Nightmare City (24 page)

She sank to her knees, her hands covering the silent
scream.

She was unable to do anything, but stare.

Then she found her voice and started an unworldly, inhuman
wail of horror.

Chapter Eleven

The three men met at an exclusive golf and country club set in
the high, lovely countryside between Blackburn and Bolton. This was
where all their meetings took place. The club was owned by one of
the men and the other two held small, but profitable
stakes.

The owner made the arrangements for the meetings with the
management of the club (which was scrupulously operated) to ensure
they would not be disturbed for at least two hours while they used
the pool and the sauna. It was a good atmosphere in which the men
could relax and unwind and discuss business matters.

The meetings usually concluded in the same way: girls were
brought in for two of them, and a young man for the
third.

They always arrived and departed separately, at least twenty
minutes apart.

That Wednesday morning was an emergency meeting.

It had snowed overnight and the hills were covered with a
white blanket. It was not pleasant flaky snow, but wet and slushy
and grimy.

The first of the men to arrive was the owner of the club,
Ronnie Conroy.

He had learned his lesson from Blackpool and now, as well as
his driver, he was accompanied by two armed goons. No one was going
to sneak up on him again.

The big Mercedes purred up the long driveway, past a couple of
snow-covered trees and greens, stopping outside the grand entrance
to the club.

Conroy walked straight into the club, striding quickly through
the reception foyer and into the manager’s office. After checking
the arrangements had been made, he went to the changing rooms and
got into his swimming gear. He dived into the heated pool and swam
a few slow lengths whilst he considered matters.

Ronnie Conroy was a worried man.

There are perhaps a hundred and fifty to two hundred people,
all men, who are the top operators and control eighty per cent of
the UK drugs trade and they lead lives of lavish wealth, often in
communities far away from their trading heartlands. They are far
removed from street dealers and the day-to-day violence of bars,
housing estates and night clubs upon which they shower their
product.

With a few exceptions, these men all reside in houses with
swimming pools, stable blocks and acres of grounds. They own race
horses, private planes or helicopters and homes abroad; the ones
with children send them to private schools. Many are active within
their adopted communities, living apparently blameless lives,
supporting churches, charities and often find themselves on school
boards.

They all own legitimate businesses which act as a front for
their more nefarious activities; they are usually cash based
businesses, more often than not in retailing.

Ronnie Conroy, one-time partner of John Rider, had grown into
one of these top operators.

What Conroy really imagined himself to be was a businessman,
not a gangster. The words
Company
Director
were proudly displayed on his
passport. The fact that the bulk of his company’s profits came from
supplying drugs, prostitution and selling guns was something he
never mentioned in polite company. In fact, his neighbours in
Osbaldeston, a leafy village on the outskirts of Blackburn,
believed he was a car dealer.

Conroy had been connected to Rider for many years, and another
man called Munrow. The three of them had bonded professionally,
though their personalities often clashed, and had built up an
empire of criminal activity in the east of Lancashire and
Manchester which had operated for well over ten years from the
mid-seventies. Hard, violent years. Much of their time had been
spent kicking the shit out of other would-be’s to keep their own
heads out of the sewage.

The profits had been good, but not as substantial as they
could have been in a more peaceful, cooperative regime.

Conroy had realised this, but his pleas to Rider and Munrow to
make peace with other gangs fell on deaf ears. They were both
highly feared individuals who got pleasure from inflicting pain,
intimidating others and ruling -literally - with iron rods, unless
they were using pick-axe handles instead.

Their heavy tactics simply fuelled fires. Then halfway through
the 1980s, there was an explosion of blood as gang fought gang for
supremacy.

When the North-West police forces formed a dedicated squad to
combat this menace, Conroy had been one of the first to see the
light ... and things fell very neatly into place for him just at
the right time.

Rider seemed to lose his nerve. He ran and never
returned.

Munrow was an awkward bastard. He wouldn’t run from anyone.
For safety’s sake, he had to be sacrificed one way or another - and
Conroy was just the man to do it.

Without ever knowing the real truth - that Conroy had informed
the cops - Munrow was arrested halfway through a robbery in
Accrington. He and a gang of three armed men were surrounded by a
heavily armed police contingent who had been briefed that the gang
were ruthless and dangerous and should not be given any quarter.
One of the four tried running. He was gunned down with a complete
lack of mercy.

Munrow surrendered quickly, suspecting, but never being able
to prove, that Rider - who should have been the fifth member of the
gang - had grassed on him. Subsequently he was jailed for nineteen
years. This was the longest sentence even a judge who had been
bribed could realistically run to. Even that had been a push to
justify, but in his summing up he damned Munrow as a ‘menace to
society’, ‘evil’, and other epithets. The promise of a villa on the
Costa del Sol can work wonders, even to the judiciary.

From that point on, with Rider and Munrow out of the picture,
Conroy flourished.

And so did his colleagues within the police force and local
politics.

He pushed a new culture of cooperation, which was fairly easy
to achieve because, using information provided by him, the police
in the form of the newly established North-West Organised Crime
Squad were able to round up, prosecute and jail most of his rivals.
The ones who escaped the legal net were killed in a series of
shootings for which no one was ever captured.

Within eighteen months of Munrow’s convictions, Conroy
controlled a string of council estates throughout East Lancashire,
over a dozen clubs, fifty pubs and a few schools.

But, after eleven years of peace and prosperity, Conroy found
himself facing the biggest threat to his empire ever.

