Nick Oldham - Hidden Witness

Barber shrugged confidently. ‘I’ll be protected.’

‘No, you’ll be thrown to the wolves,’ Donaldson said. ‘No one will come near you with a cow-prod, even.’

‘We shall see.’

The van slowed, turned and pulled into the yard at the back of the police station. The momentum caused the two men to rock forwards and for a moment, their faces were an inch apart.

‘So getting into the van was a waste of time?’ FB said, annoyed at having been denied a punchline. ‘He admitted nothing?’

‘Yeah — nothing.’

FB looked worriedly at Henry. ‘But the stuff here, on our patch, we can prove that?’

‘Yes.’ Henry was certain. ‘When everything’s bagged together, so long as we do it all slowly, methodically and professionally, we have him. From the moment he killed the old man to the point where he held a gun to Mark Carter’s head, and everything in between. We’ll match clothing, fibres, firearms and vehicles. We found a Volvo saloon on false plates in a street behind Cleveley House and that’ll be a treasure-trove for the scientists, I suspect. There’ll be bits of the old man all over it.’

‘Good — make bloody sure,’ FB said.

‘I will,’ Henry said.

FB rolled his heavy body up to his feet and emitted a sigh. ‘Looks like you’ve got a hell of a lot of shite in your organization.’

Donaldson took the remark silently, but it hurt him badly and he fumed as he watched the Chief leave the room. As the door closed and he was certain the man had gone, he said, ‘Hate that guy.’

‘He obviously touched a nerve,’ Henry said, feeling slightly defensive of FB for once and not enjoying the sensation, so he added, ‘but I get your drift.’

‘Jeez.’ Donaldson touched his battered face gingerly. ‘He didn’t half hit hard. I have a horrible feeling he would’ve beaten me if you hadn’t turned up and zapped him. I owe you one. You are a bit of a Taser expert, I take it?’

‘Never used one in my life,’ Henry admitted. ‘Lucky I didn’t electrocute you.’

Donaldson shook his sore head and chuckled.

‘Coming back to the subject, I take it that it was the computer thing that put you on to him? You haven’t really had chance to explain

…’

‘Yeah. Nothing else, no suspicions whatever. Until I couldn’t get on to files I knew I had the right to access. These were the ones with detailed information about the Camorra killings, with weapon details and everything. I’d looked at the general stuff that anyone can access and noticed, as I said, there were some that didn’t seem quite Mafia-like. Truly professional hits. I told Don I was looking into the patterns, which he didn’t seem overly keen on, and that was probably when his radar started shitting itself. There was something else, too.’

‘What?’

‘I never told him the witness you had was a teenage lad. I never described the witness at all, but he let it slip that he knew the witness was a lad. Are you counting the number of times I said the word witness?’ Donaldson paused with a grin. ‘Anyway, when he said this initially, I didn’t pick up on it straightaway, it just kinda seeped into my brain. I assume he may have realized he’d made a blunder, too. Because he’d seen Mark, of course.

‘I guess if I hadn’t had access to Jerry Tope, I still wouldn’t be sure about anything. But Jerry hacked into the authorization emails that Don had sent to the IT guys, telling them to deny me access to these files. Then I found Don himself wasn’t at the embassy. All the time I’d been talking to him on his mobile, I’d assumed he’d been in London. Wrong. We also found emails booking three rooms at cheap hotels in the Blackpool area…’

‘Which we’ll have to search,’ Henry said. A phone desk rang. Henry scooped it up. He listened, said a few yeps, hung up. ‘He wants to talk.’

Don Barber was in a white paper suit and matching slip-on boots. His skin had been carefully swabbed and hair combed by a crime scene investigator. Samples had been taken, he’d been photographed, fingerprinted and a swab of saliva taken for DNA purposes. He was sitting in an interview room, still handcuffed, guarded by the same officer who had accompanied him and Donaldson in the back of the van.

The detective and the FBI agent walked in. Henry gestured for the constable to leave, then he sat opposite Barber whilst Donaldson remained standing. Henry placed two sealed packs of tapes on the table, together with associated paperwork.

‘Off the record,’ Barber said.

Henry shook his head. ‘No, not now. You had your chance, blew it. No more off the record unless I say. You are well and truly in police custody and we’re not playing games. You want to talk, that’s fine, but it’ll be on tape, audio and video. If you don’t want to, that’s fine too, we still go through the motions. Your choice, but either way I’d recommend you talk to a solicitor — lawyer — so you know exactly where you stand.’

Barber took it in. ‘I want these off.’ He raised his manacled hands. ‘I want a drink, I want to see a lawyer, I want to see a doctor and I want my phone call, and I want some people telling of my arrest.’

‘No phone call, no one to be informed or your arrest yet.’

‘I have a right.’

‘Which has been temporarily suspended. Authorized by the Chief Constable.’

‘That means I’m being held incommunicado. That’s illegal.’

‘For the time being, that’s how it is. Until I’m satisfied no one else is in danger from you and that all outstanding suspects have been arrested. Your choice.’ Henry held up the tapes and waggled them enticingly.

Four hours later, Donaldson looked up as Henry entered the Chief Superintendent’s office where he had been waiting. He had not been allowed to stay as the two detectives — Rik Dean and Alex Bent — chosen by Henry, had interviewed Barber.

He stood up warily. ‘Well?’

‘Rik and Alex have just briefed me,’ Henry said. He checked his watch. ‘Unfortunately, we’ve had to get the police surgeon out to him, who has told us he needs to be taken to hospital. He’s suffering from head pains, apparently. Feels faint. Sorry. Fancy a coffee?’

‘Whatever.’

Henry led the American out of the station and down on to the promenade. It was a chilly dawn, the tide was way out, but the sky was clear. They walked to the McDonald’s on the promenade where Henry bought two black coffees. They sat in the deserted restaurant.

‘There’s a long way to go,’ Henry said apologetically. ‘He’s talking, but he’s not forthcoming, if you know what I mean? He has to be pinned down before he’ll admit anything and even then it’s not great.’

‘Where exactly are you, then?’

‘He blames the other two guys, the dead ones.’

‘Has he identified them?’

‘Says he doesn’t know their names but it was all their idea.’

‘He’s lying.’ Donaldson churned inside, like the rumblings of a volcano about to erupt.

‘We’ll keep on at him.’

‘You know I need to speak to him — alone.’

Henry nodded — his insides now churning.

‘I may have to visit him in hospital.’ Donaldson held Henry’s gaze until Henry broke off. ‘I won’t kill him — but I need my answers. Without them, it’s all speculation. Why did he want me to track down this, this American hit man? Why kill Fazil? Why did he let me live, then change his mind? How did he know Petrone was in Blackpool?’

Henry took a sip of the bitter coffee. ‘Because tracking down a professional hit man is hard, but killing a few Camorra Mafia dons who you suspect of ordering the murder of an undercover agent is more straightforward. My guess is that once you found and identified the American, he’d have been taken out, like Fazil was. Fazil only died after you confirmed to Barber that you were sure he was the guy who delivered the gun in Majorca.’