The Nothing Job (33 page)

‘I don't want you to willingly tell us anything,' Carradine said. ‘I want to kick it out of you.'

‘I'm not going to tell you anything, other than you're well and truly fucked … so go ahead, do what you have to do.'

Carradine stepped forward, swung back his right hand. Henry braced himself but knew he would be sent flying off the chair, nothing he could do but go with it, curl up into a ball and hope he went into unconsciousness quickly.

The blow came, hard and powerful, and Henry did tip off the chair and roll up to the wall, bringing his knees up. Carradine came in after him and tried to stomp on his head, but Henry jerked away, seeing the foot descending on him, but he could not get away from the next flatfoot stomp which caught him squarely on the temple, sending shockwaves through his cranium. He realized he was probably going to be kicked to death – and he knew how bad that could be after having investigated a couple of murders committed that way. It was nasty and brutal.

But then something happened he did not immediately comprehend.

It was as though a Tasmanian devil had entered the interview room, a whirling blur of fists and feet, and Carradine suddenly fell to his knees and then to his stomach, whilst behind him Shafer too was splayed on the floor, a burly figure kneeling on his spine.

Karl Donaldson had burst in, followed by Georgia Papakostas and Bill Robbins.

Donaldson had instantly seen what was happening and had floored Shafer before the man had even turned to see who was behind him – one chopping blow to the neck, another power fist-drive at the back of the skull and he had dropped like a sack of spuds. Bill had jumped on him then, as Donaldson turned his attention to Carradine. The DCI had spun round, and that was a problem for him, because the punch delivered by Donaldson into the side of his head felled him to his knees and broke his jaw at the same time. The second punch dropped him into fairyland.

Hardly breathing at all, Donaldson swooped down to the beaten Henry Christie and lifted him into a sitting position. Henry swooned a little, but still managed to insult Donaldson. ‘Fuckin' last-minute Yanks again.'

‘Yeah, pal, we always save the world.'

Georgia was behind Donaldson. She knelt down next to Henry and touched his face. He winced away.

‘Can you get these things off me?' He jiggled his hands tied behind his back. ‘One of them must have a key.'

A few seconds later he was on his feet, his hands free, rubbing his wrists, which were red-raw. He staggered slightly and Georgia grabbed him to stop him falling.

‘Thanks,' he said.

Donaldson rose from the task of putting the handcuffs on Carradine and looked at Henry.

‘You OK, pal?' He was rubbing his knuckles.

‘As could be expected … Look, Anger and, I think, Corrigan are in the building. Anger's showing him the comms room, would you fucking believe?'

‘Hey, when you think you're untouchable you're at your most vulnerable,' Donaldson said.

‘I want Anger,' Henry said, brushing past Donaldson, stepping over the still unconscious Carradine and then over the prostrate form of Shafer with Bill Robbins still sitting on him. ‘You think you two could keep these two bastards down for a few minutes?' It was a rhetorical question, aimed at Bill and Georgia. ‘Karl, c'mon, let me show
you
the comms room. You can have Corrigan.'

Henry limped quickly away, his head still reeling, his body hurting, but a gritty determination seething within him as he made his way out of the deserted custody office to the stairs, which he took two at a time, Donaldson close behind him.

‘We went looking for Corrigan when we knew we wouldn't be allowed back into the cop shop,' Donaldson explained as they went upwards. ‘Picked him up in Southport and, to cut a long story short, we followed him here with Shafer – a three-car tail, my hire car, Georgia's hire car and Bill's pool car. We were brilliant.'

‘You could have got here a mite sooner,' Henry whined painfully as they reached the third floor, on which the comms room was situated. He led Donaldson through the double doors at the top of the stairwell, turned left and pushed open the door of the comms room.

The room was set out rather like the bridge of the Starship
Enterprise
but on a smaller scale and not as shiny. There were four operators sitting at their consoles, two receiving the incoming calls and two radio dispatchers, with the comms sergeant sitting at a separate desk, a pair of earphones on as she monitored everything the operators were doing.

