Seizure (18 page)

Flynn picked at his eyelid. He moved fractionally and tensed with the pain and exhaustion. He shrugged, ‘Truth is, I don't know. The guys who broke into her room did tie me up and start to hurt me, but didn't get chance to ask any questions because Gill raised the alarm, bless her soul. As for the boat . . .'

‘First indications are it was a deliberate act, but that's not really based on much yet,' Adam said. ‘We need to salvage as much as possible for a forensic team to have a proper gander.'

‘Was she insured?'

‘She was, but that's not the issue, Steve.'

‘I know – I'm the issue. It could have some connections to the illegals I rescued,' Flynn said plaintively, knowing it was untrue.

‘Maybe . . . I just wondered. You came here under a cloud, though. Anything to do with that?'

Flynn had once told Adam the whole sorry truth of his exit from the cops in the UK and he was right to speculate.

‘I don't know for sure,' he said honestly. ‘It could be, but why I don't know. I certainly don't know the guys who broke into the room, but I do know one thing for sure – I'm going to find them . . .' He ended the sentence there, but his gaze hung across the table in a way which made Adam shiver, even in the heat.

Henry Christie said, ‘Torture?'

‘The flat-iron business.'

‘Gotcha,' Henry said, vividly recalling the branding on the bodies of the two suspected armed robbers who had met grisly deaths in a backwater town of Lancashire. ‘You know something?'

‘From GMP files, which I shouldn't be accessing.'

‘Jerry, you've accessed the deepest FBI files,' Henry said, ‘so GMP should hardly be a worry to you.'

‘I'm doing this with your consent then?'

‘We're going off task here.'

‘Whatever, just trying to cover my back is all,' Jerry shrugged. ‘About four years ago, there was a series of very nasty assaults in Manchester, mainly on gangland bosses, so there were never any formal complaints. They were recorded, but never acted upon by the cops. Intel was that two guys, acting on behalf of another boss, were combing the streets for information about some missing drugs.'

Henry's eyes hooded over. ‘Rufus Sweetman,' he said dryly.

Jerry raised his eyebrows. ‘You remember?'

‘Sweetman ended up dead, as did a major player from Spain called Mendoza.' Henry had been involved in the affair, which had been a complex murder investigation linked to a small nucleus of corrupt detectives in Manchester. It had all started with the murder of a low-level drug dealer whose body had been dumped just inside Lancashire and Henry had ended up investigating it. He sat upright and trawled his brain for some of the detail that came out after Sweetman's death. ‘Sweetman suspected other gang bosses of ripping him off,' Henry said enthusiastically, ‘and to find out who he sent a pair of nasties around to ask questions in a less than subtle way. I remember now, but it was only a side issue to the main inquiry.'

‘Yep – but I'd say that “nasties” is a bit of a namby-pamby term to describe these guys. In their quest for information, they snipped off a guy's foreskin with hairdressing scissors, but without anaesthetic, did straightforward beatings, even tried to set fire to an Asian guy after stacking tyres around him, like they used to do in South African townships. But, part of their MO was to steam-iron people. Connections?' he said hopefully. ‘These guys specialize in scaring the shit out of handy people. Maybe they went too far this time. Very dangerous dudes.'

‘Names?'

‘Tony Cromer and Edward “Teddy Bear” Jackman.'

‘Where are they now?'

‘No idea.'

It was a tough day but Flynn knew he had to keep at it to stop himself crumbling. If he stopped it would hit him harder than anything he had ever experienced in his life before, and he knew he didn't want to face the fact he had brought death and destruction to the people he had come to love and respect.

He spent the day carrying out a salvage operation on
Lady Faye
, assisting a couple of professional divers from a local company to bring ashore as much as they could lift of the remains of the boat. Much of it had been destroyed. The blast had torn the poor girl to shreds, but some things were still in one piece. A couple of rods survived, some of the navigation system, surprisingly, but mainly just odds and sods. They brought her up piece by broken piece and Flynn worked furiously at it, the physical nature of the task keeping him from thinking of anything. Eventually all that lay beneath the surface of the marina were several of the larger chunks of the hull and superstructure and the bridge, items that would require specialist lifting equipment.

