Nightmare City (22 page)

‘
Sir Harry McNamara?’ the male detective said politely, a
smile on his face. He held out a hand. McNamara shook it. ‘I’m
sorry to bother you at home, but we need to have a chat with you.
Hope you don’t mind, hope it’s not inconvenient. Oh, by the way,
this is DC Crane and I’m Detective Inspector Christie. We’re from
Blackpool CID.’

‘
Come into the study,’ McNamara said. ‘I hope this won’t take
long. I’m rather busy and need to go out shortly to a business
meeting.’ A lie, but these two cops wouldn’t know.

‘
I can’t make any promises about how long it’ll take. Depends
on what you tell us,’ Henry informed him.

McNamara nodded and led the detectives to the study which was
off the hall. Henry caught sight of McNamara’s wife standing in the
kitchen. It was only a brief glimpse of a tall, sad-looking woman,
lonely and quite beautiful.

The officers were not asked to sit, nor were they offered
refreshment. McNamara made it clear he was doing them a favour. It
was an imposition for him.

‘
What do you want?’

Lucy did the talking, Henry the watching.

‘
We appreciate this might be quite delicate,’ she began.
‘We’re investigating the murder of a young woman in Blackpool. We
think you knew her and we’re obviously speaking to everyone we can
find with connections to her. As a matter of routine.’

‘
No, I don’t know her,’ McNamara said immediately. ‘I don’t
know anyone in Blackpool.’

‘
She’s not from Blackpool, she’s from Blackburn and her name
is Marie Cullen.’

Henry watched McNamara’s face, which flushed like a
toilet.

‘
No. The name means nothing to me.’

‘
She was a prostitute and was arrested for soliciting about a
year ago in the King Street area of Blackburn. You were arrested at
the same time for kerb crawling and drink driving. She was seen to
get in your car.’

‘
And as you two probably know, I was acquitted of the charges
at court. The poor woman who was embroiled in the same incident was
not known to me then, nor now. I did not, nor do not, know her. It
was just an unfortunate set of circumstances for which the police
will be paying dearly when it reaches civil court.’

‘
You’re saying you don’t know Marie Cullen?’ Lucy
asked.

‘
Yes. That is what I’m saying, so I suggest we stop at this
point. I have never seen the woman since that night and if you even
begin to make out that I have done, I’ll sue you. Now I’m asking
you to leave.’

They were ushered out and moments later were climbing silently
into the CID car. Henry started the engine.

Then they looked at each other. Simultaneously they both said
the same word and burst out laughing.

The word was ‘Guilty’.

Once on the road, Henry said, ‘I think he knew we were coming,
Luce, which I find pretty worrying. Let’s bob into Blackburn police
station and have a nose around, maybe speak to the officer who
dealt with him again.’

‘
Good idea.’

The top ten worst moments of my life, thought Karl Donaldson.
I’m not exactly sure which one this has replaced, but I think it’s
definitely sneaked into the top five.

He was certain the number one spot would never be breached -
the time when he’d held the dying body of a friend and colleague
who’d been cruelly gunned down by a mafia hit man. That had been a
hell of a bad moment, which still hurt two years later.

But this was pretty damned bad too.

The casket containing the post mortem mutilated body of FBI
operative Samantha Jane Dawber was taken from the hold of the GB
Airlines plane which had just touched down at Heathrow from
Madeira. It was transferred under Donaldson’s watchful eye onto the
back of a small flat back truck with big tyres, an amber flashing
light and a curious sounding horn, across the apron on what seemed
like an interminable journey to the British Airways New York
flight.

He watched it while it was loaded into the belly of the huge
jet, amongst all the other luggage.

Donaldson desperately wanted to be on that flight too, in
order to accompany her all the way home and hand her over to her
Mom and Pop. To be able to tell them everything he knew about her
life and death; tell them what a fantastic person she was, a
wonderful caring friend, a dedicated professional. And tell them
he’d arranged for another autopsy to take place because he wasn’t
remotely satisfied with the one already done.

The hold was locked.

Donaldson said, ‘Bye, Sam, look after yourself.’

It was hard to hold back a tear and a sob, but he did. He was
sad that he would miss the subsequent funeral, but he knew Sam
would understand because something told him he would be busy at
this end, unearthing stuff about Scott Hamilton and maybe getting
to grips with the real reason for Sam’s death. And, of course, the
other death he felt totally responsible for -
Francesca’s.

Karen met him at the other end of Customs.

When he melted into her arms he allowed himself that tear.
Karen too had obviously been in a state of denial. They cried
silently for a few moments, holding each other tight, oblivious of
the gawping stares of everyone else.

Eventually they let go. Time to look at each other
properly.

‘
Your face is a terrible mess,’ she said, looking at the dirty
chain-mark and black eye.

‘
It’ll heal.’

‘
And you look completely whacked.’

‘
And you look completely gorgeous.’ He glanced down at her
stomach, which was just beginning to show signs of expansion. He
touched it and said, ‘How’s your belly?’

‘
Full of arms and legs,’ she smiled, ‘but fine.’

‘
Long hot bath and a good night’s sleep is what I need,’ he
said, taking her hand and walking towards the exit.

She looked at him critically. ‘Hope that’s not all you want. I
mean, there is absolutely no way I can get pregnant now. We should
take advantage of that sort of situation, don’t you
think?’

‘
Then I suggest we get home as soon as possible.’

Detective Constable Derek Luton was extremely proud of
himself.

