Crunch Time (28 page)

Her mouth moved thoughtfully.

‘In case you hadn't worked it out, I need to get access to his room … sneak in, actually.'

‘I think I'd worked that out, all right. Does Henry know you're doing this?'

‘Absolutely not.'

‘Then neither do I, is that understood?'

‘Absolutely.'

Henry knew how difficult it was to look through CCTV footage and stay awake at the same time, even though the digital set-up he was scanning through was as fast as skimming through a DVD – or in this case, four DVDs.

With it he tracked his arrival in the Mondeo, some discussion with Ken at the car; Ken checking it over and then a handshake as the deal was done – Henry even now feeling he had been ripped off by the salesman. He found the footage of the car being driven away by someone else and then couldn't find any other images of the Mondeo, which had probably been tucked away amongst the bangers at the back of the lot.

The next day's footage was more interesting.

The Mondeo was driven back into shot and Ken got into it, together with a second man. Henry sat bolt upright: Ken taking a customer for a test drive. The man wasn't clearly seen, but could have been one and the same as the guy in the photos taken by old Mr Jackson, the nosy neighbour.

Twenty minutes later the car and its two occupants drove back on to the forecourt. They parked up, in shot, and there was a discussion as they sat in the car, money issues perhaps. After a couple of minutes both men got out, had further discussion and then went their separate ways … but not before the customer glanced up towards the lens of the camera recording the interaction. He looked only quickly, fleetingly, then jerked his head away as though he knew he'd been caught. Henry jammed his finger on the stop button, rewound slightly and then clicked the image forwards one frame at a time.

‘Got you, you bastard.'

‘Shush … no need to say anything just yet.'

Karl Donaldson sat quietly on the edge of Ryan Ingram's hospital bed. Ingram's eyes were closed. His face was contorted with pain, pale and ill-looking. The mechanics of the bed and a couple of pillows propped him up at a slight angle under his neck. His chest was bare and heavy dressings covered the two bullet holes in his body, two drain tubes running out of the wounds into a receptacle on the floor, rather like a siphon.

Various other tubes ran into and out of his body. His heart rate and breathing were being monitored and a clear solution of some sort ran from a drip bag held on a crane-like contraption by his side, down the tube and into his arm via a needle.

He was very lucky to have survived. Donaldson smirked when he thought that this was only due to Henry's poor shooting. Had it been him holding the weapon, Donaldson knew that there would have been a funeral by now, or at least an inquest, or maybe a cover-up.

Even at Donaldson's soft words, Ingram did not stir.

He said them again. ‘Shh, no need to speak …'

Ingram moved slightly, wincing in agony, despite the painkilling drugs that had been pumped into him.

His eyes opened and his lips popped drily.

Donaldson smiled at him.

Ingram looked at him through watery eyes, but did not react adversely to the man in his room. He may not have seen the stranger before, but because he was wearing a white coat with a stethoscope slung around his neck, to all intents and purposes he was just another doctor checking him up, even though he was as good-looking as George Clooney in
ER
.

‘It's OK, no need to speak,' Donaldson said again. ‘I hope you're feeling better?'

Ingram's eyes fluttered.

‘I was shot myself once, you know?' Ingram's brow furrowed at this revelation. ‘I nearly died, so I know what it can be like. Very nasty indeed.'

‘Eh?' Clearly the patient did not understand anything.

‘I need to ask you a few questions, if that's OK?'

‘Yeah, whatever,' he croaked harshly.

‘You feel up to it?'

He nodded weakly. ‘Need some water, throat dry.'

Donaldson poured some from a jug on the bedside cabinet into a plastic glass, which he held to Ingram's lips, assisting him to drink.

‘Thanks.'

‘No problems … I need to make something clear, though.'

Ingram eyed him tiredly, wanting to get back to sleep.

Out of his newly acquired white coat pocket, Donaldson extracted a small, plastic box that he opened. In it lay a hypodermic needle. He took it out between his finger and thumb and held it up, with his thumb on the plunger. Inside was a colourless liquid. He made a show of tapping the needle with the nail of his forefinger, as doctors do on TV, but he didn't push the plunger, just held it up so Ingram could see what he was doing. Still, the wounded man showed no conception of his predicament.

