Seizure (17 page)

‘The trial begins soon,' she said, confirming to Henry that he had been brought around here for purely legitimate reasons and the look she'd given him had been clearly misinterpreted.

A very large part of him – his sad, male, sexual ego – was suddenly quite deflated. ‘Bugger,' he internalized.

‘The prosecution team will have to move quickly to get all the papers across to the defence, who could, of course, kick off big style. But we have given them notice of a possible new witness and at least they're prepared for it. I don't think we want any adjournments at this stage.'

‘Suppose not.' Henry's body language shifted.

Seeing this, Naomi rose, came across and sat next to him. Very close – and took the papers from him. Henry inhaled. She had showered and smelled of scented soap and cleanliness. He swallowed.

‘How quickly can you get stuff together?' she asked.

‘What do you mean?'

‘Won't Deakin have to be escorted to court and back?'

‘I suppose he could hardly go by taxi.' They chuckled together at that quip. ‘I think that owing to the nature of what's happening, there'll have to be an armed escort of sorts . . . not sure about the extent of it, of course. Maybe a low-key affair.' He screwed his face up as he mulled it over. ‘I need to speak to the Operations Superintendent. It'll be his job, not mine. But, if what Deakin says is true, and he does give evidence, you can make the assumption his life will be in danger. No two ways . . .'

‘Will you keep me in the loop?'

‘Sure.' Henry rose to leave. ‘And will you e-mail me a copy of this?' He pointed to the summary.

‘Not a problem.'

‘Brill – OK, then.' He walked out into the hallway and shivered faintly at the narrowness of it. Bad things had happened to him in hallways. Things bad enough for him to have nightmares about. He went to the door and Naomi followed. He stopped, turned and faced her. She had both her hands tucked into her back pockets. Once again, their eyes locked. Henry had a palpitation as her lips parted a fraction and she ran her tongue over them.

‘I really want to kiss you,' she said. Her eyes played over his face. She moved towards him.

Henry's nostrils flared. Fleetingly he hoped his rampantly growing nasal hairs hadn't sprouted too far down his nose since this morning. ‘It'd be a silly thing to do. I mean, your boyfriend, man friend, whatever . . . I'm assuming . . .' His words petered out pathetically.

‘There is no one.' One of her hands shot out and snaked around the back of his neck. She didn't need to pull him down to her. Henry suddenly had his own need. A desire to kiss her, feel what her lips tasted of, things he just had to know. He leaned forward, cocked his head slightly and their lips came into contact. He knew instantly his curiosity would not be disappointed, particularly when her tongue slithered into his mouth.

Steve Flynn sat on the quayside, legs dangling over the edge. It was past midnight and it was all over bar the shouting. The police had cordoned off the scene, but had allowed Flynn to stay within the tapes once they realized they would have to arrest him to remove him. A lone cop stood guard, directing people away or around the scene.

And Flynn sat there.

The drink had left him. The explosion and its aftermath had sucked it out of him. He stared down at the water, debris still bobbing in the mini oil slick.

Footsteps approached from behind. ‘Señor Flynn?'

Flynn looked around reluctantly. He recognized the man – a detective, one of the few down this edge of the island. He was the one who had dealt with the alleged robbery at the hotel, or at least the incident Flynn insisted was a robbery.

He squatted next to Flynn. ‘A terrible coincidence,' he said, ‘the robbery, then this.'

‘Mm, isn't it just,' Flynn said, knowing the detective had not believed a word Flynn had told him. ‘This your case, too?'

‘No.'

‘Then why are you here?'

The detective – a young, good-looking man, but with old eyes – sighed and laid a gentle hand on the centre of Flynn's back.

And in that instant, Flynn knew exactly why he was here.

They looked sharply at each other and the expression on the detective's face served only to confirm Flynn's knowledge.

‘I'm sorry,' he said genuinely. ‘It seems that Miss Hartland suffered a brain haemorrhage on the flight back to the UK and there was nothing that could be done. She was dead before they touched down.'

