One Dead Witness (56 page)

No one came.

Before leaving the room she grabbed the wrist-watch on the
bedside cupboard; it was a Rolex, once owned by Steve Kruger.
Felicity pocketed it, a lump in her throat. With one last glance at
her husband, whose brains now made a pattern on the light-shade
next to the bed, she left the room.

A minute later she was downstairs outside Begin’s office. She
unlocked the door with one of the keys she had just appropriated
from Bussola. As Begin had boasted, the documents which would smash
Kruger Investigations were on his desk - the same documents
Felicity had stolen at the time of her divorce from Steve and which
had subsequently played a big part in his death.

Well, she was making amends now, as best she could. With a
great deal of pleasure she fed them one by one into the paper
shredder next to Begin’s desk. Twelve sheets, shredded in three
minutes. But that wasn’t all she planned to do in his
office.

She moved to the small wall-safe set behind some law books on
a shelf. She wasn’t certain what it contained, but she had an
inkling there was something worthwhile within.

The other key on the chain opened it. Her jaw sagged in
amazement when she clapped eyes on the contents. Felicity estimated
she was looking at somewhere in the region of a quarter of a
million bucks; she immediately transferred the bundles into her
case.

Now all she had to do was make a quick phone call and get the
hell out.

As she replaced the telephone, the figure of Ira Begin loomed
in through the open door of his office. He was not expecting to see
Felicity, but when his eyes fell on her and the open door of the
safe, he quickly made the addition.

Felicity was on her feet. She hadn’t heard his car pull
up.

Begin said, ‘What are you doing, Felicity? You don’t seriously
think Mario will let you get away with stealing from him, do you?
He’ll probably kill you this time.’

‘
Yeah, no doubt he would - if he was alive to do
it.’

Begin’s face registered shock.

Felicity reached calmly into the valise and pulled out the
revolver.

Begin’s hands rose instinctively. ‘Hey, if he’s dead, I don’t
have any argument with you. I’ll stand aside. You can
go.’

Her mind whirred. Yeah, she thought, and I’ll never get past
that gate-house alive.

‘
Okay, Ira, I believe you,’ she lied, ‘but I want you to do one
thing for me - phone those greasy bastards down at the gate and
tell them that in a couple of minutes’ time you’ll be driving out
and for them to get the gates open now, because you’re in a
hurry.’

‘
But I’m not,’ he protested.

‘
Ira - that’s not the point, is it? I have a gun and I’m
telling you what to do. If you don’t do it, I’ll shoot you ... and
don’t think for a moment I won’t. I’ve just got a taste for
blood.’

He eyed her nervously and nodded.

‘
If you try or say anything stupid, I’ll put a bullet in your
skull and take my chances with those no-brain wonders anyway,’ she
warned him.

‘
Okay, I’ll do it.’

He crossed to the phone. Felicity circled away from him,
covering him all the time, not trusting him an inch. She knew how
sneaky and deceitful he was, and how violent when the need arose.
At that moment in time she was feeling good, completely in control
for once in her life. She had made a decision about her destiny and
it put her on a high operating plane.

Begin replaced the phone. ‘Done.’

‘
Thanks, Ira - now get on your knees and put your forehead
against the wall.’

He started to protest and she levelled the gun at
him.

‘
Ira, don’t worry, I’m only gonna put some cuffs on
you.’

Unsurely he knelt down, facing the wall.

Felicity stepped quickly up to him, placed the gun at the back
of his head and shot him. She ran out of the room before he toppled
over.

Begin’s car was outside the front door of the house. Unlocked,
keys in the ignition, as were all cars left within the grounds.
Headlights blazing, Felicity skidded down the gravel driveway and
out of the gates with a loud ‘Yahoo!’ on her lips.

‘
I’d better be going.’ Tapperman indicated the wall clock.
It
was 2.30 a.m. He and Myrna were sitting
in the living room of her house, having drunk endless cups of
coffee. ‘There’ll be a black and white right outside the door
twenty-four hours per day until you feel safe.’

‘
I feel pretty safe now,’ Myrna said. ‘Just tired, that’s
all.’

‘
Hey, my fault. I’ve kept you talking too long.’

‘
No, it’s okay. I’ve enjoyed it.’ And she had, because the main
topic of conversation had been the memories both had of Steve
Kruger.

‘
Fine, see ya,’ Tapperman waved. He stood up, his head almost
brushing the ceiling. His cell-phone rang. He unhooked it from his
belt. ‘Tapperman.’

Myrna collected the cups and wandered wearily into the
kitchen, a burnt-out case. She returned as Tapperman finished his
call. His face was white, because he was suddenly remembering the
familiar face he had bumped into at the airport. Now he knew who it
belonged to.

‘
That was the office. An anonymous called just left a message
for me.’ He gritted his teeth and found himself short of breath.
‘Patrick Orlove is on board that plane with Danny and Tracey. He’s
got orders to take Tracey out and then disappear into
Europe.’

Both their eyes turned to the clock.

‘
The plane’s due to land in half an hour,’ Myrna
said.

‘
We need to get a message to the cops in England.’

‘
Do you know any cops in England?’

‘
No - but I know a man who does.’ She reached for her
phone.

Since reading Stanway’s letter, Henry Christie had been far
too excited to sleep. He had re-read the thing several times and
spent the night agitatedly wandering about the house whilst
upstairs his wife and two daughters slept soundly.

He must have dropped off around 3 a.m. because he awoke in a
contorted position on the settee just before 6 a.m. with a stiff
neck and dead arm. Then in a panic, he rushed round, brushing his
teeth, grabbing a quick shower and getting into his work suit,
waking the whole household as he did so, before leaping into the
car and heading off towards Manchester Airport.