Donaldson then stood up and inserted the needle into the drip so that the tip of it was in the liquid in the bag. He left it hanging there and reseated himself on the edge of the bed, smiling at Ingram.

‘What's that for?' Ingram managed to say.

‘I'll come to that in a moment … firstly, as I was saying, you need to know that I'm not a doctor, as such. I know I look like one, but I'm not. Nah.' He shook his head.

Ingram licked his lips.

‘I'm just here doing some research, you might say.'

‘You're an American.'

‘Good observation skills. However … my research … you need to know that whatever happens in the next few minutes, you'll never, ever see me again, either because you've answered my research questions to my satisfaction – or you're dead.'

Now Ingram's eyes suddenly came alive. His whole body stiffened as he took in a breath.

‘Please do not think of shouting out, because if you do, you will definitely be dead before the first syllable comes out of your mouth. Trust me, I can do that.' He smiled winningly. ‘That syringe' – he pointed to it – ‘contains a chemical which, if introduced into your system intravenously, will kill you very painfully – nay, horrendously painfully – within about a minute. Doesn't sound a long time, but a minute, sixty seconds, is a very long time when your heart feels like it's being squeezed by a vice and your brain has been set on fire. And, a plus point, the chemical won't let you scream, either. You think you're screaming, but nothing's coming out. Real clever.'

‘Who the hell are you?'

‘Someone who wants some answers and promises, which if I get will mean you live to fight another day. If I don't, you'll be dead in, say, three minutes max.'

‘There's cops outside guarding me.'

‘Don't kid yourself.' Donaldson gave him a knowing look. ‘Would I sit here, chatting, with armed police outside? There's no one outside, pal. They've gone for a coffee.'

Fear, and a dawning realization that there was a cool lunatic in his room, were evident on Ingram's face.

‘Easy or dead?' Donaldson said.

‘Who the hell are you?'

‘The seeker of truth.' Donaldson reached out to the hypodermic needle and rubbed his thumb on the plunger. ‘This stuff, incidentally, will not be traced in a subsequent autopsy. Once it's done its job, it disappears.' His eyes, hooded and dangerous, roved slowly to Ingram. ‘Your death will be put down to natural causes, probably a heart attack as a result of your gunshot wounds, which, as we all know, were given lawfully to you.'

‘What d'you want?'

‘Who told you Frank Jagger was an undercover cop?'

‘Is that it?'

‘Was it Troy Costain?'

‘Go fuck yourself.'

‘Did Troy Costain tell you before you killed him?'

‘As I said, go—'

Before he could complete his sentence, Donaldson moved quickly. He clamped his big left hand over Ingram's mouth, holding, squeezing tightly, then punched him with the power of a steam hammer on the dressings over his wounds. Twice. He held on to Ingram's face, preventing him from screaming and easily fending off his weak attempts to wriggle free and fight back. The man had no strength in him whereas Donaldson had ninety-five per cent of his back – and that made him fearsome.

In fact, Donaldson felt a resurgence of power within him, almost as though he had never been wounded. His face set like granite and, eyes ablaze, he held on to Ingram whilst he squirmed in agony, then eventually gave up. He withered and started to whine.

‘I forgot to mention,' Donaldson said, his face inches from Ingram's, ‘I'll cause you a lot of pain even before I plunge the needle, if I have to.' He glanced at the dressings, now saturated with new blood. ‘You answer my questions, Goddamnit. You killed Costain, didn't you?'

Slowly, he peeled his hand off Ingram's mouth.

‘Yeah.'

‘What did he tell you about Frank Jagger?'

‘Nothing.'

‘Why kill him then?'

Ingram was breathing with difficulty now, his teeth grating, fighting the renewed agony from his wounds, which had reopened with a vengeance.

‘Why kill him?'

‘To kill the debt.'

‘Meaning?'

‘Fuck you, whoever you are,' Ingram blurted.

