Seizure (19 page)

‘And why did this guy want to know that?'

‘Because they'd just tried to iron his chest.'

Henry shot forward.

‘Well, two guys fitting their descriptions.'

‘In other words, Tony Cromer and Teddy Bear Jackman.'

‘Well, yeah, I suppose so.'

‘I take it you told this guy to come in immediately and make a statement – him being an old acquaintance and all that?'

‘I . . . uh . . . well, not exactly.'

Henry jerked a hand at him. ‘What?'

‘Well, y'see . . .' He rubbed his forehead with his thumb and finger. ‘It wasn't that simple.'

‘Let me get this straight. You're telling me you failed to ask someone who'd been assaulted by two guys suspected of committing a double murder to come in and make a statement, and look at some mugshots? What wasn't simple about that?' To be fair, Henry was enjoying this in a strange, knife-twisting way. He knew Tope was a straight down the line guy, excellent at his job, even if in this case Henry was picking up some odd signals. ‘Let's begin at the beginning, shall we?'

A short time earlier Jerry had been at his desk when a call had come through from the HQ switchboard. ‘Can I help you?' he inquired. As instructed, he did not give his name or reveal he was in the Intelligence Unit just in case it was a crank or a crim calling.

‘Jerry Tope, old mate.'

Tope instantly recognized the voice. He quivered like a shot of electricity had jerked through him.

‘Steve,' he said, his voice hushed, his eyes flicking back and forth around the office. ‘Flynn,' he whispered almost inaudibly.

‘Yep, none other.'

‘How you doing?'

‘I'm OK. You?'

‘Good, yeah. Still sifting through intelligence documents,' Jerry said.

‘It's what you do best.'

‘Yeah, it is.' Tope's voice was shaky. His body had heated up with fear. ‘What can I do for you?'

‘As you can guess, this isn't an old mates' catch-up call.'

Tope's throat constricted. ‘I gathered.'

‘I'll keep it short, pal . . . it's payback time. You owe me a favour, buddy boy.'

Tope hung his head and swallowed dryly. ‘I never thought . . .'

‘That I'd come a-knockin' on your door?'

‘Something like that.'

‘Knock, knock,' Flynn said as dangerously as those two words could be made to sound.

Jerry looked to be on the verge of tears. Henry kept his expression unforgiving.

‘Ex-cop Steve Flynn, you say?'

Tope nodded, his nostrils flaring.

‘That's a name to conjure with.'

‘Oh yeah,' Tope gasped. He held his head in his hands. ‘It's not so much he came to ask for a favour to be repaid. I mean, I never expected to hear from him again . . . it was just the nature of the favour and the fact I blabbed out some pretty sensitive stuff and then – whap! – too late.' He held up both hands, palms out, as though he was about to be hit by a bus. ‘I blabbed. Old blabbermouth me.'

‘What did you tell him?' Henry's voice was as unforgiving as his facial features.

‘That the guys who assaulted him could be Cromer and Jackman . . . and that they were suspected of a double murder . . .'

‘Anything else?'

‘Well, he asked about Felix Deakin for some reason. And I told him about his upcoming court appearance, even though I know it's pretty bloody sensitive.'

Henry's brow furrowed. ‘What were the circumstances of the assault on Flynn?'

‘He didn't say . . . and I didn't ask,' Jerry said meekly.

‘So these two goons assault Flynn and he asks about Felix Deakin, who we know he is historically connected to, don't we? And these two goons could have killed two guys, one of whom has a brother in prison who was beaten senseless by Deakin?' Henry inserted the tips of his thumbs into his eye sockets either side of his nose and pressed up into his throbbing cranium. ‘Cromer and Jackman don't do anything off their own bat, do they? They always work for other people, don't they?'

Jerry raised his head, cautiously optimistic. He nodded. ‘So the Intel suggests.'

Henry went on, ‘Could they be working for Deakin?'

‘Every chance.'

‘They kill two men – after torture – on Deakin's orders. Next they assault Steve Flynn. What exactly did he tell you? What did they want from him?'

Jerry grimaced. ‘As I said, he didn't say.'

‘A one-way conversation then?'

Jerry nodded childishly.

