of some
respected local people and used them on their own cars. It was a clever ploy.
If a car was seen in a suspect situation and checked by police – or
picked up on ANR – as soon as it was seen to be one of the local good
guys it would be left alone. Handley had then read out three registration
numbers.

‘You must be joking,’ exclaimed
Davies. ‘I don’t recognise the first two, but this one is mine!’

‘They really take care of the
details too,’ added Radcliffe. ‘They are using your
reg
on a car that’s exactly the same model.’

‘Yes,’ replied Davies, ‘but my
reg
is a personal plate, they can’t match the driver to the
car as well, can they? Bloody cheeky or what?’

‘Perhaps they are too clever to
be true,’ observed Radcliffe. ‘Your
reg
is FJD,
correct?’

‘You know it is. Francis John
Davies.’

‘We have names Frank, but we’ve
not found the top man yet,’ added Handley. ‘Does the name Fraser Downing mean
anything to you?’

Davies frowned and shook his head
slowly. ‘No, should it?’

Handley didn’t answer directly,
just looking at Davies for a few seconds, letting his question hang in the air.
‘Are you sure it doesn’t mean anything Frank?’

‘Not at all. Any clues?’

Pursing his lips, Handley opened
the brown file that had been put in front of him earlier, placed a finger on a
photograph and slowly rotated it 180 degrees, finally sliding it across the
desk in front of Davies. The photograph showed a Jaguar next to an industrial
building.

Looking at the photo, Davies
again shook his head, then looked up and said ‘That’s my reg. And the car looks
like mine too. It’s not of course. Oh, I see – Frank Davies and Fraser
Downing. FJD fits us both. The cheeky buggers. Where was this taken.’

Handley looked down at the
folder. Closing the cover he put one elbow on his desk and cupped his chin in
his hand, fixing his eyes on Davies. Under his DCI’s stare, Davies shuffled in
his chair, finally averting his eyes and again looking down at the photograph
in front of him. Clasping both hands together on top of the folder, Handley
responded, ‘Are you sure there’s nothing you want to tell me Frank?’ he said.

‘Christ Arthur,’ responded Davies
wearily. ‘That’s not my car if that’s what you are suggesting. Like you said,
my
reg
must have been cloned. I’ve not been up Pool
Hey today. When you told me to take the afternoon off I went for a quiet lunch
and then out to the garden centre before going to fill up with petrol. That’s
where I was when you called and I came straight back. Since then I’ve been at
the Ramada and back here to the office. What bloody time have I had to traipse
out to
Scarisbrick
?’ Tapping the photograph he added,
‘What’s the relevance of this picture anyway - what’s going on?’

‘You are not making this easy
Frank,’ replied Handley, opening the folder and pushing another photograph
across the desk. Watching Davies intently he laboriously repeated the action
until a series of photographs had been set out in front of Davies, raising his
eyebrows questioningly when Davies looked up to meet his stare.