He arrived at the terminal building at 7.45 a.m., parked up
and walked into International Arrivals. According to the screens,
the flight from Miami was slightly delayed. He cursed, he was
looking forward to seeing Danny.

At exactly that time, the first of three cells on the Solitary
wing at Risley Remand Centre was unlocked by four prison guards.
The door was pulled open and the inmate was found standing there
ready prepared.

Louis Vernon Trent smiled amiably at the guards and
compliantly held his hands out for the cuffs to be clamped around
his wrists. His eyes watched everything that was happening, and
everyone. He knew this would be his last chance to escape from
custody for a while. After today his remand hearings would take
place without his presence. The next time he would be at court
would be for his committal hearing, and after that his
trial.

This was the first of three chances to effect an escape and if
the opportunity arose, he would be on his toes because he knew
that, most probably, after the court appearances he would never be
released for the rest of his life.

He was prodded along the landing to the next cell, opened by
one of the screws. A mean-faced, impatient Charlie Gilbert was also
ready and waiting. A pair of specially widened handcuffs were
ratcheted onto his fat wrists.

He was dressed very well and expensively. He fully expected to
walk out of court a free man, or at the very least on bail today.
Bussola would see to that, he believed. And if he did leave as a
free man, he would show the cops a thing or two. He would tighten
up his network and continue to abuse young girls and if they were
difficult, he would kill them; more and more he wanted to kill them
anyway. It gave him a great sense of satisfaction. If he walked out
of court on bail, he would flee the country, he had
decided.

A prison guard’s hand propelled him to the next cell from
which Ollie Spencer was extracted.

He was a man with no dreams or expectations. What happened,
happened. He was content to take things as they came.

All three men were led out to the yard and bundled into a
converted mini-bus with armoured windows and toughened body panels.
The prisoners were put into an inner cage, the guards took up
positions on seats outside the cage. The driver was in a protected
cabin.

When they were ready the mini-bus pulled out of the remand
centre.

‘
Would Henry Christie please attend the information desk to
take an urgent phone call?’

Henry was standing under the Meeting Point with a cup of
coffee in his hand. His mind was retracing the words of Stanway’s
letter again and again. He was in deep thought. The letter was very
much on his mind, everything else simply background.

I know that Charles has always loved little girls,
Henry remembered reading,
and he has always directed his energies to being in a
position where he could meet them
-
or arrange to meet them. His amusement arcades
were always a good place for this to happen and he frequently lured
girls aged around eleven (because that’s the age group he loved the
best) and then he would ultimately abuse them. Most he discarded
back onto the scrap heap they came from (many were missing from
homes, many never got to know his name), but some became regulars,
being paid to perform the most disgusting sexual acts with him and
his friend Spencer
-
who was always there. Some liked it. Some didn’t. Some fought
him and he overpowered them. Some he could not overpower ...
and these he would kill.

‘
I repeat, would Mr Henry Christie please attend the
information desk for an urgent message. . .’

At this mention of his name, Henry snapped back into the here
and now. He threw his coffee down his neck and with a quick glance
at the arrivals screen, which told him the flight from Miami had
touched down, he went to the information desk.

The flight had been peaceful. A couple of good films were
shown. The food was passable and the service excellent. Some people
even managed to sleep.

Danny and Tracey spent a long time talking about Charlie
Gilbert and Mario Bussola. Tracey knew a great deal about both and
their activities, and her story was pretty typical of a young
person’s involvement with them. Gilbert often arranged to take
‘likely candidates’ across to America where they were inducted into
Bussola’s porn empire. It was easy, Tracey said, to arrange forged
passports, work permits, social security numbers. Bussola did that
for Gilbert so that all the Brit had to do was bring the right sort
of kids over.

Gilbert would promise his girls a chance in films. Most were
under his power and influence and believed anything he told them
anyway. The reality of the ‘films’ soon hit them. Once Bussola had
abused them to his own personal satisfaction, he passed them down
the line where they got roles in poorly made, but expensive to buy,
blue movies. They then passed on into prostitution and subsequently
burned out on drugs and booze.

Gilbert had promised Tracey stardom. She had ‘it’, he told
her. Looks, presence, potential, the body ...
everything.

But she knew he was lying. All he was trying to do was shut
her up because she had witnessed him murder her friend; he’d
whisked her off to America, where he handed her over to Bussola and
his organisation. It was doomed from the start. She could not even
pretend she liked being fucked in front of a camera, or that it was
a pleasure fellating a guy with a lens pointed at her. She tried,
because the cash and dope payment was good ... but she hated it,
her eyes could not hide it and the camera saw it.

She didn’t last long before she was turned out onto the mean
and dirty streets of Miami.

Eventually she gravitated into one of Florida’s most notorious
motorcycle gangs - like Hell’s Angels, only a million times worse.
Her life became a series of scenes from a movie: guns, robberies,
shootings, drugs, one-man rape and then a gang-rape - fifteen of
them - and being left for alligators to eat in the
Everglades.

Somehow she survived.

She even got a job, on the sex-line, unaware that the business
belonged to Bussola. And that night, when she saw the two of them
together, Bussola and Gilbert, she flipped and attacked them - with
the assistance of cocaine.

The cold light of dawn made her realise that by testifying
against them, her life would be in danger; that was why she
disappeared. By pure chance she had seen a copy of the
Daily Mail
with its
coverage of the discovery of her friend’s body - Annie Reece, whom
Gilbert had killed in her presence. An urge to do something for
Annie had spurred her on to go and see Myrna, but then she got
frightened again and ran out.