NINE

‘
I
t's a tricky one.' The Operations Superintendent adjusted his glasses and looked at Henry. ‘He definitely needs protection, but as you suggest, a low-key approach might be the order of the day. Maybe a top-and-tail job. Deakin and his guards in the middle car, security escort vehicles either side with armed personnel, outriders back and front.'

‘I like the sound of it,' Henry said. He was a little distracted, his mind not completely on the proceedings. He was still tired and guilt gnawed away at his insides. He got a grip of himself and glanced at the other person in the HQ meeting room. PC Bill Robbins was a firearms officer and trainer and very experienced in putting together operational orders in respect of security escorts where firearms were involved.

‘It's all we can do anyway,' the superintendent said, ‘bearing in mind that we're fetching Johnny Cain to the same court at the same time – and he gets the full hit.'

‘Yeah – a real stretch of resources,' Henry sympathized. Several firearms officers were involved in transferring Cain back and forth between court and prison. ‘So, Bill – can you put the op order together?'

‘Yep. I'll do the risk assessment, site and route recces and have it ready for approval, say by lunchtime day after tomorrow – that OK?'

The higher-ranking officers both nodded.

Henry said his goodbyes to the other superintendent, then left. He was in the main headquarters building at Hutton. He walked along the ground floor to the office housing the Intelligence Unit and entered after rolling his thumb on a pad and keying in a code. He walked to a desk about halfway along the office that belonged to Jerry Tope, Henry's ‘tame' intelligence analyst. At least that was how Henry liked to think of him, but in truth Tope was a free spirit and something of a subversive.

He plonked himself on the chair at the end of Jerry's desk and waited for the DC to finish what he was doing on the computer. Henry wasn't in a hurry. He was lethargic and annoyed with himself, and found himself scratching the back of his neck and emitting strange groans, yawning continually.

Eventually Jerry tapped the Enter key with a flourish and gave his full attention to Henry. ‘Mornin', boss.'

‘Jerry,' he answered grumpily.

‘To which foreign clime will you be taking me this time?' the DC asked. Tope still displayed his chagrin about once missing out on a jolly to Cyprus and getting the booby prize of a trip to Liverpool instead.

‘I could go a breakfast bap if you're interested?' Henry checked his watch. It was short of ten o'clock and breakfast was still being served.

‘Chuck in a coffee and I'm all yours,' Jerry said, locking the computer. He picked up a thin sheaf of papers and the two men made their way to the dining room where they served themselves and got a coffee each from the machine, then found a table.

‘What've you got for me?'

Jerry bit a large chunk out of his bap and wiped his chin before speaking. Henry watched him, did not hurry him. Other superintendents, he guessed, would have been snooty about a mere DC making them wait, but Henry couldn't have cared less. Jerry Tope was pure gold as an intelligence analyst. Not just because he could put two and two together, but also because he was a computer whizz and had the knack of interrogating databases he should not really have access to. In fact, his cyber-snooping had recently got him into bother with the FBI, but they had been so impressed by him they quite fancied him on their books. Henry had told them where to get off, but he knew that a decent package might lure him away from the constabulary.

‘Connections,' Jerry said. He placed the bitten bap on his plate and picked up his papers. ‘First, Deakin. I won't dwell on his past, which you know reasonably well, but he does know Johnny Cain, though it's hard to say how well, or how friendly they were . . . or at least it was initially.' He skim-read a few lines. ‘I did most of my digging in Lancashire's and GMP's databases, but then I cast the net wider. I'd accidentally picked up on an associate of Cain's from Liverpool, a guy called Tomlinson, who Merseyside were watching for some local drug stuff a while back. Cain met up for several chats with this guy and an unknown man was along for the ride . . .'

‘Deakin?'

Jerry nodded. ‘Bearing in mind all this is about five years ago. But I only know it was Deakin because I got on the blower to a DC I know in Merseyside who did a manual search for me and came up with some surveillance shots on file, from which I ID'd him.'

There was suddenly a splurge of questions Henry wanted to ask. Trouble was that intelligence gathering was such a nebulous thing. He wasn't surprised that no one seemed to have identified the man with Cain and Tomlinson as Deakin.

