Nightmare City (14 page)

Dundaven fondled the shotgun for a few moments. Deep in
thought he tossed it out of the window, sat there and bowed his
head.

It was over.

Henry talked Dundaven out, giving him precise instructions
through a loud-hailer.

Slowly. No sudden movements.

There are armed officers. Their guns are pointing at you. If
you make any sudden movement, or do anything other than what I say,
you will be shot. Be in no doubt about that.

Open the door with your right hand. Push it fully
open.

Put your hands on your head. Interlock your
fingers.

Get out very, very slowly.

Right leg, left leg. Slowly. Get out. Stand up. Face
me.

Walk very slowly towards me.

Keep looking at me.

Slowly or you will be shot ...
that’
s
it
...
another two steps.

Stop there.

Keep facing me ...
keep looking at
me ...
do as I say.

Keeping your hands on your head, go down onto your right
knee.

Now stretch out your arms at shoulder height. Pretend to be
Jesus.

Keep your left arm stretched out. Lean forwards and place
your right hand on the road. Now your left. Lower yourself to the
ground, keep your nose flat to the road, lie face down on the
road.

Put your arms out again.

Stay exactly where you are.

An officer will now approach you. He is armed and if you
move, he will
shoot you in the
back.

You must do what this officer tells you ...
otherwise you’ll be shot.

He was expertly searched. His wrists were secured up his back
in rigid handcuffs. He was placed in the rear of a police van which
had been called to the scene. Two burly cops climbed inside with
him. The back door was locked. Henry instructed them to take him
directly to Blackpool.

Henry picked up the shotgun and placed it carefully on the
back seat of his car.

He and Seymour looked into the Range Rover, baulking at the
sight of the blood and bits of skull and brain splattered all over
the passenger side.

Henry opened the back door.

When he lifted the blanket he realised why Dundaven had been
so anxious not to get caught.

‘
Looks like we’ve bagged a gun-seller,’ said
Seymour.

Chapter Eight

It
is claimed that the best job in
the FBI is to be stationed at the London office, situated on the
fourth floor of the American Embassy in Grosvenor
Square.

Karl Donaldson agreed wholeheartedly with the
proposition.

He had been appointed as an assistant to the legal attaché
some twelve months previously, having fought off fierce competition
for the post. Since then he had never been happier in his
professional as well as his personal life.

In the last year he had acted as FBI liaison with many British
police forces, MI5 and MI6. Thanks to cooperation between himself
at the FBI, Scotland Yard and the Spanish police in Madrid, a
Colombian-backed money-laundering scam handling billions of dollars
of drug-trafficking money between the US, Channel Islands and Isle
of Man and a crooked Egyptian finance house, had been smashed and
literally dismantled.

Donaldson had recovered and seized over two billion dollars
and destroyed a service to the cartels which had probably seen
twenty times that amount pass through it in four years. He had also
been involved in the investigation of many other international
conspiracies, several of which were ongoing, some of which had come
to nothing.

The work, he found, was demanding, exciting and
fulfilling.

Just as his personal life had proved to be.

Previously having been a resident in Miami, he had moved to
England and married Karen Wilde, cop, formerly a Chief Inspector in
Lancashire. They had met and fallen in love whilst Donaldson - then
a special agent had been investigating mafia connections in the
north of England. Karen had transferred to the Metropolitan Police
and was presently seconded to Bramshill Police College, where she
held the rank of Temporary Superintendent.

Without having tried particularly hard, they were expecting
their first child.

Life was being very good to them both.

But occasionally there was a downside - which Donaldson was
experiencing now.

He was sitting at a window seat on the direct GB Airways
flight from London to Madeira. In spite of his destination, that
lush green Portuguese island in the Atlantic, Donaldson’s face was
set hard, as it had been for the whole of the three-and-a-half-hour
journey.

The plane was on its final descent into Santa Catarina Airport
on the east coast of the island.

He gazed out across the wing. He could not be said to be
taking in the steep banking of the plane, nor the expert
manoeuvring, the twisting and dipping, in order to line up with the
runway; his aesthetic sense did not appreciate the clear blue sea
below, shimmering in the sunshine, nor the tantalising glimpses of
the island itself.

Neither did it particularly concern him that the runway is one
of the shortest in Europe, the end of which drops literally into
the sea.

Normally he would have revelled in everything.

He readjusted his seat belt and braced himself for the landing
which he knew would be characterised by extra reverse thrust and
sharp braking. It was surprisingly smooth and
lurch-free.

Within minutes the plane had taxied to the small terminal
building.

Donaldson reached up and opened the overhead locker, lifting
out his only piece of luggage, a small overnight bag. His stay was
to be short, but not sweet.

The heat of the day hit him whilst walking from the plane to
the terminal.

Even though it was January, Madeira was much warmer than
London. He experienced a very brief reminder that, since being
posted to London from Florida, he had seen little sun.

He went straight to Customs, showed his American passport and
sailed through.

A dark-faced man with a black moustache and brown, intelligent
eyes, approached him.

‘
You are Mr Donaldson, I believe, from the FBI in London,’ the
man said.
‘Muito prazer.’

Donaldson nodded.
‘Muito bem,
obrigado,’
he replied. It was one of the
few Portuguese phrases he knew. He was not familiar with the
language, but spoke Spanish well and German fluently. With his
knowledge of the former he expected to be able to read menus and
road signs, but nothing more complicated.

