Seizure (15 page)

‘Good. I'm going back to the scene to see if anything's been recovered. And then, sis, if possible' – he looked Lisa in the eye – ‘I'd like a lift home.'

Lisa exchanged a worried glance with Irk. ‘I was going to . . .'

Henry picked it up instantly and weighed it up. Irk lived alone and he would need some sort of assistance over the next day. ‘OK, Irk, you give me your car keys. Lisa, you sort him out – how about that?'

‘Sounds great, boss, whatever.'

‘Always look after the welfare of my staff,' he said and snatched the car keys from the top of the bedside cabinet.

The scene had yielded little of evidential value, other than the possibility of a shoe print that could have belonged to the offender. The CCTV footage hadn't been properly analysed yet.

He was about to leave the scene when his phone rang. He spent the next hour explaining the incident to the chief constable, the deputy chief, an assistant chief and a detective chief super, making him realize that although he was now a superintendent, he was a long way down the food chain. He managed to get to bed at nine a.m., set the alarm for eleven, was back in Rossendale to kick off the double murder inquiry at noon, then met Naomi Dale at Lancashire Prison in order to conduct an interview and take a statement from Felix Deakin at four.

Gill Hartland closed her eyes slowly. A breath shuddered out of her savagely beaten body, then she twisted gingerly out of the taxi and placed her feet painfully on the kerb. Flynn reached for her arm to assist her upright. She brushed him off with a flap of the hand.

‘I'll do it myself.'

Flynn took a reluctant step back. He watched her rise slowly and gain her balance. ‘Just get my bags on to a trolley, will you?'

He went to the back of the cab and took her bags from the driver, before heaving them on to a luggage trolley. He paid the fare and followed Gill into the departure lounge at Las Palmas airport. She walked stiffly in front of him, shuffling her way towards the monitors announcing flight departures.

Flynn joined her.

She could hardly see. Her head had swollen on the right-hand side about a third larger than normal. Her right eye was black and swollen, virtually closed. The other side of her mouth had cuts inside where it had banged against her teeth – two of which were loose – and had been stitched and twisted out of shape. The back of her head was a mass of egg-sized lumps and where her hair hadn't been shaven away, it was matted with blood.

She drew looks of horror from other passengers in the terminal.

‘Check-in desk opens in twenty minutes,' Flynn told her.

‘OK . . . I need to sit.' She wobbled unsteadily towards a row of plastic seats and eased herself cautiously into one. ‘I look awful.' She tilted her head down to hide her features and pulled on a floppy hat.

Flynn sat next to her. ‘You shouldn't be flying.'

‘I need to get home. My sister will meet me.' She squinted at Flynn. ‘So what was that really all about?'

‘I don't know.' He could not return the look. Not because of her injuries, but because he did not have the answer for her. ‘Just violent robbery, I think.'

‘Liar,' she whispered. ‘That was more than a robbery. They were torturing you.'

‘They wanted to know where the money was in the hotel room. And your jewels.' He gasped. He too was beaten, but the pain inside him pumped from the triangular burn across his left nipple where the travel iron had been branded on him.

‘No . . . but you do know what it was about, don't you? Those men weren't interested in my tat jewellery.'

His eyes dipped. ‘I don't know what they wanted.'

‘Is it connected to the immigrants?'

Flynn shook his head. ‘Can't see that.'

‘What then?'

‘I don't know for certain.'

‘But you have an idea?'

He shrugged. ‘I said I don't know.'

‘Ugh!' Gill said disgustedly and angled herself away from him. She held her head, which hurt dreadfully. This was the first real conversation they'd had since the incident and her insistence on discharging herself from the hospital against his and the doctor's wishes.

The intruders' intentions had been rudely interrupted by the fire alarm – the source of the ear-splitting ringing Flynn had heard in his head before passing out. It had been set off by Gill. Having been very badly beaten and left semi-conscious on the floor of the hotel room, she had managed to drag herself to the door. She had pulled herself up on the handle, crashed out into the corridor and, screaming for help, smashed the fire alarm. The sound had been deafening and within moments doors were opening, guests and staff were appearing, followed not much later by the fire service, the police and an ambulance.

