Nick Oldham - A Time For Justice

‘ This guy Corelli has loads of business partners. One of them is a young punk called Danny Carver. Carver has been linked to Corelli for about three years. Suspected of being involved in some major stuff. I mean mega-shit — gun-running, drugs, massive commodity frauds, the whole caboodle. Eventually, Carver gets pissed because he does a lot of legwork but only gets a small percentage of the profit. So what does he do?’

‘ Do tell,’ said Karen.

‘ Cuts loose and starts doin’ deals himself without the boss but using his contacts. Cheeky, huh? Corelli ain’t happy but he lives with it until Carver schmoozes into a deal that Corelli himself is actually tryin’ to put together with a drug baron in Manchester, guy called Brown. Corelli is that far’ — here Donaldson laid his palms together — ‘from doin’ business when Carver steps in and pulls the rug out from under him then sets up the same deal with Brown but with bigger percentages all round.’

‘ What does this deal involve?’

‘ Importing crack into the UK. Basically taking over the British market,’ intercut McClure. ‘Big money.’

‘ Millions,’ affirmed Donaldson. ‘Money that Corelli wasn’t happy losing. The rumour is that Corelli put out a contract on Carver — but I stress it’s only a rumour.’

Karen checked her watch impatiently.

‘ What we intended to do,’ Donaldson said hurriedly, ‘was to nail Carver, which wouldn’t have been too difficult because he’s a sloppy operator. Then we’d promise him immunity from prosecution, a new life, new I.D. — y’know, full-blown witness protection — in exchange for him testifying against Corelli. Might’ve worked,’ he mused.

‘ Anyway,’ he concluded, ‘we fixed up this transatlantic cooperation exercise between the FBI and the Greater Manchester police — with the blessing from your Home Office… and it was all going well until yesterday. Carver was — ’

‘ What happened yesterday?’ Karen interrupted.

McClure took over. ‘We’d had Carver and Brown under obs for a couple of weeks. We knew they’d holed up in an hotel in Lancaster with a couple of call girls. It was our intention to pick up their tail yesterday morning, but we were late arriving at the hotel because we got snarled up in motorway roadworks. By then, both of them had gone.’

‘ How careless,’ sneered Karen. ‘This is very interesting, but what has it got to do with me?’

‘ According to the management,’ said Donaldson, ‘Carver had left in a Daimler with one of the hookers and Brown had gone off in a Beemer with the other girl.’

‘ A Beemer — what’s that?’

‘ Sorry — a BMW,’ explained Donaldson. ‘Next thing we know — BOOM! Carver has a bomb up his ass.’

‘ Hang on. So you’re saying that the car that blew up causing the M6 tragedy, had Danny Carver in it — and you might know who killed him and why?’

‘ Not exactly,’ Donaldson stressed. ‘I am saying that Carver was in the Daimler. I’m surmising that he was killed by a hit man who works for Corelli, because he’d usurped him on a big business deal.’

‘ How can you be sure that this Danny Carver was in the Daimler? There’s nothing identifiable left in the car. It’s not even recognisably a Daimler. ‘

‘ Just adding up the scores on the doors,’ said McClure.

‘ Talk evidence,’ Karen insisted.

‘ OK,’ said Donaldson. ‘Firstly we know that Carver was booked on a flight to Miami from Manchester yesterday. He didn’t get on it — we checked.

‘ Secondly we have a video tape here from the hotel’ — he held up the cassette — ‘which shows Danny Carver getting into a Daimler with a girl and being driven away. We’ve watched your tapes of the explosion from the freeway camera and it looks like the same model of Daimler. I’ll bet when your forensic team get their results together they’ll find the remains of three bodies.’

‘ I am definitely intrigued,’ said Karen, beginning to squirm a little with excitement.

Donaldson went on, ‘I saw a man in the hotel lobby yesterday who I recognise as having some Corelli connection — but the great thing is that the hotel video cameras pick him up arriving in a car, parking it, walking past Carver’s limo and bending down next to it.’

‘ Really!’ exclaimed Karen, barely suppressing her glee. ‘Can you see exactly what he did?’

‘ No, because the film is a bit blurred. It needs enhancing. However, we can see that his suitcase drops open next to the car. He bends down to pick his clothes up and quickly reaches under the limo.’ This was said by McClure. ‘Good stuff, eh?’

Fucking bloody ace, Karen thought, but didn’t allow herself to smile.

‘ Add to that the rumour about the contract,’ said Donaldson, ‘and I think we’re onto something, don’t you?’

‘ Possibly,’ Karen said.

‘ Once you get a Technical Support Unit to enhance the number plate from the motorway video we’ll know for sure if it was Carver’s Daimler or not.’

‘ I already have the number,’ Karen said triumphantly, and read it out aloud from her notes.

‘ That’s the one!’ McClure confirmed. ‘If TSU can do the same for the hotel video and lift the registered number from this guy’s car, we could be well on our way.’

‘ And all I have to do is catch him,’ Karen said. She looked expectantly at Donaldson. ‘So, what’s the guy’s name?’

‘ That’s the problem. I don’t know. There is another problem too. I believe he’s only fulfilled part of his contract. If we don’t get him quick, he’ll kill again.’

In spite of her tardy entrance to an already delayed briefing, Karen Wilde handled the start of her first murder investigation with the assurance of a seasoned professional.

She stepped onto a raised platform at one end of the gym and called for quiet.

Within minutes she had them eating out of her hand. The irritability of the officers soon evaporated as she directed her considerable public-speaking skills at them. She concluded by naming the pairings of detectives and asking them to see the Allocator for their tasks in half an hour.

The investigation was underway at last.

Before leaving the platform she said, ‘Is DS Christie here?’

‘ Yes, ma’ am,’ he said from the back of the room.

‘ My office — ten minutes,’ she clipped and stepped down.

‘ Lucky you,’ someone said to Henry.

‘ Why?’

‘ Spanking.’

Henry chuckled.

He knocked on the office door and entered. Karen was sitting behind her desk reading the initial pathology and forensic reports.

‘ Sit down,’ she said, briefly looking up then returning her attention to the paperwork.

He sat on a chair opposite her and waited, wondering what job he was going to be given. He speculated. Must be interesting if she was giving it to him personally.

Eventually she stacked the papers neatly in front of her and looked at Henry.

‘ DS Christie,’ she said at length.

‘ Yes.’

‘ How are you? You look awful, if you don’t mind me saying.’

He shrugged. ‘Don’t feel too bad, just sore. Can’t wait to get going with this, though.’

She frowned. ‘Hm,’ she said.

Henry’s eyes narrowed. Something was wrong here.

There was a pause, then: ‘Can you tell me how it is that within the space of a few minutes yesterday you performed an action which reflected great credit on the force, followed by one which has brought us equal public disgrace?’

Henry’s mouth sagged open. He clamped it shut with a clash of his teeth.

‘ Your action at the scene of the bombing in trying to rescue those children was commendable. Shortly afterwards, in an incident which was broadcast on nationwide TV, you threw a reporter down the riverbank. What do you have to say?’