The two men shook hands formally, no smiles.

‘
I am Detective George Santana. May I welcome you to Madeira
on behalf of the police service. Please accept my deep regret that
the circumstance of your visit is not more pleasurable.’

Donaldson nodded. They had walked out of the airport. A car
drew up to the kerb, driven by a policeman in uniform.

‘
I’d like to see the body as soon as possible.’

Donaldson touched down at one o’clock on Monday afternoon. By
that time, Acting Detective Inspector Henry Christie had been at
work for seven hours and was beginning to flag. He had only
finished Sunday’s tour of duty at 2 a.m. and with less than four
hours’ sleep under his belt, his eyes felt like a bucket of grit
had been thrown into them.

He rubbed them once more with his knuckles, blinked a few
times and ran a hand around his tired face. He stifled a big yawn,
but only just.

The evening before, Hughie Dundaven had been booked into the
custody system at Blackpool by about eight. He remained compliant
in terms of his behaviour but said little and refused to divulge
his name and address. He demanded to see a solicitor, which was one
of his legal rights.

He had been strip-searched and all his clothing was seized for
forensic. He was given a white paper suit - a ‘zoot suit’ as they
are fondly called and a pair of slippers to protect his modesty.
Nothing in his property gave any indication as to his identity. All
he had in his wallet was cash. Six hundred pounds of it.

Non-intimate swabs were taken from his hands. Hair was plucked
from his head for DNA sampling - the norm for all prisoners
arrested for serious offences.

He refused to sign a consent form to allow his fingerprints to
be taken.

By the time this had all been done it was ten o’clock.
Dundaven had not yet been interviewed about anything.

The duty solicitor rolled in shortly after this and had a
confidential chat.

Henry had appointed a DS and a DC to carry out the initial
interview, but the solicitor said his client was not prepared to be
interviewed at that time of day. He should be allowed to rest - all
prisoners were entitled to a period of uninterrupted rest for eight
hours in any twenty-four.

Henry hit the roof. He demanded an interview and got
it.

It turned out to be a short one, just to establish why
Dundaven had been locked up and to give him an opportunity to give
his side of the story. He refused to say a word.

By the time that farce had ended it was midnight.

Dundaven got his wish then. He was led to a cell, where under
a rough blanket he slept like a baby.

Henry and his detectives convened in the CID office where,
over coffee, they planned next morning’s strategy.

Then he went to the property store where Dave Seymour and the
ARV crew had unloaded and listed all the property from the Range
Rover.

Henry raised his eyebrows. ‘That’s an awful lot of firepower,’
he said appreciatively, looking at the guns and ammunition which
had been laid out and labelled.

‘
Enough for an army,’ agreed Seymour.

Henry helped to list the last few weapons, noting their make
and serial numbers, careful to handle them so as not to leave or
disturb any fingerprints. The guns all looked new and
unused.

The logging of the weapons was completed at 2 a.m.

Just before going home Henry phoned the hospital and asked
about the condition of the policewoman, Nina. He was told,
‘Critical.’

He hung up with a tear in his eye. He did not know the girl,
but it was the principle of the matter. He’d been involved in other
investigations where police officers had been killed. These days
the mere thought of it happening could move him to tears. He
realised that as he grew older - he would be forty later in the
year - he was getting less and less detached. In days gone by,
nothing seemed to affect him. For some reason, everything did
now.

‘
Turning soft,’ he said, wiping the back of a hand across his
nose. He got up and went home.

When his head hit the pillow he could not sleep. He tossed and
turned uncomfortably, drifting off occasionally, sweated, and
disturbed Kate who, in her sleep, told him to ‘Pack it in.’
Whatever that meant.

Frustrated and knackered he gave up trying to sleep and was
back in the office by six, getting his head around how he could
cover everything that was happening with the few staff he
had.

Two dead bodies: one in the mortuary in Blackpool, one in
Preston. Both unidentified.

A cop in ICU, probably going to join them.

And a gorilla with a bullet in his shoulder.

A weekend in the north’s premier holiday resort. Come to
Blackpool and get your head blown off or a knife in your guts ...
or, he went on to think shamefacedly, get kneed in the groin and
lose a testicle.

He tried to delete the last one from his list and crossed his
fingers mentally. Perhaps it would go away.

The identification of two bodies would only be a matter of
being patient and waiting. He would be surprised if they didn’t
come back on fingerprints.

He looked at the paltry list of detectives available to him.
Not many. Most snaffled for the newsagents job. He shook his head,
his brain like cotton wool. The management of resources really does
your head in.

‘
Right, get on with it,’ he ordered himself He picked up his
pen and began to decide who would do what.

The same DS and DC who had initially interviewed the prisoner
could carry on with that investigation, together with Dave Seymour.
It was well within the scope of any competent detective:
interviews, exhibits, paperwork. All Henry needed to do was guide
them, and keep an eye on the wider picture. At least there was a
body in the cells, which made it a whole lot easier, even if Chummy
was being uncooperative.

Whereas it was less straightforward with the dead girl. They
still had to find out who’d done that one.

Henry’s remaining staff consisted of two DCs. Simply not
enough to deal with the job. The thought of prostrating himself in
front of FB was not appealing - but he was sure that if he pushed,
FB would wilt.