And at the far end of the room, Dave Anger and Walter Corrigan were standing and chatting, Anger showing his honoured guest something on a notice board.

Henry stood at the door.

He must have been a terrifying figure to behold, his face smashed and billowing out with the swelling, blood down his shirtfront as well as down his back.

One of the female comms operators looked sideways at him and screamed, ‘Oh my God!' making Anger turn.

Henry's figure must then have become even more fearsome, as, with a howl of rage, he leapt over one of the radio consoles, slithered across it leaving a trail of his blood and went for Anger, who, taking in what was happening, shoved Corrigan away from him and ran for the door at the far end of the room which led to the stairs on the opposite side of the building.

Another operator screamed. The sergeant pulled her earphones off and rose to her feet, only to be knocked back down by Henry as he used her to help propel himself after the retreating Anger.

‘He's yours,' Henry shouted to Donaldson, and pointed to Corrigan, who had been pushed into a corner of the room.

Anger had disappeared down the steps, but Henry was not far behind him, throwing himself recklessly down, not taking any note of the pain in his body, being so focused on capturing Anger.

They raced down three flights. Henry gained on him all the time, until they reached the footwell in the basement, where Anger barged into the double doors, expecting them to be open, but they were locked and he was trapped as Henry reached the top of the flight of steps and stopped, knowing he had his man.

Anger's back was to the doors.

Henry came down the steps one at a time, a terrifying expression on his battered face.

‘Just you and me, now, Dave,' he said quietly on reaching the last but one step.

Anger did not reply, but launched himself into Henry. They both fell backwards on to the concrete steps, Anger raining punches into Henry's stomach and ribs as they rolled and fought. Henry's arms wrapped around Anger, trying to halt the onslaught, holding him tight. But it was like fighting a demon and they rolled off the stairs on to the landing, crashing against the locked doors.

Anger broke away and scrambled to his feet and as Henry tried to do the same kicked out desperately, his foot connecting with Henry's side, hurling him over. Henry scrambled to the corner of the landing as Anger came at him – then he turned in the confined space and dived at Anger's midriff, using all the strength he had in him to topple the chief superintendent over.

Even as he fell backwards, though, he caught Henry a stunning blow on the face which sent him reeling away and before Henry could recover, Anger was on him again, punching hard and repeatedly, and Henry felt his legs go to jelly and he knew he was going down.

But he also knew that this was not the way it was going to be. Drawing on something from the depths of his whole being, he roared like a bear and broke through the pounding of Anger's fists. His forearms forced Anger's arms away from him, opening the man up, and with the millisecond he had to take advantage his hands came out wide and with as much power as he could muster, he clapped his hands hard. Only thing being was that Anger's head was between them and the slightly cupped palms smashed down on Anger's ears. The force of the blow sent a ripple of agony through his ears. The effect was to burst one eardrum.

Anger screamed and reeled away, but Henry paid no heed and went for him. He went for him with a frenzied attack. By hauling strength from deep within he beat Anger down to his knees and then to the floor. He did this until every ounce of power dissipated out of him and he sank to his knees, then on to all fours, next to Anger, who lay there moaning, beaten and defeated, drifting in and out of consciousness, his glasses lying discarded by his side.

As a final symbolic act, Henry got to his feet, stood on them and crushed them.

O
nce, long ago, this same terrible thing had happened to Henry Christie – he had woken up in a hospital to find Robert Fanshaw-Bayley sitting on a chair next to the bed, looking anxiously at him as though he cared. Back then FB had been a detective chief superintendent and Henry had just survived the attentions of a hit man called Tiger Mayfair, but only just. He'd been in hospital to recover from his injuries and waking up to see FB had almost been a setback to speedy recovery.

‘We can't keep meeting like this,' FB said, this time. He too apparently remembered the previous occasion well.

Henry, who had spent a day and a night at the Royal Preston Infirmary purely for observation, and pumped up with nice pain-relieving drugs, eased himself into a sitting position. He had nodded off but didn't know how long he'd been asleep. Could have been five minutes, could have been five hours.