Munrow was back on the streets after serving a little more
than half his sentence. He had come out of Strangeways like a
bad-tempered bear who wanted his porridge back.

He and Conroy had met to discuss things in an acrimonious
encounter which achieved zilch. Conroy was not about to give him
anything. Furiously Munrow had left, stating, ‘Well, if that’s your
attitude, I’ll take everything.’

He began to keep that promise.

That was problem one.

Then Dundaven had been arrested and there was the distant, but
real possibility that police enquiries could end up on his
doorstep. Problem two.

‘
Fucking aggravation,’ he said out loud as he dived under the
water. It was getting like old times.

Action needed to be taken.

He surfaced with a gasp, did the crawl to the edge of the pool
and dragged himself out, showered, stripped and stepped into the
sauna where things were very, very hot.

Twenty-two minutes after Conroy had arrived, the second member
of the trio drove up to the country club in a less conspicuous
motor. Had the registered number been checked on the Police
National Computer it would have revealed that the registered keeper
was of ‘blocked’ status. This meant that information about the
owner could only be passed over landline, not by radio, and only to
police officers. This was often the case with vehicles used by the
police for undercover work, particularly on specialist units. The
computer screen would have also told the operator that this
particular car belonged to the North-West Organised Crime Squad,
based in Blackburn. It did not go on to say that the car was
allocated to Detective Chief Superintendent Tony Morton for his
exclusive use.

Morton parked up and went into the club by a side entrance,
ensuring he didn’t have to pass through Reception.

He went towards the pool where at the door he was faced by
Conroy’s two guards. He submitted bad-naturedly to their body
search with a sneer on his face. Then he changed, showered and went
directly to the sauna.

Conroy sat there naked and unashamed, sweat streaking down his
body, his limp penis resting on his thigh like a pet.

Morton nodded to him, threw a ladle of water on the coals and
hopped onto the top bench and laid out full-length.

Although Karl Donaldson had been offered FBI-owned
accommodation in London, he had declined, choosing instead to live
in the small town of Hartley Wintney, about half an hour’s train
journey from the capital. It was also within minutes of Karen’s
workplace - the Police College at Bramshill - where she was
seconded to the teaching staff.

Living in Hartley Wintney meant early starts and late finishes
for Donaldson, but the unhurried lifestyle and surrounding
countryside made it worth the effort. One of the great pleasures in
his life had come to be getting off the train at Winchfield, the
nearest station to home, at the end of a long day to be greeted by
Karen and driven home to their little rented cottage. It was like
living in some sort of Noel Coward time warp. He loved it to bits.
A stereotypical American’s view of the English way of life, spoiled
perhaps by the Jeep Cherokee he had bought so he could keep just a
faint grip on America.

He allowed himself a late start that Wednesday morning,
sleeping for almost twelve hours. It was after ten when he arrived
at the FBI office in the American Embassy.

His chain-beaten appearance and black eye caused much
interest, as did his story about Sam and her death. After a short
conference with his colleagues he went to his desk with the
intention of writing up a very detailed report and a strong
recommendation that the matter should not rest there: a full
investigation should be set up with the cooperation of the
Portuguese authorities.

After that he intended to contact New York and set about
finding out everything he could about Scott Hamilton.

Those were his good intentions.

What he hadn’t bargained for was the multi-storey building of
paper work which had accumulated on his desk during his absence. It
looked like he’d been away for six months, not a few days. He
experienced a vague tinge of annoyance that someone else hadn’t
taken it on.

He shrugged. That was life in any office, he
guessed.

His first instinct was to sweep all the papers off into a bin.
Very, very tempting. He sighed and screwed his professional head
on. He eased himself stiffly into his chair. His bones and body
were still feeling bruised and battered. He took the top item from
the pile and perused it.

Within minutes he felt as if he’d never been away from the
place.

Half an hour later, the final member of the trio arrived. His
car was the biggest, flashiest of all three - a Bentley Brooklands
which had set one of his companies back just short of a hundred
grand.

He wasn’t too concerned about walking in through Reception and
who might possibly spot him. He was a regular there, well-known to
be a part owner and believed he could be seen with whom he damn
well liked.

The other two were sitting in opposite corners of the
sauna.

Conroy was still naked, but Morton had a towel neatly folded
across his lap, covering his dignity.

The third man burst in. He was completely naked, his large
loose stomach hanging down over his pubes. He sat somewhere midway
between the others.

‘
I think we’ve got problems,’ Sir Harry McNamara
said.

They adjourned to one of the plush conference rooms. A large
picture window overlooked the golf course and beyond to the moors
which swept away towards Bolton. On a clear day the view was
magnificent. Today the weather had worsened and slanting snow
reduced visibility to a matter of metres.

Coffee, sandwiches, biscuits and brandy had been brought in.
A
Do Not Disturb
sign hung on the outside of the door - rather pathetically as
no one would have countenanced disturbing them. The two apes with
big bulges under their arms and sloping foreheads saw to
that.

McNamara was doing the talking.

‘
I don’t need to tell you both that things are reaching a
critical stage here, and the last thing we need is to have our
equilibrium rocked in any way.’ He dunked a ginger biscuit deeply
into his coffee, immersed it for a good few seconds to allow it to
soak, then placed the whole soggy mess into his mouth. ‘My part of
the negotiations have gone extremely well and my contact - my very
nervous contact - will be here soon to view the samples.’ He sighed
grimly and looked with undisguised scorn at Conroy. ‘Only we don’t
have anything for him to look at, do we?’