Exhausted, Flynn dragged himself on to the quayside at around four o'clock. He pulled off the facemask, humped off the oxygen bottle he'd borrowed and raised his face to the afternoon sun. A shadow crossed him.

‘Thanks for all that,' Adam said. He and Tommy, his son, had been working alongside Flynn and the other divers and everyone was drained.

‘Least I could do,' Flynn said, squinting.

‘Join me for a drink at the Sun? You'll be needing one.'

‘Nah, thanks anyway. I'm going over to see Jose – he's back home now, and I'm hoping to do a bit of nosing around.'

‘Don't get into any trouble, Steve,' Adam said gravely.

‘I won't.'

Flynn towelled himself down on the quayside and allowed the still hot sun to dry him off completely. His hair was rough and matted from a day under the water and he needed a proper shower. After cleaning off the diving equipment and looking forlornly at the wreckage of
Faye
, he started to make his way around the marina, but Adam beckoned him back.

‘I almost forgot . . . I don't know if you fancy it, but I need a driver for a jeep safari tomorrow. You up for it?'

‘Er . . .' Flynn did not want to refuse, but neither did he want to accept.

‘A couple of girls you took out last year actually asked for you personally at the booking office. I didn't recognize them, but they looked pretty nice. Might cheer you up . . . not that I made them any promises.'

‘Usual time and place?'

‘Good man.'

Flynn headed across the quayside. Taking out jeep safaris was his secondary role with Adam's company. He had a special permit that allowed him to go off road in the rugged mountains of the interior and a good day was usually had by all – but he didn't feel any enthusiasm for tomorrow's jaunt. He would do it because he owed at least that much to Adam. He'd do it, put on a smiley face and give the tourists a great time. That's what he got paid for.

Even though he had turned down Adam's offer of a drink, Flynn still needed one. He sidled into the beach bar he'd been fighting in and ordered a large Cruzcampo, downing about a third of it in one. The taste and its ice-cold fingers were wonderful, displacing the salt superbly. It was his intention to shower, change, pay a quick call on Jose, then go on the hunt for two very dangerous men. Then he was struck by the impossibility of his task. He was going for two men he'd not even got a proper look at, whose names he didn't know. And he had no idea where they might be, or even if they were still on the island, which they probably weren't.

He had a very shaky moment when he considered getting himself comfortable on a bar stool, slapping a wodge of euros on the bar and drinking himself into a stupor.

A brainwave stopped him.

It was a pretty long shot, but worth trying. He fished out his mobile phone, checked the time – now four fifty-five p.m. – and dialled the UK code followed by a number that was imprinted in his brain.

Time to call in a favour, even if it was over two thousand miles away.

Henry spent the remainder of the day in his office, trying to get back on top of things while steadfastly avoiding speaking to Naomi Dale, sidestepping her calls although he knew he would have to converse with her at some point. He decided to wait for Bill Robbins's assessment of the security escort that Deakin would require from prison to court before speaking to her.

Consequently, most of his time was spent on the blower talking to detectives involved in the supermarket shooting. Henry didn't want any false assumptions made that the two dead men, Last and Sumner, were the main offenders in the robbery. He was pretty sure they were, but pretty sure did not mean certain and he didn't want to end up with egg on his face by not keeping an open mind. He also wanted to get someone locating Tony Cromer and Teddy Bear Jackman because they were good suspects for the double murder. And he looked at making links between the two jobs, because his gut feeling told him there was a connection.

He jotted a few things down.

Even so, Henry thought, despite Deakin having beaten up Richard Last's brother, the only other link in the chain was Barry Baron, and he represented a lot of low lifes. Maybe his presence was just a coincidence?

Henry guffawed at the thought. ‘My arse,' he said to himself. ‘But what exactly is happening?'