‘Doctor Nightmare, that's me.' Sharp and hard, Donaldson smacked a fist into Ingram's upper chest again. He re-clamped his face and held him down until the pain started to ebb out of his body. ‘Tell me, or I'll release this death into your veins.'

‘You fuckin' wouldn't,' Ingram gasped, as Donaldson lifted the hand from his mouth.

The American laughed. ‘Try me.'

Ingram's eyes roved over every detail of Donaldson's face, the eyes, the skin, and the expression which told him with certainty that he was telling the truth.

‘I was double-checking.'

‘Meaning?'

‘I'd already been told Jagger was a cop. I went to see Costain to double-check. But things took a turn for the worse. He argued about the debt, insisting that Jagger was a criminal, so I lost it and I killed him. I knew he was lying to me, but he didn't say anything about Jagger being a cop.'

‘Who did tell you, then?'

‘Someone else.'

‘Don't fuck with me. I want a name, now, or I'll murder you.' He reached across to the syringe, put his thumb on the plunger.

R
ossendale was cold and grey.
Back again
, Henry thought as he motored into the stone-built town of Rawtenstall, the capital of the valley. Having spent a lot of his early career in these wilds, he knew his way around the place well, even now, but could not necessarily remember specific streets. He had to pull in and consult his
Lancashire A–Z
. He'd once thought about getting a satnav, but they took the fun out of finding places. However, on that day, being in such a hurry, he would have welcomed hi-tech assistance.

Even so, he found the street on the map quickly. He geographically imprinted it into his mind instantly and was on the trail again within a minute, heading up Burnley Road out of town. It was a terraced side street on the right-hand side of this main road, more or less opposite a pub he used to frequent in the days, long ago, when he was working as a uniformed cop down the valley.

He pulled into the roadside and looked up the street. It was a short, dead-end terraced street with maybe enough room to manoeuvre a car across the top of it along a tight alley and drop down into the next street back down on to the main road.

It was a street he had visited a time or two when he was a PC. He tried to recall why, but they must have been nothing jobs; kids causing a nuisance, maybe, no great memories. And now Ken Connolly, bent car salesman, lived in one of the houses on the left, number nine, in the middle of the terrace.

Henry checked the address on the envelope containing Connolly's P45. Definitely nine.

He rubbed his eyes. He was tired, aching, sore, but feeling confident, having that infamous arse twitch of his like he always did when he was on the scent. He got a surge of energy as he checked his shoulder, jumped out of the car and strode across to the mouth of the street which was still, amazingly, cobbled. Nothing progresses very quickly in Rossendale, he thought.

He rapped his knuckles on the door, a poorly maintained wooden one which needed either replacing or refurbishing. It rattled loosely, hollowly. Stepping back a few feet, he checked for activity, then looked through the ground floor window into the lounge. It was empty and cheaply furnished.

His knuckles hit the door again, but his cop sense told him no one was at home. He cursed silently, thought about knocking on a few of the neighbours' houses, but as he looked back down the street, his eyes focused on the pub, the Red Lion. He recalled that Ken had smelled of booze when he'd last spoken to him and just maybe, being a man out of work, he might be drowning his sorrows in the local.

It was worth a try. If it was a dead-end he'd do a few neighbours anyway, and then sit and wait in the pub for Connolly to roll home.

He dashed across Burnley Road and entered the pub.

This was somewhere Henry had been many times in the early 1980s when he was not much more than a kid in a uniform. He had never been to the pub whilst on duty, always off-duty and chasing skirt. In those days it had been one of the pubs in the valleys where cops congregated. And cop groupies went, too.

Treasured memories flooded back, but the reality of the pub on that day, as he pushed his way into the main bar, was of a place in urgent need of attention. It was a dive.

It was hardly busy, late morning just before lunch, and as he sauntered in he immediately spotted Connolly at the bar. He had a fresh pint in his hand which had been presented to him by a barmaid who could well have been in situ since Henry had last sauntered in twenty-odd years earlier.

Henry stood behind Connolly, who had not seen him enter, and noticed a racing paper on the bar in front of him, with a notepad and pencil, names of horses and odds scribbled down.
Ken the gambler, boozer and skimmer
, Henry thought.