One Dead Witness (20 page)

Head high, vision tunnelled, she commenced what had become a
very long walk to her car.

She sensed, rather than saw, felt or heard, Sands by her
shoulders. Walking with her. Slightly behind.

‘
Fuck off, Jack,’ she hissed without turning her
head.

‘
We haven’t finished.’ He sounded breathless. ‘You can’t cut me
out like this, Dan. It’s not on. You owe me more.’ His voice was
pleading and threatening at the same time.

She refused to rise and make a reply, and carried on walking.
As she wheeled into the parking area where her car was parked, she
saw it was dark, badly lit. Making a quick decision, she stopped
abruptly and spun to face Jack.

‘
Don’t come to my car, Jack. I’ve let what happened pass, but
I’m not prepared to do that again. Next time you touch me, you’ll
get locked up. I won’t have any hesitation whatsoever - and if you
want the hassle of our affair finding its way to your wife’s ears,
then so be it.’

Sands said nothing, simply stared unemotionally at
her.

She nodded quickly and made towards her car. The walk seemed
to take an hour. Each footfall reverberated around her skull. All
the time expecting Sands to pounce and drag her to the
floor.

Nothing happened. She reached the car unmolested, but her
hands were trembling wickedly.

Next thing she was reversing out of her spot, engaging ‘D’ and
driving out of the car park.

Sands lounged against a wall near to the exit. He was holding
his right fist out towards her. The consideration of running the
bastard down quickly entered her head. As she drew alongside him,
he opened the fingers of his fist, showing Danny the palm of his
hand ... in which was a Mercedes three-pointed star.

Danny’s foot rammed down on the gas. The car surged ahead with
a squeal of tyres. She gunned out of the yard, glancing fleetingly
in her rearview mirror, catching a glimpse of Sands’s face. He was
laughing uproariously.

Danny yelled something incomprehensible as the implication of
what she had seen smacked her with the force of a slab of concrete
coming through her windscreen.

It was now confirmed. Jack Sands was the person responsible
for smashing her bedroom window, nearly causing her serious injury
and damaging her beloved car.

Sands turned on his heels and slid the badge into his pocket.
He walked back into the police station, a smirk of superiority on
his face.

He failed to notice the lurking figure of Henry Christie in
the dark shadow next to the police van.

‘
That was a one-off - two-off, actually, I suppose - but having
said that, it was definitely the nicest two-off I’ve ever
experienced,’ Myrna Rosza admitted to Steve Kruger. ‘It can’t
happen again. It’s just that we seem to have gone through so much
together in such a short space of time that my head was spinning
with it all. I needed some sorta relief ... but with someone who
understood.’

Kruger uttered a kind of reply from deep in his
throat.

He understood completely. It was one of the reasons why so
many cop marriages failed. Non-cop partners didn’t fully comprehend
some of the situations and emotions that only other cops could.
Usually those of the opposite sex, although not necessarily so. Too
often, when he’d been a cop, he’d found himself in similar
situations, one of which was responsible for the demise of his
first marriage.

Kruger and Myrna were lying askew his king-size bed. He was on
his back, an arm thrown lazily around Myrna’s wonderfully
soft-brown shoulders. She was tucked under his armpit, his fingers
playfully curling the thick hairs on his chest.

Their legs were entwined, toes playing with each other’s toes.
The heat of Myrna’s sex pumped against his thigh.

It had been incredible.

From the shallow end of the swimming pool, right through the
house, taking a few moments to dry each other off before hitting
the sack. Then an unbelievable fuck in the greatest tradition of
the word.

Even though all the time he had been telling himself what a
stupid fool he was being.

Firstly by breaking rule number one - never ever fraternise
with the staff.

Secondly because he knew Ben Rosza, Myrna’s husband. A soft,
gentle man who wouldn’t hurt a fly. A decent hardworking doctor who
Kruger quite liked and whose wife had just mounted him from several
directions.

But hell, it had been good, the second one even better. And
good sex was something Kruger had been short of recently. Actually
he had been short of sex, full stop.

She ran her long nails lightly down his stomach, making him
quiver.

‘
I love Ben,’ she said. ‘He’s a good man. I don’t want to do
anything to harm him or hurt him, okay?’

Kruger caught her hand. He pushed himself up onto one elbow
and gazed into her eyes, aware that in the periphery of his vision
he could see her breasts and nipples pressed into his ribs and
beyond that her legs wrapped around his.

Her eyes were serious. Kruger was suddenly aware he was
looking at a vulnerable individual who had just taken a big step in
her life. Gone was the facade of the sassy, cheeky
woman.

‘
No one will ever know about this,’ he reassured her. ‘No one.
This is between me and you alone. What happened here happened for a
reason and for a brief moment in time we needed each other. And
that’s the end of it. When you walk out of this house, we’re back
to square one, okay? End of story.’

He knew it was a lie. Even if they never jumped into bed
again, their relationship would never be the same in the future.
But he did not feel bad telling her what she wanted to
hear.

She nodded, also knowing it was a lie.

Their eyes stayed in contact, holding onto the
moment.

Kruger fought it, so did Myrna, but suddenly they both knew
they needed each other again.

Kruger pulled her up towards him. Their lips mashed together,
parted and tongues darted together. Kruger became short of breath
as his manhood sprang back to life again. At the same moment, Myrna
curled her long fingers around it.

She broke away from the kiss, her breathing heavy. She pushed
herself down the bed, taking him into her hot mouth.

Kruger groaned and flopped back onto the bed luxuriating in
the pleasure. When the bedside phone rang he nearly leapt out of
his skin.

Myrna was not phased by the interruption. Her head rose and
fell.

