Nick Oldham - Hidden Witness

‘Yeah, I’m still struggling,’ he said, as though he did have that condition.

‘Well, the guy I spoke to was really shirty with me and told me it was none of his business.’

‘Why would he say that?’

‘I don’t know. I told him I was making the enquiry on your behalf.’

‘And?’

‘He just said that your access had been denied.’

Donaldson’s whole being missed a beat. ‘What does that mean?’

‘He wouldn’t say.’

‘Access denied?’ Donaldson said, his voice rising. ‘Who can deny me access to files I have a right to see?’

‘Well, most files are password protected,’ Jacintha said.

‘I know that… and there are some I don’t have access to, which I understand. But the ones I want to look at are, or were, available to me. Did the guy say anything else?’

‘I asked him who you should talk to about it. It’s obviously some sort of misunderstanding that needs clearing up.’

‘Yep…’ Donaldson waited.

‘He said you need to speak to Mr Barber.’

Donaldson’s mouth dried up. ‘Don Barber? Why Don Barber?’

‘He didn’t say.’

‘Right, well thanks for that, Cinth. I appreciate what you did. Can you put me through to Don, please?’

‘He’s not here.’

‘What do you mean, not there? You mean he’s gone home for the night?’

‘No, I mean he isn’t here. Hasn’t been in the office for about four days now, sir.’

‘Where is he?’

‘That I don’t know, Mr Donaldson, sir.’

‘ Y ou didn’t send your lackey this time?’ Keira O’Connell said. She was scraping back her hair and fixing a dangerous-looking clip into it before fitting her surgical cap.

‘Adetective inspector’s hardly a lackey,’ said Henry, sounding tired. He had enough problems to be going on with and O’Connell’s obvious annoyance at his rejection of her was starting to wear thin. ‘Look, Keira,’ he said reasonably, hoping that his massive male ego hadn’t got things wrong or completely out of proportion. Maybe she was this cross all the time. ‘I’m really flattered.’ Already he knew he sounded patronizing. He wasn’t good at saying no to women, not initially anyway. Only when the guilt kicked in. ‘I’m trying desperately hard to make a go of it with Kate. And as much as the thought of being with a beautiful woman like you is — ’ his throat went gritty here as his thoughts instantly turned to what it would be like rolling around with her — oh, mama — ‘incredible, I just can’t risk anything.’

‘Are you sure you’re happily, happily married?’ she asked simply. She picked up a scalpel.

‘Yes,’ he said without hesitation.

O’Connell’s eyes played over his face, trying to see if there was a lie there. Her jaw line tensed and relaxed several times. ‘OK,’ she relented. ‘Desperate woman, acting desperately…’ She picked up a pair of latex gloves and blew into one of them, inflating it. ‘Let’s go and cut up our next body… people do seem to have a habit of dying around you, Henry,’ she observed.

Billy Costain’s large body had been laid out on the slab and prepared for post-mortem. A CSI was in position to record events.

Henry looked at the four bullet holes arced across Costain’s wide chest, and he realized how close he himself had been to being the next body for examination. His phone vibrated in his pocket, making him jump.

‘Excuse me.’ It was ‘Home’ calling. He backed out of the mortuary and answered it, expecting to be speaking to Kate. ‘Hiya, sweetheart.’

‘I may be many things to you, but sweetheart ain’t one of them, buddy,’ Karl Donaldson told him.

‘Oh, I don’t know,’ Henry said. ‘What can I do for you?’

‘You mentioned Jerry Tope, the custard cream licker?’

‘What about him?’

‘Can I borrow him after all? I’m still having difficulties, shall we say, accessing work. I could do with him having a look-see. And he owes me a favour for not sending him to prison for fifty years for hacking into the FBI website.’

‘Which is what you want him to do now?’

‘Well, yeah…’

‘You’re welcome to him. I’ll have to ring off, find his number, then get back to you…’

‘I’ve had a drink,’ Jerry Tope said. ‘Can’t turn out.’

‘How much have you had?’

‘A pint.’

‘And you can’t drive after a pint?’

‘I can drive after ten pints, I just choose not to,’ Tope said, clearly annoyed at the interruption to his evening.

‘I need your help. A computer thing. Can I come and see you?’

Tope sighed so heavily that Donaldson expected to feel a draught down the line.

‘Where do you live?’

‘A place called Lea, just on the Blackpool side of Preston.’

‘Gimme the address, I’ll find it,’ Donaldson said. Tope told him, Donaldson scribbled it down and as an afterthought asked, ‘Do you have a broadband connection?’

Tope tutted and said, ‘No, I’m the only computer geek in the world without one.’

‘Sorry.’ Donaldson hung up gently, his mind in turmoil, still completely unable to fathom out why he should have been denied access to FBI files. Then another thought struck him. ‘Shit, I don’t have a car.’

For some reason beyond Henry’s comprehension, Kate had always seen herself driving a Fiat 500. So when the model was redesigned and the opportunity presented itself, she bought one. There was no doubt about it. They were classy, cool, small — tiny — cars, and, for a woman of Kate’s stature, ideal.

Not so for Karl Donaldson. Six-four and broad to match, when Kate waggled her keys at him and said, ‘You’re more than welcome to borrow it,’ he wondered just how the hell he was going to fit into it. His own car was a spacious Jeep.

‘This looks like a bizarre logic puzzle,’ he said. ‘Rearrange this shape — ’ he wafted his hand down his body — ‘to fit into that cupboard. Last time I had my knees around my ears was when the doctor was massaging my prostate.’

‘Far too much detail, and an image I’ll be unable to wipe from my mind forever.’

‘Didn’t you used to have a Ford?’

‘Fell to bits.’ She jangled the keys and dropped them on to his open palm.

He approached the car with trepidation and like a member of a circus freak show, folded himself into it limb by limb.

As well as the luxurious transport, Kate had also provided Donaldson with a satnav into which he keyed Jerry Tope’s postcode, and pulled up outside the pleasant semi-detached house some twenty minutes after leaving Blackpool. A combination of tiredness and the physical assaults he’d endured recently had made him stiffen up on the journey in the Fiat and he had to force his joints to open in order to get out of the car.

Tope came to the door to greet him, grinning at the size of the car versus the size of the man. Noticing the smirk, Donaldson said, ‘I’m good at getting big things into tiny spaces.’

He shook hands with Tope, who gestured for him to enter the house where he was then introduced to Tope’s wife who was emerging from the kitchen. She was a tiny, rotund ball of a lady, with thick spectacles, a serious monobrow and facial hair issues.

‘Marina, this is Karl Donaldson I was telling you about.’

Donaldson proffered his hand. Mrs Tope squinted up at him as she shook his hand — and gasped as he came into focus. Tope eyed both of them and noticed his wife’s reaction with a drop of his face.

‘Err,’ he interrupted, ‘what exactly do you want me to do?’

Unwillingly, Marina Tope let go of his squeezed hand.

‘Could we talk privately?’ he asked Tope. He glanced at the wife. ‘Nothing personal, but…’