‘You told the police nothing?' Gill asked.

‘Nothing to tell them, other than to describe the blokes.'

‘Know something, Steve? I don't actually care. I thought I did, but I don't. I don't want to be part of this.'

Flynn's heart pounded like a lump of molten lead in his chest. He could barely breathe through the emotion he was experiencing. Something he believed he would never find again.

‘Gill,' he said plaintively, ‘I truly don't know what they wanted. I have an idea – maybe – but that's all. They didn't get the chance to say what they wanted. Until I make some inquiries, I won't know for certain.'

‘But you won't share your thoughts with me? Thought not.'

On the taxi ride back to Puerto Rico Flynn could not believe just how awful he felt. He had known Gill for four summers and had only fallen in love with her literally just hours before. Now it had been ripped away from him. He couldn't grasp why he felt so bad.

The lone taxi ride was a descent into hell for him.

It wasn't the physical pain of the beating that had left his body creased with agony, it was the inner hurt of losing Gill after having had her for such a short time. The worst of it was that Flynn had never felt so strongly about a woman before, not even his ex-wife. There was an incredible emptiness in him, a feeling he hardly recognized but which began to shred him. Was this what love felt like, he asked himself. Is this what it was like to have a love snatched away for a reason he had no control of? Or was he just being a soft bastard? Yet, in the back of that cab, he could hardly get his breath as he railed against the stupidity of the way the split was affecting him. After all, he had only admitted falling in love a matter of hours before. But within that time a whole new kind of existence had opened up for him, with a range of previously unthinkable possibilities that came with being with someone: loyalty, friendship, great sex, anticipation and the multitude of other things that came with a proper ‘relationship'. Things he'd never thought he needed, but which had suddenly become precious to him.

Then, in one fell stroke, they had all been cruelly sliced away from him by the arrival of two dangerous men from a time and place he could only guess at. A violent visit that had injured Gill, terrified her and made her see that being with Flynn would be a danger to her life.

The taxi dumped him on the Doreste y Molina outside the El Greco apartments opposite the marina. Flynn stood there unsteadily for a few moments, blinking, feeling the heat after the air-con of the cab. Then he crossed the road and entered the complex of beach bars and restaurants. He took a seat at the first bar he came to and ordered a Cruzcampo and Jack Daniel's chaser.

The descent into hell was always best accompanied by a drink.

Henry took his time over Felix Deakin's statement. Two hours and more of careful questions and cross-checking the answers. He was desperate to trip up the crim, but Deakin was well prepared and stuck to his simple story without embellishment. He often smiled superciliously at Henry as though he understood the cat and mouse game Henry wanted to play, but was having none of it.

In the end, Henry finished up with a competent enough statement that directly implicated Johnny Cain in murder – exactly what was wanted to tie up the loose ends of the case and get a conviction. Neat, tidy, spot-on, just right. It sucked.

‘Anything more you'd like to add?' Henry asked finally. He knew he had done well despite his exhaustion. He'd got himself mentally prepared to face Deakin, done the business and knew he'd gone as far as he could. Now it just needed winding up. He wanted a decent meal, a shower and a JD on the rocks – then to hit the sack. Then he winced internally because he knew he had to drop into the office on his way home and get some progress updates.

‘That's everything, officer,' Deakin smiled.

‘And you're sure you want to go through with this?'

‘What are you getting at?'

‘Johnny Cain is a very vindictive man.'

Deakin laughed silently and shook his head. ‘Not half as vindictive as me.' His laugh became an expression of evil.

Henry swallowed, picked up the statement forms after they'd been signed and slid them into a folder which he handed to Naomi. The prison guards came in for Deakin and led him away.

As Henry tidied his things up, he said to Barry Baron, ‘I presume you heard about Richard Last and Jack Sumner.' He watched for a reaction.

‘Mm, yeah – but I suppose guys like those are always on the edge. At least I won't have to represent them now.' Baron's eyebrows arched. ‘Always felt uncomfortable, truth be told. Anyway, bye.' He left the room, Henry's eyes burning into his back. An example of how little solicitors cared for their clients.