‘And you got nothing from him?' Henry's mind spun. ‘What the hell's going on then?' He regarded Jerry severely. ‘You've divulged sensitive information to a non-police person, which if stretched could be a sackable offence.'

A groan escaped from Jerry's lips.

‘You've just had a verbal bollocking,' Henry said. ‘Superintendent's prerogative. Matter dealt with.'

‘You sure?'

‘Yeah. Did Flynn say where he was? I haven't heard of him in ages.'

‘No.'

‘Oh, for goodness sake, Jerry, I thought you were a detective?'

‘I do know where he is, though. I saw him on telly the other day – breakfast TV.'

Henry sighed. ‘Explain.'

Which Jerry did, telling Henry about Flynn's appearance on national TV. ‘He's a bit of a hero,' he concluded, as though this made his blooper OK.

‘To some, maybe,' Henry said bitterly. ‘To others he was a cop with a cloud of corruption hanging over him . . . including the allegation made by Felix Deakin.' He thought back to Rik Dean's assessment of why Richard Last and Jack Sumner might have died: money. And with the appearance of Steve Flynn on the scene, Henry also thought the same. Chase the money. ‘And why did you owe Flynn something he could cash in?' he asked Jerry.

‘Um . . . he saved my marriage.'

TEN

F
lynn found his way into a bottle just after eight that evening. Following the call to Jerry Tope, he'd made his way to his villa and changed into his running gear. As bad as he was feeling, he needed to get out on to the streets. Though he had grafted all day, the euphoria brought about by a three-mile run and a dip in the sea was something his brain and body needed, especially after the news he had just extracted from Tope. It was still burning hot, the August sunshine relentless even late on, but Flynn had to do it. He ran back up the Doreste y Molina, then cut right on to the pathway clinging halfway down the cliff face that took him across to the shell beach at Amadores. There he turned and ran back along the same route. The exercise purged his system and after the run, followed by a swim across the bay, then a long, hot-cold-hot revitalizing shower, he was almost human again.

After a flying visit to see Jose, who was recovering well from the scalp injury, his mood unfortunately darkened once more when he found himself in a bar in Puerto Rico's commercial centre. He began to repeatedly mull over his conversation with Tope and the nugget of information he'd drawn from him. Nugget may well have been a euphemism unless, of course, the name Deakin was a gold tip on a killer bullet.

As he sat there, his suspicions started to come together to make some sort of sense. Although still not certain why the two men had come for him, he did know he was now involved in a deadly game that he could either run from or face.

He ordered a selection of tapas to accompany a bottle of Rioja and a litre bottle of Cruzcampo, then moved to a seat in a quiet area of the bar. He dipped a Canarian potato into a saucer of mojo sauce, bit on it and washed it down with a mouthful of the beer. He sat back, one eye on the large TV screen at the opposite end of the bar. His mind silently cursed the invention: if it hadn't been for the box, he wouldn't be in this mess. He munched his way through the food and his memory shifted back several years to a different time, place and way of life, which was still all too vivid and real to him.

Five minutes to midnight.

Detective Sergeant Steve Flynn was in the locker room at Blackpool Police Station, shrugging himself into a stab vest, ensuring his rigid handcuffs and extendable baton were hooked on to his belt, that his personal radio was secure and worked and was on the correct channel for that night's operation.

Flynn looked at his partner, Jack Hoyle, and nodded. ‘OK, pal?'

‘Well good, mate.' He rubbed his hands together enthusiastically. Flynn and Hoyle had worked together on and off for the best part of twenty years. First as cops on the beat, then plain clothes on targeting teams; next on Support Unit and eventually, via CID, on to the Drugs Branch, their present posting. ‘Tonight's the night,' Hoyle said.

They gave each other hearty backslaps, both eager to get on with the task ahead.

They walked into the briefing room where they were faced with about a dozen cops, uniform and plain clothes, and a dog man. A local DI sat at the edge of the room, watching the proceedings with detachment. This was a drug squad raid and he wasn't particularly interested.

‘OK guys, time to listen up,' Flynn announced loudly, getting everyone's attention. The idle chatter died down. ‘Thanks for turning up. All being well you should be treated to some fun tonight, so be prepared to break heads where necessary.' This elicited a small murmur of approval.