It was as if Jerry sensed the questions.

‘Merseyside were on to Tomlinson for their own reasons. The meeting he had with Cain and Deakin was just a side issue that wasn't even given a second thought. Just entries in logs. They weren't interested.'

Henry nodded. ‘So we know Cain and Deakin knocked about together and could well be friends, though there's nothing in the files that suggests very much at all.'

‘Correct.'

‘Any other connections?'

‘Deakin also knew the dead guy, Swann, the one Cain is on trial for killing. Lots of sightings together – again, just entries in logs.'

‘So it's possible Deakin knew Cain well enough to be told by Cain he was furious at Swann for short changing him and threatening murder?' Jerry nodded. ‘Is there anything that puts all three together?'

‘No.'

Henry blew out his cheeks. He felt his mobile phone vibrate in his pocket. He saw it was Naomi Dale calling. His hell froze. He put the phone on the table and watched it dance until it stopped. He closed his eyes for a despairing moment.

‘You OK, boss?'

‘Yeah – so the bottom line is that we know these three guys, Deakin, Cain and Swann, were together in various combinations, but we have nothing that places all three together.'

‘No.'

‘So Deakin's tale could be true – that he knew Cain well enough to be told by him he was going to murder Swann for skimming.' Henry's face tightened. ‘The only thing is it's pretty common knowledge how Swann was murdered and Deakin puts in his statement how Cain planned to commit the murder. He could just be telling us what we already know and adding his twopenn'orth to gild the lily, like he was the man on the inside, which is what he wants us to believe. I'm not cock-a-hoop about Deakin.'

‘A man who's just had his appeal turned down,' Jerry stated.

‘And one who's just had all his known assets seized and could be in prison for another ten years.' Henry bit his own bap. It tasted fantastic, one of life's simple but wonderful pleasures.

‘But giving evidence against Cain won't get him out earlier,' Jerry reasoned.

‘No, but it'll look good on his CV.'

‘Ever thought he intends to do a runner from court?' Jerry suggested. ‘Get sprung from custody?'

‘It's something that would take a lot of planning and resources, which on the face of it Deakin hasn't got. Unless the assets seizure team have missed some.'

‘Is there any way you could put the kibosh on it?'

‘Doubt it, but I'll try.' Henry finished the bap – sadly – and looked at Tope. ‘What more do you have?'

‘On a different theme, something very, very interesting indeed: torture.'

‘You know I have to ask you this, don't you?'

Steve Flynn nodded at his boss, Adam Castle. They were at a table in the Sun Bar, an establishment run by a British couple who Flynn was on good terms with. They had an espresso each, sharp and bitter, making Flynn's mouth turn down at the corners. The look matched his mood.

But, angry and emotional as he was, he knew he had to give Adam his best attention because this was one of those moments when his future might be in the balance.

‘Having said that, Steve, you look horrendous. I'm really sorry about Gill. You were getting it together, weren't you?'

‘Up to a point.'

‘Anyway, sorry mate.' Adam reached across the table and gave Flynn's arm a comforting, manly tap.

‘But there's still something you need to ask me, isn't there?'

A couple of beats of uneasy silence passed between the two men. Flynn had known Adam long before he'd come to live on the island. Flynn had holidayed on Gran Canaria many times since getting the sportfishing bug and he'd got to know Adam through that. They'd often joked that when Flynn retired he might come and work a boat for Adam, or if anything went tits-up, as it did – big style. So Flynn had scampered to the island and found Adam to be as good as his word. Flynn had turned out to be the best skipper he'd ever employed, surpassing even the indigenous guys who had been brought up on these waters.

Adam ran a relaxed but firm business, but didn't like it when things went off-beam.

‘I don't really know how to . . .' Adam wriggled uncomfortably in his skin.

‘Let me make it easy for you,' Flynn said gently. ‘You want to know if what happened over the last couple of days is anything to do with me, don't you? The robbery in Gill's room, her murder and the sinking of
Faye
? That about the long and short of it?'

Adam nodded, a little embarrassed.