Naomi grasped his forearm. ‘Thanks for doing this. It'll make the case, you know.'

‘Either that or cock it up completely – or am I just being cynical?' He gave her one of his sardonic sidelong looks, the twist of the mouth, the raising of the eyebrows. The Henry Christie look, number two in the catalogue he'd built up over the years. Number one was the boyish shrug of the shoulders, tilt of the head and half-smile, the deadly weapon in his women-chasing arsenal – the one he was sure Irk Dean had used on his sister. Had he been less tired and had it been eighteen months earlier in a time before his remarriage, he might have tried that one on Naomi. But he couldn't be bothered any more. Instead he yawned like an old lion and tried to hold back a fart.

The door opened and a warder leaned in. ‘You guys finished?'

‘Yeah, guess so,' Henry said, pushing himself up. Naomi went out ahead and the officer followed them towards the reception area.

‘Success?' the guard asked behind Henry.

Looking over his shoulder, Henry grunted something that sounded positive, although it wasn't any of the guard's business.

‘Not that I know what it's about,' the guard rambled on.

Henry grunted something again.

They reached an inner security door. The guard reached over Naomi's and Henry's shoulders, slid a card down a slot, typed a four-digit code into a keypad. The door buzzed open and Naomi stepped through into a secure sterile area before the next door. As Henry was about to follow, the guard slipped a big hand around his biceps, preventing him from moving behind her. Into his ear he said, ‘Got a minute, boss?'

Henry gave Naomi a shrug as the door clicked shut behind her, effectively separating her from the two men.

‘What is it?' Henry took in the guard, a big, kindly looking man in his forties, smelling of sweat, mustiness and cheap deodorant. Maybe a whiff of booze, too.

‘I wanted to speak to you alone.'

‘You got me.'

‘Does the name Jamie Last mean anything to you?'

‘I know Richard Last,' he corrected him. ‘Why?'

‘Jamie is Richard's younger brother. He's in here for a knife job.'

Henry slitted his eyes. ‘Tell you what, tell me what you want to tell me, eh?'

‘Er . . . it's just that you're dealing with Felix Deakin, yeah? I don't know why you are, though there's enough whispers going around. I just thought you'd like to know that two of Deakin's goons in here – and Deakin, I think – kicked the livin' crap out of Jamie, a real badass kicking. We can't prove it, even though we know who did it, and Jamie won't say because he's shit scared, so it isn't going anywhere. Just a snippet for you. Do with it what you will.'

It was a long time since Flynn had purposely got himself into a fight. But that evening, as his bleak, self-pitying mood deteriorated, he found himself hunched angrily over his third beach bar of the night, staring glumly into the depths of a Bushmills, convinced he was the innocent victim in all this. He was feeling very sorry for himself, a state of mind he was unused to – and the drink didn't help matters, either.

A group of boisterous young men, British tourists, barged into the bar and lined up alongside Flynn, jostling him and other punters raucously, laughing and leering drunkenly. One shoved up against Flynn, who was resting his chin on the palm of his hand, his elbow wedged at ninety degrees to the bar. The man deliberately jerked his arm against Flynn's, making Flynn's head drop as though he had nodded off unexpectedly. Flynn reacted instantly, rising from his stool and angrily facing the new arrival.

‘Hey pal, watch it.' Not the most original warning, but in that moment Flynn was willing to let the incident go.

‘Why? What you gonna do about it, old geezer?' the man sneered.

Flynn's mouth suddenly went dry as the insult hit home. He frowned and focused on the man. He was early twenties, shaven headed, tattooed, a little overweight and bigger than Flynn, dressed in cut-off jeans and a short-sleeved shirt. His tattoos extended up the back of his neck and around his throat. His watery eyes betrayed the amount of drink he'd consumed that day and his demeanour said he was good and ready for a brawl.

So was Flynn. ‘You've one chance to apologize,' Flynn told him in nothing more than a whisper.

The drunk laughed, then flicked Flynn's ear. And it hurt. ‘Fuck you, old guy.'