plan.’
‘ I’ll believe it when I know it for sure,’ said McNamara. ‘He’s not stupid,’ he went on, referring to Henry Christie. ‘He might just suss what’s going on.’
‘ Naah.’ Morton shook his head. ‘My woman detective is very good. She’ll fuck his brains out before he knows what’s hit him. She’s done it before.’
‘ At least he’s getting sorted,’ Conroy said. ‘Make sure you do a proper job, that’s all, Tony.’
‘ Worry not. By tomorrow night he won’t know his arse from his tit.’
‘ Hm,’ McNamara muttered through closed lips. ‘What’s happening with Marie Cullen’s murder, that’s what I want to know.’
‘ It’s going nowhere, rest assured. Particularly now that Saltash is out of the picture, as it were.’
‘ Very funny,’ said the MP, not appreciating the play on words relating to the pimp’s demise underneath a portable TV set. ‘What about that Gillian, the one who did it? Where is she? She’s the one I had at our last meeting, if you recall.’
‘ Is she?’ Morton hadn’t realised that. ‘Does that cause you a problem? The cops wanted to talk to Saltash and he was a link to Cullen. Now he’s gone, what’s the fuss?’
The look on McNamara’s face made Morton ask, ‘What’s the fuss?’ again, this time firmly.
McNamara opened his mouth to say something. He quickly clamped it shut.
‘ Spit it out, Harry,’ Morton commanded.
‘ Shit… if the police catch her and interview her, she might tell them about me.’
‘ Why should she? Her killing Saltash, and her clients are two different things.’
‘ I said something stupid, I think, when I was with her. Something incriminating. She might use it.’
‘ What did you say?’
Conroy, listening, closed his eyes despairingly.
McNamara shrugged as though it were nothing. ‘I made reference to Marie.’
A long, pissed-off sigh exhaled from Morton’s lungs.
Conroy exploded. ‘Are you a complete fucking nutcase? You must be short of something up here.’ He tapped his head. ‘What the hell happens to you when you get an erection? Does all the blood come out of your brain, or something, because it’s fucking obvious it goes into neutral.’
Morton rubbed his eyes wearily. ‘You are really going to have to get yourself sorted out. You’re becoming a weak link.’
‘ What can we do about her?’ McNamara insisted on knowing.
‘ Ronnie?’ Morton turned to Conroy, eyebrows raised.
‘ I’ll sort her out,’ he said angrily, through gritted teeth. ‘I’ll get some Salford low-life to blow her away — if we can find her, that is.’
‘ Good,’ said Morton. ‘Now, some better news for you both. Munrow’s been killed.’
The change in Conroy was visible. One moment he was hard-faced, the next bright and happy on hearing of the death. ‘Hoo-fucking-ray,’ he cheered. ‘Rider?’
‘ We can only presume so,’ Morton said. ‘Unidentified male blew his head off in a Debenhams changing room. Could be Rider from the description.’
‘ Looks like my little ruse worked. Yes!’ He punched the air. ‘What the hell was he doing in Debenhams?’
‘ Buying clothes presumably,’ Morton answered.
‘ And what about Rider?’ Conroy asked. ‘He could do with stitching up for that. Any chance? If he was out of the game, we could have his club.’
Morton gave a noncommittal shrug. ‘I’ll see what I can do.’
In his mind he was already formulating a course of action which involved the newest detective on his unit.
The sharp knock on the door made them jump.
Conroy opened it.
Scott Hamilton walked in.
Henry parked the NWOCS car at Blackpool and dropped into the station to see if there had been any developments in the investigations he had so happily left behind for a quick move onto a new squad. A move which had already got him shot and into a compromising position. All in one day. Not bad going by any standards.
Nothing seemed to be moving on anything.
Particularly in respect of Marie Cullen; the case seemed to have come to a standstill with the death of the man supposed to be her pimp.
Working on the assumption that his short secondment to the. NWOCS was virtually over, Henry decided that he’d do a few things with it next week. Maybe if there was a push, it might lead them properly to McNamara, millionaire bastard — and friend of Tony Morton…
Henry frowned.
He recalled the photos on Morton’s wall. Him and McNamara looked pretty close buddies. One of those horrible queasy churnings moved through him like a bad case of wind.
Surely not..? He banished the thought.
A note had been scribbled out and left on his desk asking him to call round and see Annie, Derek’s widow. She had something for him, apparently. Henry pulled his nose up at the thought of revisiting her. Then his sense of responsibility overpowered this. He would call in for five minutes on his way home.
At least it would delay seeing Kate. It was going to be difficult to face her and act normal, knowing that he had as good as committed adultery for the second time in their marriage.
Was it technically adultery when another woman sucked your cock? Or if you went down on her? Surely it had to be full intercourse?
It was a fine line, to be sure. But he knew one thing for certain; Kate would be blind to the semantics. If she ever found out.
‘ I am trying to understand the situation,’ Hamilton was saying. ‘We all have difficulties from time to time. In fact, I recently had a couple of FBI agents snooping around the Jacaranda. One was eliminated by two good friends who were staying with me at the time; they made it look like a drunken accident.’
‘ And the other?’ Morton enquired.
‘ Beaten to within an inch of his life,’ he boasted. Not quite true, but these three didn’t have to know that.
‘ Who are your friends?’ That was Conroy.
‘ Professionals. And should you ever need their services, contact me. They are very, very good. One hundred per cent track record. As messy or as clean as you like. Don’t mind killing cops… but we digress. The problem we now have is that the agent acting on behalf of the buyer is arriving soon and we have no goods to display because they are in the hands of the police.’
‘ That’s about the long and short of it,’ McNamara said.
‘ Do we know where these guns are at the moment? Are they accessible?’
‘ Yes and no,’ said Morton firmly. ‘We’re not busting them out of the police store.’
‘ Who said bust them out?’ Hamilton said.
The three waited.
‘ Why not borrow them and then return them — and no one is any the wiser? It solves the problem of me having to arrange to bring more into the country from Madeira. Simply borrow them for a couple of hours.’
Morton sat back and clasped his hands behind his head. Now why hadn’t he thought of that one? ‘Possible,’ he said, chewing it over. ‘Just possible.’
Chapter Nineteen
Police Sergeant Eric Taylor’s financial trouble could be traced back over twelve years — to the 1984 miners
