Nick Oldham - A Time For Justice

Then he wanted to visit Laura and tell her about his change of heart. Killing Corelli wasn’t the way forward, he now knew, and he had to convince her of that — which wasn’t going to be easy. He’d spent enough time brainwashing her; now he had to try and reverse the process. The prospect was daunting. But the little sachet of white powder in his jacket pocket should make things easier.

For the first time in years his supervisor arrived late for work. Kovaks had been pacing the man’s office like a cat.

‘ Hello Joe,’ he said, removing his coat. ‘What can I do for you?’

‘ Hi, look, sorry to be so blunt Arnie, but can I make an urgent request?’

‘ Sure,’ said the puzzled supervisor.

‘ I want off the Corelli case, as of now. The case papers are all up to date. That OK? ’

‘ Fine by me, but why now? You’ve put a lot into this over the years. You in trouble or something? Someone leanin’ on ya?’

‘ Not in trouble, but someone is leaning on me, yeah, but in a nice way. Can I tell you later, boss? I don’t want to appear rude but I have an urgent meet with an informant. After that I’ll come back and have a chat. OK? ’

‘ Yeah, yeah,’ the supervisor said, completely flummoxed.

‘ So I’m off the case?’ Kovaks confirmed.

‘ As of this moment.’

‘ I love ya,’ said Kovaks. He took the man by the shoulders and kissed his cheek. Before anything more could be said, Kovaks had turned and left the office.

Quickly the supervisor wiped his face dry, disgusted at the thought of being kissed by another man.

Car theft is a growth area in crime in Britain. It is a big headache for the police. There are always some people who leave their cars unlocked with the key still in the ignition.

People like Henry Christie.

When he’d parked in the early hours he’d been so tired, had so much on his mind and had been so busy chatting to Jane that he’d simply got out of his car, left the key in the ignition and forgotten to lock it.

Even if he’d remembered he wouldn’t have been distressed. After all, who would want to steal a car which even the owner described as a ‘heap o’ shit’.

The answer was a young man called John Abbot. Aged fifteen, he was once again playing truant from school, engaged in his favourite pastime of robbing cars.

The ‘robbing’ was either stealing from them — which he did mostly — or, if the opportunity arose, driving the cars away and abandoning them somewhere when he got bored. Usually on the beach in the face of an incoming tide.

Abbot was one of Blackpool’s most prolific car-crime experts and was verging on becoming a professional. He made over three hundred pounds per week selling the goods he stole from cars, and wrecked about ten thousand pounds’ worth of cars each month, just for pleasure. He was rarely caught.

He was strolling through the streets of the south-shore area, trying car doors as a matter of course, when he came across Henry’s Metro.

He couldn’t believe his luck when he saw the key in the ignition. He had a quick glance around the interior and sneered at the state of it: torn seats, worn carpets and a radio which was just that — a radio. Not even a cassette player! No one would want to buy that.

‘ This car deserves to be trashed,’ he said. He slid in and reached for the key.

The engine fired at the third attempt and ticked over lumpily. He dipped the accelerator a few times and revved it gleefully. He selected first and moved off. There was a big smile on the young criminal’s face.

He was not to know that this was the last car he would ever steal.

It was a long time since Joe Kovaks had felt so happy, certainly not since the letter bomb. It was like a new beginning, and he was looking forward to the road ahead. If this is what love feels like, he thought, give me more.

He almost skipped through the office to his desk. One or two people looked up quizzically from their work as his tuneless humming reached their ears.

The phone rang as he sat down.

‘ Joe Kovaks, Special Agent. May I help you?’ he answered brightly. ‘Joe, it’s me,’ came a weak voice.

Reality flattened Kovaks back into his chair. ‘Damian, where the hell are you?’ he hissed urgently. He’d almost forgotten about Sue’s murder.

‘ Look, I can’t talk on this line, you know that.’

‘ Hang on, hang on.’ Kovaks fumbled in his jacket for his electronic diary. ‘I gotta number here you can use.’ He pressed a few buttons. ‘Damian, you still there?’

‘ Yeah,’ he said tiredly.

‘ This is the number of one of the phone booths opposite the office you know, the ones we use for delicate calls?’

‘ Yeah, I know ‘em.’

‘ You gotta pen?’

‘ Yeah.’

Kovaks read the number out and got Damian to recite it back.

‘ Is this kosher?’ Damian asked suspiciously.

‘ Yeah. Leave it five minutes for me to get down there, then call the number, OK?’

‘ Right. ‘

Kovaks hung up and put his diary back inside his jacket. He immediately called Ram Chander in Homicide but was unable to contact him. He decided not to leave a message.

He glanced quickly around the office. ‘Bill, do me a favour, will ya? Call Ram Chander and tell him Damian’s recontacted me, right? Tell him I’m gonna try and make a meet with him. He’ll understand. It’s pretty urgent. Can you do that for me, pal?’

‘ No probs,’ the other agent said, scribbling.

Kovaks left the office quickly. Eamon Ritter stood up and followed. In his hand he had a mobile phone which he began to dial.

Henry Christie sat staring dead ahead as Donaldson drove him back down the motorway. It was 5 p.m., and it had been a frustrating day. No progress had been made; and Henry was the subject of an official complaint, yet again.

He’d spent most of the morning with Karen, briefing the small team of detectives which had been assigned to their line of enquiry. Their first task was to go and see a tame magistrate and swear out two warrants which were to be executed later that afternoon.

Around lunchtime Henry walked up to the public mortuary at the hospital where Dr Baines, the Home Office Pathologist, was carrying out post mortems on the police officers killed the day before.

Baines was deep inside a chest cavity. His gloves, sleeves and apron were covered in blood. The scene reminded Henry of MASH, except there was no one to be saved here. They nodded to each other. Baines’s hands emerged with a heart that had been shredded by bullets. He placed it carefully down by the body.

‘ Henry! How are you, old man?’ he asked rather incongruously in a mock-Etonian accent.

‘ As well as can be expected under the circumstances.’

Both men looked down the room. There was a body on each slab. In one corner was a bloodstained pile of police uniforms.

‘ Glad to see you’re fighting fit though,’ Baines said. ‘Believe you’ve had some, er, problems.’

‘ Yeah, but I’m over the worst now — I hope.’

‘ That double murder at Whitworth never got solved, did it?’

‘ No, we got nowhere with it. And I got kicked off the case.’

‘ I’m damned sure I know something important about that,’ Baines said. He thought hard for a moment or two, eyebrows knitting. ‘Nope, won’t come, tried before. Anyway, must get back to work, so if you’ll excuse me… Perhaps we should have a meal out sometime?’

‘ Yeah, why not?’

Henry meandered back to the station. FB was just driving into the car park.

‘ How’s it going, Henry?’ he asked as they walked into the building and made their way to the canteen for lunch.

‘ So so,’ Henry shrugged.

‘ Just to let you know, just to warn you — I’ve let the Chief have copies of everything on Hinksman. He wants to know every move we make, so keep me informed please, bang up to date on everything, OK?’