Sitting in the bar in Puerto Rico, Flynn visualized himself that night.

He'd always been a fitness freak, and that, coupled with a ruthless and sometimes violent streak, made for a cop with a reputation. He was six-three and just under fourteen stone, all of it muscle. He knew he looked bloody good in his gear that night – the stab vest, the dark blue T-shirt underneath, the tracksuit bottoms and steel toe-capped boots. He held his head high and was proud of the fact that most of the crims he dealt with were shit scared of him, that he often got results without recourse to the bureaucracy of the cops. He could have been seen as a dinosaur, but he knew how to survive the minefield of the law and come up smelling of roses.

He was keen and conscientious in the pursuit of criminals, but if he couldn't pull them legally, he did so illegally.

In truth, Flynn thought as he reflected, he'd believed he was riding on the crest of a wave. He hadn't realized he was actually on a knife edge, ready to have his balls cut off – as the next few hours would show.

But at that particular moment, standing in front of those officers, directing an operation of his own making, he'd thought he was untouchable.

‘Right, I'll keep this short and sweet before I hand over to DS Hoyle here, who'll go through tonight's tactics for you.' He flicked the button on a remote control and the data projector affixed to the ceiling came to life. An image shot on to the whiteboard at the front of the room. ‘This man is Felix Deakin and I have been after him for eighteen months. Without a shadow of a doubt he is one of the biggest and most dangerous drug barons in the north of England. He works out of Manchester, but his empire – and it is an empire – spreads right across Lancashire, Cheshire and Cumbria, and West Yorkshire. We've been running a job on him for a long time without success. He's slippery and very canny. Surveillance and forensic conscious. Also, he rarely gets his hands dirty, except where money is concerned. He likes getting the stuff in his grubby mitts and
that
is his weakness.' Flynn paused. ‘He is suspected of ordering murders on rival dealers, shootings, beatings, etc. Unfortunately we don't have evidence to convict him of such things. However' – and Flynn recalled smiling wickedly at this point – ‘tonight will see him begin a long period of incarceration. We have enough evidence to get him to court on drug trafficking, importing, supply and distribution and tonight will just be the icing on the cake. We're going to catch him counting his cocaine-tainted cash.

‘He has a series of transient counting houses across the north-west and every so often he likes to do a collection himself. And tonight's the night. Over the past month a lot of money has been collected from drug sales and there will be a count at a terraced house in Blackpool. Deakin's collectors have been arriving and departing all day and a couple of women employed by Deakin have been counting the cash, protected by three goons armed with knives and coshes. The last money is due to arrive in half an hour. Deakin is then due to arrive in an hour, where all the money will be re-counted in front of him. He'll be there about an hour and at the end of that time he'll pocket about fifty Gs.'

A susurrus of appreciation rippled around the room.

‘It's the nail in his coffin,' Flynn said. ‘And now Jack Hoyle will go over the tactics . . . Jack.' Flynn turned to his partner and friend. ‘Over to you.'

Flynn drove his fork into a slice of pan-fried chorizo and popped it into his mouth as he thought of Jack standing there beside him in the briefing. They had joined the cops together as nineteen-year-old rookies and made a drunken pact to be crime-busters together, smashing down crims wherever they operated. And if they couldn't get them lawfully, they'd deal out their own particular form of justice.

Over the years they'd dealt out a lot of it.

‘OK, guys . . .' Jack had taken the projector remote from Flynn and the screen now showed a row of terraced houses in South Shore, Blackpool. ‘We know that this is the address of Deakin's counting house here in the resort . . .' He thumbed the button and the photo changed to one showing the front elevation of a specific house.

Thing was, Flynn thought he knew Jack well. After all, they'd been close buddies for a long time. They'd watched each other's backs, got drunk together a lot, lied for each other in court. They knew each other inside out. At least that's what Flynn thought . . . still thought . . . He walked back from the bar with another beer and sat down at his table. A couple of middle-aged women had blundered into the place and were sitting on stools at the bar, constantly eyeing him. A week ago he would have been up there chatting them up, cocksure of making a threesome. Now he scowled at them. A week ago he hadn't been in love. A week ago he hadn't had a future of possibilities snatched from under his nose. The beer went to his lips and he drank half of it, not even tasting it.