Kruger fumbled for the phone, answering it with a little
squeak which came as the result of a flutter of Myrna’s tongue.
‘Yep?’ he managed to say.

He listened for a few moments, ‘Jeez, no . . . That can’t be
right.’ He tapped Myrna on the shoulder and indicated for her to
stop. Reluctantly she did. ‘This has got to be some kinda joke,’ he
said, sat up, his mind nowhere near sex now.

‘
Okay ... okay. I’ll be there soon ... yeah, no problems.
Thanks for phoning.’

Slowly he replaced the receiver and looked at Myrna with an
expression of deep shock.

‘
What is it?’ she asked worriedly.

Kruger rubbed a hand down his face. It was many seconds before
he found the words to tell her.

Danny reached home within the space of a few minutes. The
Mercedes jarred to a springy halt in her driveway. She darted
quickly, like a fugitive, to the front door of her house and wasted
no time getting inside, slamming the door shut with such force that
the frame rattled. She slid the security chain on, drew the bolt
and fell against the back of the door. She closed her eyes tightly
and tried to get hold of herself. She was shaking uncontrollably,
but she fought it. In the end she lost, seemed to burst out of
herself and dashed down the short hallway, ripping her outer jacket
off and leaving it discarded in her wake, splayed on the carpet.
She veered into the lounge and headed directly for the drinks
cabinet in the sideboard.

With trembling fingers she unfastened a bottle of vodka,
poured a large measure with a spit of tonic and drank it very
quickly. It was the only drink capable of calming her shattered
nerves.

She lit a ciggie and sank down into an armchair, gratefully
feeling herself take control again. The drinks cabinet was now at
her eye-level and she could see its contents. There were several
bottles of whisky, a drink she detested. She snorted with
contemptuous derision when she recalled the reason for its
presence.

For Jack.

His favourite tipple. After about ten pints of Boddington’s
Bitter, that is.

Anger washed over her.

She grabbed the bottles, stormed into the kitchen and emptied
them down the sink. Four half-full bottles of good quality single
malt guggled away. She wasn’t sorry to see it go, even though her
money had purchased it. She tossed the empty bottles into the swing
bin.

The bastard, she thought. The cheeky bastard.

She then descended on the house like a hurricane, whooshing
through all the rooms, collecting every piece of anything Jack
Sands had left behind. Twenty minutes later she placed a black
plastic bin-liner in the middle of the kitchen floor and wiped her
hands with satisfaction. Everything had gone into it. She had been
surprised at how much the adulterous sod had accumulated in a house
that wasn’t his home.

That sorted, she was still perplexed about what to do about
Jack himself. It did not make a great deal of difference that she
was a police officer with all that experience behind her. She was
still a woman - a lone woman - with a problem, experiencing all the
anxieties that lone women suffer.

She had to weigh up the odds.

By taking it further, and possibly getting nowhere due to lack
of evidence (Jack would never be stupid enough to let anyone find
the Mercedes star on him), all that would happen is that Jack would
be further incensed.

She decided to leave it. Let it ride. Accept what had happened
and hope Jack would see sense. He’d had his last laugh, made his
point. Maybe that would be enough for him.

Maybe.

A long sigh cleared her lungs. She felt happier
now.

From the fridge she took a swig of fresh orange to take away
the lingering flavour of the vodka and poured herself a very cold
glass of Chablis. The fresh, icy-sharp taste revitalised her
senses. She came alive again.

In the hallway she picked up her jacket, turned to go upstairs
for a shower. On the first step the phone rang.

‘
Yep, Danny Furness.’

There was a hollow silence on the line.

Danny went as ice-old as the glass of wine in her hand. ‘Jack,
I know it’s you. Stop messing around.’

Silence. Possibly some breathing.

‘
Jack, just fuck off.’

‘
Bitch.’ One word only. Growled. Frightening.

She slammed the phone down, immediately picked it up again and
dialled 1471.

The electronic voice said, ‘You were called today at 2017. We
do not have the caller’s number to return the call. Please hang up.
Please hang up. Please hang. . .’

Mark Tapperman raised his bushy eyebrows in surprise when he
saw Kruger and Myrna arrive together in the same car - her Lexus.
Kruger ignored the reaction. ‘What’ve you got for us,
Mark?’

‘
Come on, I’ll show you, but I’m not sure Myrna will want to
see.’

‘
She wants,’ Kruger said with a tone that brooked no argument.
‘She used to be a Fed. She’s seen some shit in her
time.’

Kruger and she had discussed it on the way over. He had not
wanted her to come, let alone visit the actual crime scene. She
insisted; he didn’t argue.

‘
It ain’t nice,’ Tapperman warned her.

She sighed and looked at him like the dumb chauvinistic cop
she imagined him to be. He got the message and acquiesced. ‘Your
decision, lady.’

They walked across the sidewalk from the car towards what was
the front of a four-storey apartment building in Greenwood Heights,
north-west of central Miami. A police crime-scene cordon tape was
stretched across the front doors, supervised by a uniformed cop
with clipboard. Tapperman approached the uniform and gave him a few
details which he entered on the log which recorded persons in and
out.

Tapperman lifted the tape with a forefinger, Kruger and Myrna
ducked under, followed by the cop.

‘
The whole building’s been sealed for the moment. When we’re
satisfied we’ll draw the cordon in,’ Tapperman explained. ‘We’ll
use the stairs,’ he said. A forensic team of three were crouched
down in the elevator, dusting for prints and traces of
anything.

‘
Try not to touch too much,’ Tapperman said. ‘We ain’t had a
chance to do the stairs yet.’

‘
Okay,’ nodded Kruger. He slid his hands into his pockets and
meekly followed Tapperman. Secretly he was dreading what he was
about to see. His guts fell as though they’d been filled with a
bucket of cement.