His desk phone rang. From its ring tone he could tell it was an external call. He reached for it automatically, then his fingers stopped a centimetre above the handset, allowing it to ring, then stop, an agonizing twenty seconds.

Next his mobile phone started to vibrate and dance around the desk top, moving around like a mini-hovercraft. He picked it up and saw the number calling was withheld.

Then he thought there was no way a superintendent should be uncontactable. Not answering the phone was tantamount to desertion of duty. He steeled himself and answered it, his Adam's apple sticking in his throat as he uttered a short request to any god that might be listening for it not to be Naomi Dale on the other end.

‘Detective Superintendent Christie,' he answered nervously.

‘Boss? It's Jerry Tope. I thought you were still at work.'

‘I am.'

‘But I just phoned your office.'

‘I was having a pee, if that's OK?'

‘Oh, right.'

Henry checked his watch. He needed to get across to Blackpool to see his mother, who had had a comfortable day, apparently, and also to check in on Rik Dean, who was also doing well. He probably needed to see Naomi Dale, too. ‘What do you want, Jerry?'

‘Need to come and see you.'

‘Urgently?'

‘I'd say so.'

Henry closed his eyes and screwed up his face, then got a grip. ‘You know where I am,' he said without a trace of irritation.

There was a knock on the office door. That was hellish quick, Henry thought. ‘Enter,' he said imperiously, only to receive a slight jolt when the door opened and Bill Robbins filled the frame with his stout, but agile and fit body.

‘Got a few minutes, boss?' He waggled a paper file at Henry, who waved him in with a broad sweep of the hand.

Bill and Henry knew each other well. They'd been PCs together briefly in the eighties and had come into regular contact since. Henry had tried to get Bill a transfer on to FMIT, but the chief constable wouldn't allow it and Henry had to agree reluctantly that there was no room for a firearms PC in the department. Henry had suggested that Bill could become his batman, but even Bill baulked at that one.

‘I've done a recce on the security escort from Lancashire Prison to Preston Crown and back again,' Bill announced. He shook the file. ‘No great problems route-wise. It's only a short journey, just about eight miles, and I reckon it can be done with a sandwich job: Armed Response Vehicles front and rear, a couple of outriders.' He shrugged.

‘Don't you mean a shit sandwich?'

‘Knowing what I do about Deakin, yes. But what exactly is the threat?'

‘He's giving evidence about a gang leader from Manchester who killed a guy in Lancashire – or at least the body was dumped in the county. His life could be in danger. At the moment it's all under wraps and the prosecution are going to keep it as tight as they can, but they will have to disclose soon as the trial's going to start soon.'

‘At what stage will his evidence be needed?'

‘Early on, I'd say. We'll know more when the barrister's had a proper look at what Deakin has to say. But if he's to be believed, he provides the glue for everything else that follows.'

Bill nodded. The two men looked at each other and smiled.

Henry said, ‘Having said that, you need to watch out for any possibility on the road because there's just as much chance that Deakin'll try and do a runner. You need to be aware of that.'

‘I'll write it into the operational order.'

There was a soft knock at the door. It opened and Jerry Tope slid in, a little put out to see Bill sitting there.

‘OK, thanks, Bill,' Henry said.

Bill rose, nodded at Jerry and left the office. Jerry replaced him on the seat.

Neither man spoke. Henry raised his eyebrows encouragingly.

‘Erm,' Jerry winced, ‘I don't know how to put this, but I think I've done something silly and a bit unprofessional.'

‘And you need to tell Uncle Henry?'

‘But there is a good side to it.'

‘I'm listening.'

‘I think I might know where Tony Cromer and Teddy Bear Jackman are, or were very recently.'

‘That's the good side, I assume. What's the downside?'

‘I just got a phone call from an old acquaintance of mine. He wanted a bit of information from me. Ha! Talk about connections,' Jerry chuckled forcibly. ‘This guy wanted to know if I knew two heavies who went about torturing people using irons.'