Nick Oldham - Dead Heat

The visit to Manchester had been fruitless, if tantalizing. There was something not quite right about Jo Coniston’s disappearance and nothing right at all about Sgt Al Major, her caring, sharing supervisor. Henry struggled to see a way forward with it, other than to do some desktop research into the news stories of the time and some of his own ‘on the streets’ research.

Next, his visit to the happy home of the Wickson family. It struck him that they were a deeply troubled trio of characters. John Lloyd Wickson was clearly up to no good in more ways than one. If she was to be believed, Tara did not know what he was up to, although even to Henry, some of his misdemeanours were blatantly obvious. Charlotte had her problems, too, probably caused by the relationship between her mum and dad. She was the only one of the three Henry felt anything like sorry for. The kids always get it, he thought bitterly. They may be amazingly adaptable, but it was always the parents who forced that adaptability on them.

He thought about Tara trying to do something to help her wayward daughter. Horses were obviously Charlotte’s big love and someone was hurting them. Tara wanted her daughter’s pain to stop. Henry wondered if that would ever be possible.

He sipped his reassuringly expensive drink. It was the only one he was planning to have that evening because he had decided to go out and do some schmoozling, as he called it. A bit of dancing with wolves. Put himself in amongst the people who could help him, maybe. That was if he could get out. Tea time with Kate had been fraught, and when he hesitantly revealed his plans for the evening, frostiness descended like a winter’s morning. She completely disapproved of his involvement in anything like this and it was straining her, despite his reassurances.

A deep sigh engulfed him. He adjusted his position on the chair. Looking round, he watched Leanne approach him from the dining room.

‘Hi, kid,’ he said, touching her arm. She kissed the top of his head and sat down on his knee. She wanted something. ‘What is it, honey?’

‘Dad,’ she began, ‘there’s a disco on tonight down at the youth club in town and I’d like to go. It finishes at eleven. I’ve done my homework.’

Henry kind of shrugged his whole body. ‘Yeah. . and. .?’

‘Mum says I can go, but I have to be back here and in bed for half-eleven.’

‘And. .?’ Henry waited for the punchline.

‘Can you pick me up? Mum says she’s too tired. Otherwise. . otherwise I won’t be able to go. . and all me mates’re going. . Jackie, Lorraine, Kylie. .’ She started counting them off on her fingers. ‘Louise. . Charlotte. . John. . Debs. .’

‘OK, OK,’ he said, defeated. ‘I’ll pick you up. But it’s eleven on the dot. . got that?’ She nodded eagerly. ‘Is that Charlotte Wickson, by the way?’

‘Yeah. . Ooh, Dad, you’re an angel.’ She kissed him.

‘And who the hell is John?’ His eyebrows rose.

Leanne stood up abruptly. Red embarrassment shot up her neck and attacked her face like nettle rash. ‘Nobody,’ she said petulantly.

‘OK,’ he backed off, holding out his hand. She slid hers into his and they squeezed each other’s fingers. ‘I’ll pick you up, no probs. I’ll take you, if your mum doesn’t want to.’

‘Thanks, Dad, that’d be brill. Love you.’ She bounded off happily.

Henry settled back reflectively. In the distance he heard the front doorbell chime. Voices grew gradually louder until Kate appeared in front of Karl Donaldson, the big American from the FBI in London.

‘Henry, Karl’s come to see you,’ she said coldly. She stepped aside and forced a smile on to her face. ‘Tea, coffee, beer?’ she asked Donaldson.

‘Do you have water?’

‘Flavoured? Fizzy? Still? Or from the tap?’

‘Flavoured and still would be nice.’

‘I’ll get it.’ She rounded the big man, glancing ever so quickly at her husband. The two men watched her go. Donaldson looked at Henry. ‘Everything OK?’

Henry cleared his throat nervously. ‘Yeah. . Take a pew.’ Donaldson sat on the two-seater sofa, almost filling it with his size, which was all muscle. He placed a black briefcase on his knees.

‘I see,’ said Donaldson.

‘Yes, icy,’ Henry confirmed.

Donaldson chuckled, but stopped abruptly and put his face straight when Kate reappeared with his tumbler of water, then went with a cob on.

‘Anyway — how are you?’

‘OK.’ Henry winced to get some sympathy. ‘Got a pain in the side, but it’ll be reet,’ he said, adopting a broad Lancashire accent. ‘Am pissed off with you in some way for putting me into bat with FB, though.’

Donaldson looked contrite for a moment, then said, ‘Business is business.’

‘Yeah, I know. So why are you here?’

Donaldson flicked open the catches of his briefcase and lifted the lid. ‘Got some information for you. Haven’t told anyone else yet. Hot off the press.’

Henry almost said, ‘Whoa, not a good idea,’ but his natural inquisitiveness got in the way.

Donaldson extracted a brown manila file and opened it. There was nothing written on the front of it to indicate its content. ‘Fast-track ballistics, remember?’ He leafed through a few pages. ‘Confirmed for sure that the STAR pistol the guy held to your head is the same weapon that killed Zeke and Marty Cragg. Also the weapon that killed my first undercover operative in Mendoza’s gang. The same weapon was also used in four other killings across Europe. All four are individuals who either crossed or were rivals of Mendoza.’

‘OK — same gun, but how do you know that Mendoza put the contracts out?’

‘You know I’ve been working more or less full time on Mendoza ever since Zeke was murdered. I now have an informant quite high up Mendoza’s chain of command who keeps feeding me tit-bits. I’m nurturing him slowly, but he may be of limited value because of his position. He only knows so much, even though he’s quite an important player.’

‘Why is he giving you stuff?’

‘Ah-hah, good question. His motives are not yet clear to me and I don’t trust the bastard. . Anyway, no one else knows about him, got that Henry? I’m only telling you because I trust you.’

Henry nodded. It would go no further.

‘That means Mendoza’s hit man has taken out at least nine people?’

‘More probably, but we just haven’t made the links — yet.’

‘And I had him — and he got away,’ Henry said, punishing himself.

‘Don’t feel too bad, pal, we’ll get him somehow. . I’ve got some more information.’ He fished out another sheet from the file, then looked at Henry. ‘Your CSI’s dusted your car, the car the hit man was using, and the weapons and anything else they thought this guy had touched and lifted some very useful fingerprints, together with some low-copy DNA samples, which I fed into our system.’ He paused for a moment for effect. It worked. Henry sat bolt upright. ‘We’ve identified the bastard.’

‘Yes!’ blurted Henry as though Blackpool FC had just won the FA cup.

‘He has about fifty aliases but was born Paul Verner in 1960 in Nottingham, England.’

‘Nottingham?’

‘Yep. He had a string of juvenile cautions here, then his family moved to New York where his father was in engineering. But young Paul continued his wayward ways and fell into gangland pretty easily by all accounts. He got his first murder charge when he was seventeen. He was acquitted and never appeared at court since, but we know he went to work as a Mob-enforcer, graduating to full-scale hit man.’

‘From bloody Nottingham?’

‘Yep — full of outlaws, Nottingham.’

‘Ah, Robin Hood, nice one. But Nottingham? I can’t believe that.’