‘Time is it?'

‘Three.'

He squinted with his good eye. ‘Am I right in thinking Kate's coming to collect me at five?'

‘Yeah – apparently the doctor thinks you'll be all right.'

‘Nice doctor.'

‘How are you feeling?'

‘Fine, fine.'

‘You gave Dave Anger a hell of a pasting.'

‘Good.'

‘He's still in hospital – down the corridor, here.' FB jerked a thumb. ‘Being looked after by two uniformed cops.'

Henry was stiff and sore, despite the pain relief. His face was a bloated mess, his head had one deep cut in it, now stitched, and was a mass of swellings the size of eggs, but nothing, other than his cheekbone, was broken. Again.

‘He's making a complaint of assault against you.'

‘His prerogative, he can do what he wants. I'll counter-sue,' Henry mumbled as he spoke through thick lips, because that was the best he could do.

‘I don't think his claim will be going anywhere under the circumstances,' FB reassured him. There was a pregnant pause, then FB said, ‘You think you're up to being told what's happening in the big wide world?'

‘Pass me that water, will you?' FB reached for a glass of water on Henry's bedside cabinet, which he handed to the patient who took a sip through cracked lips. ‘Ugh – it's warm, and there's no whiskey in it.' He took some more, then said, ‘Fire away.'

FB gathered his thoughts. ‘As you can imagine, they're not a very talkative bunch, but we've got some good detectives drafted in from GMP doing the business on them and, bit by bit, a picture is forming of what it's all about. We haven't been able to talk to Anger yet, because he's been in hospital since you threw him down a staircase and jumped on him.'

‘Take it one step at a time. I don't yet have a fully functioning brain.' Henry held up a finger to prevent FB from making a smart retort.

‘It can probably be traced back a number of years,' FB began. ‘And all this shit stems from a protection racket that Dave Anger and his Merseyside mates were running, allowing criminals to operate brothels and street prostitutes, which was a very lucrative addition to a cop's salary.' Henry shook his head sadly. He hated bent cops. ‘The racket was run mainly in Liverpool, but a bit of trading was done up here in Lancashire. Scartarelli was involved in it, but he apparently had a bit of a temper where the women were concerned and unfortunately this led to him killing one who'd been plying her body in Blackburn. Don't know why he did it, but he did, possible she might've wanted out. Unfortunately for him, the girl named him before she croaked.
Fortunately
for him, the murder investigation was headed by Dave Anger and Jack Carradine, both still involved in the protection racket in Liverpool, even though they were Lancashire officers. Extra pocket money.'

FB looked distressed and Henry could guess why: he had been responsible for bringing Anger into Lancashire from Merseyside to head up the FMIT team. It must have hurt to know he had selected and employed a very corrupt officer.

‘They were able to manipulate the enquiry and although they had a named suspect in Scartarelli, they didn't pursue him as vigorously as they might have done, mainly because they knew him and he was running the racket they were involved in protecting.' He paused. ‘With me so far?' Henry nodded. ‘They let him get away, basically, but for anyone looking at the investigation from the outside it would have seemed as though they were doing the best they could.'

‘So more recently, where did Jonny Motta fit into this?'

‘He was trying to muscle in on the business, not knowing that the cops were involved in protecting it.'

‘Why kill the prostitutes in Preston, though?'

FB sighed. ‘Probably something we'll never get to the bottom of. Why do blokes kill prostitutes anyway? We think he was trying to get them to work for him, coercing them by violence, and it went too far, unfortunately for them.'

‘And for him, too,' Henry said. ‘Because how was he to know that the protection racket included some members of the police firearms team?'

‘You know that bit?' FB sounded surprised.

‘It's something I covered in discussion with Jack Carradine before he started kicking the shit out of me.' Henry leaned back, feeling groggy. ‘Head's pounding like a jackhammer.' He snorted. ‘I suppose I must consider myself lucky. I mean, Dave Anger could well have had me killed for sleeping with his wife, couldn't he? Even though she wasn't his wife when I slept with her,' he added as a rider.