clothing they wore and passionately attacked each other. But as Donaldson finally clambered above her, the fingernails of her left hand digging hard into his muscled backside, the fingers of her right curled around his hard cock, easing back the foreskin, and he was about to commit adultery, there was a loud, incessant knocking on the door.
‘Jesus, not now,’ she hissed.
The knocking persisted. A woman called his name.
‘Shit,’ he said, rolling off the bed and grabbing a hand towel that he could have hung on his full-to-bursting penis, holding it in front of him. He padded to the door and peered through the spyhole. The fisheye lens distorted the view, but he could still work out that two people were in the corridor, a man and a woman, in the uniform of the Maltese cops.
‘Yes?’ he shouted through the door.
‘Mr Donaldson.’ The woman leaned to the door. ‘Could you open up?’
He sighed impatiently and opened it on the security latch. ‘What is it?’
‘Please could you accompany us?’
‘Why, am I under arrest?’
‘No, nothing like that… we… we’ve found the body of our colleague. He’s been murdered.’
‘That was good.’ Henry congratulated Jerry Tope on his presentation. Tope nodded.
‘I did my best. Is that everything?’
‘For now, thanks, Jerry.’ Henry was in one of the tiny offices off the MIR, leafing through a paper copy of Tope’s PowerPoint. Tope gave Henry a nod and left.
Henry’s eyes went to the slides giving some background to Rosario Petrone, head of the Petrone clan. Born in Naples in 1934, making him seventy-five years old, he had spent his entire life in the gangs of the Camorra. His early years were mainly running protection rackets and drug dealing, even in those days. But as times moved on, people trafficking became profitable, as did running factories making fake designer goods and taking a stranglehold on the garbage disposal service in Naples. This latter business didn’t actually give a shit about how rubbish was disposed of. Often lethal chemicals were simply dumped by roadsides or burned, or tipped into streams causing dangerous water and land pollution. But the Camorra-run businesses did it cheaply and legitimate businesses were more than happy to use their services. Petrone’s empire flourished.
But there was always inter-clan rivalry. Shootings were common. Ruthless scare tactics were regular — such as cutting off victims’ genitals and stuffing them into their mouths, from which their tongues had already been cut. Petrone was believed to have either killed or ordered the assassination of forty rivals. Some were found with their heads blown off, others were burned with the garbage, others were never found. There were times when he was on the run from rival factions or the police or both, although he was never successfully prosecuted for any of the murders he was suspected of. The disappearance of vital witnesses was usually the reason for his acquittals. About six years ago, he was involved in a shooting incident in Naples when he took a bullet in his side and survived. He was sixty-nine at the time and the people believed to have winged him were found later, dunked in a vat of hydrochloric acid one of his companies was supposed to have disposed of.
About three years ago a very powerful rival clan, the Marinis, decided to move in on Petrone’s businesses. After a series of unsuccessful negotiations, followed by brutal beatings on either side, a Mafia war kicked off when Petrone, it was alleged, ordered the murder of a Marini clan leader in Majorca. He brought in an outside hit man to carry out the killing that also eliminated two other Marini members. Collateral damage.
That was the beginning of a terrible campaign.
Ten more people were dead within three months.
Henry shook his head. And he thought Blackpool had its problems.
Things got too hot for old man Petrone, who certainly could not realistically expect to survive another shooting, and he went to ground and, according to Tope’s research, had not been seen in Naples for over a year. Until he turned up dead on my patch, Henry thought, and a silly lad got caught in the crossfire.
So Petrone got what he deserved, probably. Murdered on the orders of the head of a rival gang, Henry guessed. But Rory Costain did not deserve to die in such a way. This was not the streets of Naples. A seething anger spread through Henry at the thought. His mouth dried up. How dare that old man bring his violence to Lancashire? Henry knew it was his job to fight for the dead and there and then he realized that this murder enquiry was about seeking justice for Rory Costain, not Rosario Petrone who would probably have died by the bullet anyway. Rory Costain was who Henry would be fighting for and he resolved to bring the killers to justice, not least because he owed the Costain family something, as bad as they were.
‘Hey.’
Henry looked up from the notes. ‘Hey,’ he said back to the individual who’d appeared at the office door. For a moment it felt like an exchange in an American sitcom where characters always seemed to greet each other with a cheery, ‘Hey.’
It was Detective Inspector Rik Dean, Henry’s old friend and prospective brother-in-law now that Rik and Henry’s will o’ the wisp sister Lisa were ‘an item’. Lisa had turned up like a prodigal a short while ago when their mother had been taken ill. She had ended up in bed with Rik, the serial seducer whose motto was, ‘Vulnerable is good’. At the time Lisa had been vulnerable to Rik’s undoubted charms, but the two seemed to have weathered that storm and were now firmly in love with each other. Wedding bells were possibly in the offing. But, Henry thought cynically, that step would be one giant leap for mankind.
Henry knew that Rik, who was a DI at Blackpool, had been away on holiday with Lisa.
‘How was Lanzarote?’
‘Nice. Warm. Sunny,’ Rik said entering the room.
‘I quite like its barrenness for some reason,’ Henry said. ‘When did you get back?’
‘Yesterday afternoon. Just landed back at work this evening.’
‘Uh-huh.’
‘Only just got the chance to come and see what was going on up here. Been going through all the crap, seeing what I have to do, etcetera.’
‘Yup,’ Henry said, wanting to get his head back round to Petrone.
‘Been doing some paperwork — dealing with a few street robberies from last night that need following up. Had a bit of a chat with the victims on the phone.’
‘Right, good,’ Henry said, failing miserably in his attempt to feign interest. Rik was a good detective and he was angling to get him transferred on to FMIT, but it wasn’t as easy as clicking fingers, even if you were a superintendent. Only the Chief Constable could do that, bless him.
‘Quite interesting, actually,’ Rik said mysteriously. ‘I’ve also been down as second jockey on a preliminary interview with a guy who tried to abduct a young lad earlier today. He was posing as a school truant officer, fake ID, the business, then luring kids away for naughties.’
‘I think I saw him being locked up.’ Henry shuffled his papers, hoping that the great detective in front of him picked up on the bit of a clue to get lost.
‘Two things,’ Rik went on, grinning slyly, seeing Henry’s growing impatience.
Henry regarded him stonily.
‘Even earlier, the paedo-guy got a face full of hot tea from one of the teenagers he tried to bullshit into going with him for a wanking session. The description of that lad fits the description of one of the offenders from last night’s two robberies. One took place in town, one just outside the nick on Bonny Street.’
‘Rik, as interesting as this is, I’m kind of bogged down with a double murder.’
Rik grinned even wider and said, ‘Connections, Henry. You’re always bleating on about connections.’
‘What is your fucking point?’ Henry said.
‘My point, sir,’ he said mockingly, ‘is that when Lisa and I got back from Lanza-grotty, we were still technically on holiday. So we decided to go out for a quick jar across at the Pump and Truncheon.’
‘You really know how to treat a lady.’
‘I do, actually… but the point is we only had an hour in there and we had a bit of a barney, and we were knackered from flying, so we left about nine-ish, and who should I spot strolling past the pub down Bonny Street as we came out arguing with each other?’
The hairs on Henry’s nape moved. ‘Go on.’
‘None other than Rory Costain.’