He had been a police officer for only six years, spending five
on uniformed patrol duties at Blackpool. During those years he had
dedicated himself to becoming a detective and he had achieved his
aim far sooner than he had anticipated.

From his appointment onto the branch, he had been working on
Henry Christie’s team and had set himself to learn everything he
could from Henry who, it was quietly considered, was a cracking
detective.

Not because he broke the rules (though it was rumoured he had
once given a prisoner cocaine in return for information); nor was
he oppressive to prisoners, nor was he a maverick, but because he
was thorough, occasionally a genius, occasionally very brave ...
and he had a bit of a reputation too, which added to his general
aura.

Henry himself would have cringed at this last bit. Eighteen
months earlier, he had stupidly become involved with a young
policewoman. His marriage to Kate had only just survived it and
Henry had learned a salutary lesson: keep your dick in your pants.
He didn’t like to be reminded what an ass he’d been.

But Luton worshipped Henry, who had taken him willingly under
his wing. He knew he had a lot to learn from Henry’s vast wealth of
experience. And now Henry had let him get involved in Blackpool’s
biggest-ever murder case. Five civilians, one dead cop.

Brilliant.

‘
The Lottery Killings’, as the media had dubbed it.

Not only that, by pure chance Luton had been paired up with a
seasoned detective from the North-West Organised Crime
Squad.

Bliss!

Luton had aspirations of being much more than a local CID
officer. In the fullness of time he wanted to move to the Drugs
Squad, then Regional Crime Squad and ultimately, la crème de la
crème, the NWOCS, the gangbusters. Fuckin’ magic, they were, he
thought enthusiastically.

The murder investigation - which NWOCS had bulldozed their way
into and taken over - would, Luton hoped, provide some sort of
insight as to how they operated. Maybe even get him noticed as a
potential future recruit.

Initially he was very impressed.

Taking witness statements was a skill most police officers,
whatever the department, get good at. Luton considered himself to
be above average, as was expected of a CID officer - but the
statements taken by the guy Tattersall from the NWOCS he was
working with were superb - packed full of detail, and reading like
a story.

Tattersall even got the witnesses to sign some blank statement
forms so that there would be no need to revisit when they were
eventually typed up. Not usual practice, but a
time-saver.

The statements had been taken from four witnesses who had seen
the first robbery at the newsagents in Fleetwood, the one the gang
had done before heading south to massacre the people in Blackpool.
They were all very similar.

In fact, the statements were so good that when he got the
chance, Luton took a quick photocopy of the originals for future
reference. Copying material he judged to be good quality was a
habit he had acquired early in his service. He kept everything in a
binder and often referred back for guidance, though as his
experience grew he went back less and less and the binder was
relegated to his locker.

A couple of days into the investigation, Luton began to have
vague, nagging doubts about the NWOCS.

He raised some of the questions which Henry had posed on the
night of the shooting, that fatal Saturday, because he felt they
weren’t being addressed. Or he wasn’t aware of them being
addressed.

Questions such as: How did the robbers get from one shop to
the other so quickly?

It was possible they could have done it - but only if traffic
was virtually non-existent on the roads.

When he put it to them, he was fobbed off with, ‘In their
fucking car, how d’you think?’

Questions like: Why should the gang suddenly revert to murder?
They were violent, yes, probably capable of murder. But killing six
people? Luton was patronised.

‘
Drugs,’ he was told. ‘We believe they were on
speed.’

Then he asked if the possibility of two separate gangs
operating had been considered.

That really got their backs up. Luton found himself shut out
completely, ending up with a lame duck job doing house-to-house
enquiries along the supposed route of the gang from one shop to the
other. A job for uniforms.

And he couldn’t understand why.

He didn’t specifically link it to the nooky questions he’d
been asking.

No one said anything to him, so when he asked he was told it
was to give him experience of all aspects of a murder enquiry,
which he had to accept. At the back of his mind he had a nasty
feeling he’d upset somebody, but didn’t know who, how or
why.

Late that Tuesday evening, three days after the shootings,
Luton was alone in the murder incident room at Blackpool police
station. The usual 9 p.m. debrief of the day’s activities had been
done and everyone involved in the job had either gone for a drink
or gone home. Moodily, Luton had stayed behind, kicking his heels,
drifting aimlessly around the silent room, pissed off with
proceedings.

He was pretty sure the NWOCS had a lead on the gang and that
only their officers were following it up, keeping it very much to
themselves. He was annoyed that he wasn’t being allowed to do
anything in that direction.

In one of the baskets next to a HOLMES terminal, having
already been inputted, was a thick stack of witness statements.
They were all now neatly typed.

Absently, he picked up the top one and glanced at it. He
recognised the name of the witness as one of the people he and
Tattersall had interviewed about the Fleetwood robbery. Luton’s
eyes zigzagged down the page, not specifically reading it closely,
until something jarred him into concentration.

He had been present when the statement had been taken and he
remembered it quite clearly. This particular witness had been very
precise in his recollection of events and had given a quality
statement.

Holding the statement in two hands, Luton sat down on a
typist’s chair and with a very puzzled brow, began to read it
through again - very carefully this time. He hadn’t realised that
he had been holding his breath until at the end he exhaled long and
unsteadily.

Then he read it again. Just to make sure.

After that he flicked through the statement tray to see if he
could find the original. It wasn’t there.

He knew where he could find a copy.

Leaving the typed statement on the desk next to the computer
terminal, he got up and walked out of the room. He ignored the lift
- too slow - and shot down the stairs three at a time until he
reached the CID floor where his locker was situated.