Nick Oldham - Big City Jacks

‘No. .’ Henry’s mind scrambled for a location, suddenly deciding that HQ was not the best place for Bignall. ‘The Holiday Inn Express at Bamber Bridge, the new one just built near to Sainsbury’s, just off the M6.’

‘Why there?’

‘Just be there — forty-five minutes, tops,’ Henry snapped and folded his phone. He glanced sideways at Rik Dean. ‘OK, change of plan.’

‘Whatever.’

‘And after we’ve booked in, there’s something I’d like you to do for me.’

‘Whatever.’

The hotel, as Henry said, was newly built, the paint barely dry. It was situated close to junction twenty-nine, overlooking a very busy part of the A6. Henry’s journey took less than thirty minutes, which gave him time to book two adjoining rooms and settle Bignall down before Anger appeared on the scene. He purposely said very little to Bignall, but remained at the window, watching the road for Anger. When he spotted Anger’s car going through the traffic lights, two people on board, he called him and told him what room to come to.

‘This better be spot on, Henry,’ the superintendent said, ‘or I’ll have your guts, mate.’

Henry simply laughed and was still sniggering superciliously when his mobile rang again, the number calling withheld.

‘That you, Henry?’

He recognized the voice at the other end instantly. ‘Christ — is that you, too?’

‘I’ll refrain from saying no, it’s not Christ, but I have risen from the dead, so I have a great deal in common with the Messiah.’

‘What the hell happened to you?’ Henry demanded. Up until last night he had been in regular contact with Karen, Karl Donaldson’s wife, who was growing ever more desperate as nothing had been heard about Karl. She was increasingly fearing the worst, as had Henry.

‘Long story. . tell you sometime. . but just thought I’d tell you I’m fine, Karen’s fine, I’m in trouble at the Legat, but what the hell, and that I’m on my way to Manchester to sort out some Spanish business, hopefully. I hear you had a nasty accident, too.’

‘Manchester?’ Henry ruminated, not hearing the rest of what Donaldson had said after that word. ‘Karl, there is one thing I do need to mention to you.’ Henry was still by the hotel-room window, watching Anger park up, get out. Jane Roscoe was with him and he squirmed slightly when he saw her climb out of the car, wondering briefly if Anger was fettling her. ‘Clown masks. . black van. . ring any bells?’

It was a cautious ‘Yep, why?’ from the American.

‘I’ve been upsetting people in Manchester. . result was I got forced off the motorway by a guy in a van. . a guy wearing a clown mask and driving a black Citroen van.’

Donaldson did not respond for a few moments, making Henry think the connection had been lost. He hated mobile phones.

‘You still there?’

‘Yeah. . Henry, I need to talk to you before I go snooping around with both barrels,’ he said decisively. ‘Where are you now?’

Henry told him. ‘You?’

‘M6 heading north, just before the M62 turn-off for Manchester. I’ll keep going. Should be with you in about twenty minutes, traffic notwithstanding.’

There was a knock on the hotel-room door. Henry finished the call and opened the door, revealing Dave Anger and Jane Roscoe standing in the corridor, both their faces set with cynical expressions and their non-verbals indicating impatience verging on infuriation. This told Henry that neither of them was a very happy bunny.

He greeted them warmly, holding back an urge to act like the lunatic they clearly thought he was. ‘Come in, please.’ They edged past him and caught sight of the man sitting on the bed in the adjoining room.

Anger turned to Henry. ‘Who the fuck’s that?’

‘A witness to a murder. . Keith Snell’s murder.’

Their faces changed dramatically, Henry saw with satisfaction.

To coin a phrase, Detective Superintendent Carl Easton was up to his neck in it, rather like standing in a midden.

The Sweetman trial had been bad enough and the fact that an outside force had been contracted to investigate was not great, but he had totally believed he could wriggle out of that one; what was now giving him more trouble than ever began when he received a phone call.

It came on a particular mobile phone, a number known only to a select few, so he answered it without hesitation. But the voice he heard and recognized within one or two syllables sent an icy spike down into his bowels.

The voice was calm and measured. It was Rufus Sweetman.

‘Hello, Carl, my friend.’

‘Who’s this?’ Easton demanded, reckoning he did not know.

‘You know who it is.’

‘How did you get this number?’

‘Contacts,’ Sweetman said smugly.

‘What do you want?’

‘My property back — that’s all.’

‘You got all your property back at court,’ Easton reminded him. ‘I gave it to you personally.’

‘I think you know which property I mean. . fell off the back of a lorry, so to speak.’

Easton gulped, fell silent.

‘Penny dropped?’ Sweetman inquired.

‘No, don’t know what you mean.’ He clicked the tiny red button on his mobile and terminated the call. He spun round to Lynch and Hamlet, his two detective sergeants, and stared at them, shocked.

‘Who was that?’ Lynch said. They were in Easton’s office at the Arena police station.

‘We’ve nicked Rufus Sweetman’s cocaine,’ Easton announced.

Hamlet whistled. ‘Way to go!’

Lynch said, ‘Effin’ hell.’

Easton raised his eyebrows. ‘He wants it back. .’ He smiled. ‘But he can’t have it.’ He had opened his mouth to say more when his mobile rang again. ‘Sweetman,’ he guessed, and answered it. ‘Yep?’

‘Put it this way,’ Sweetman’s voice said coldly. ‘All we want is our goods returned. . and if we don’t get ’em, one cop will die every day from now on. An innocent cop, that is, not a bent bastard like you.’

Click. Phone dead.

That had been two days before and no cop had died — yet.

One uniformed PC from the city centre was lying in intensive care after being approached by a man who asked for directions and then shot him in the lower gut, below the line of his ballistic vest; another officer had been treated for shotgun wounds to the arm after being ambushed in an alley by a masked gunman. Sheer luck and body armour had saved him.

Although the two incidents had not been officially linked, Easton knew they were. He also knew that the effect of the shootings was to terrify all patrol officers, all of them wondering who would be next to take a bullet.

Easton knew he was sitting on a terrible secret, one he could only share with a few people.

Easton had been a corrupt cop for nearly all his service. He took bribes as a uniformed constable back in the ’70s, then later accepted backhanders for turning a blind eye or falsifying evidence to suit the circumstances. It was way back then he had started dealing in drugs through his prisoners.

All the while though, he kept an eye on his career because he wanted to combine crime-fighting with corruption — the challenge of a lifetime. Along the way he had carefully nurtured other cops and several of his contemporaries had retired with hefty Spanish bank balances after a few years of working alongside Carl Easton. He had nicknamed his team the Invincibles, because no one had yet beaten them. No one was going to, either, Easton believed.

Also along the way he had destroyed the careers of many criminals, sometimes by fair means, often by foul. He loved sending people to prison, particularly when he had engineered their guilt.

His goal had always been to run two careers in parallel. The cop and the criminal. Ridding the streets of the real bad guys, whilst stepping into their business shoes when they were getting kitted out in prison uniform.