‘Henry said it would be OK for me to use the study. I need to do some research on the Internet.’
Henry pulled up at the new police station in Preston about half an hour later, traffic having held him up a little. He was buzzed into the building via the enquiry desk and made his way along the ground floor corridor to the custody office where he presented himself to one of the two custody officers. They were lords, masters of all they surveyed, a step higher than everyone else on a raised area that reminded Henry of a spaceship command centre, the captain’s bridge. He knew the custody officer, so there was no need for introductions.
‘I’ve come to collect Mark Carter.’
‘Good, a wick little bleeder, that one. He’s spat at me and pissed all over his cell.’
‘Charming.’
The custody officer beckoned over a gaoler and told him to take Henry to Mark’s cell, a juvenile detention room just off the main custody reception area. As the cell door opened, the strong odour of urine hit Henry.
Mark was stretched out on the bench, on his side, facing the wall. He did not move when the door opened. A pool of yellow stinking piss was on the cell floor, splashed up on to the walls also.
‘He won’t clean it up, so we’ve left him in it,’ explained the gaoler to Henry.
‘Do you piss everywhere you go now?’ Henry said, a comment that elicited no response from Mark. ‘I said…’
‘I heard what you said,’ Mark mumbled into the wall.
‘Get me a mop and a bucket,’ Henry said quietly to the gaoler. ‘You’re going to clean this up, Mark.’
‘No I’m not.’
‘Wrong answer.’
Mark twisted his head around and saw that his annoyer was Henry. He groaned. ‘Oh no, not you. Just eff off and leave me alone.’
The gaoler eyed Henry, gave a tut, then went down the corridor for the mop, leaving Henry temporarily alone with Mark. The detective stepped carefully into the cell, avoiding the pee, and leaned over. His mouth was only inches from Mark’s right ear.
‘You get the fuck up, you mop up your own piss and then you’re coming with me.’
‘Or what?’ Mark was staring intently at the wall on which was inscribed without any originality, ‘Cops’r’cuntz’, a sentiment with which Mark agreed wholeheartedly.
‘Or I’ll rub your nose in it,’ Henry whispered.
Mark flinched.
Henry added, ‘You know I will.’
‘I’ve got rights. I’ll sue you.’
‘No one’s done that successfully yet,’ Henry said. He stood up as the gaoler returned with the cleaning utensils, one in each hand, reminding Henry of a soldier on latrine duties. ‘Get up Mark, we have some important things to discuss.’
‘Go away.’
Henry turned to the gaoler and gave him the ‘look’. The man nodded and quickly sidestepped out of view. Henry grabbed Mark’s arm and yanked him off the bench and before he knew it he was on his knees, one arm wedged up between his shoulder blades face to the floor. His head was being pressed down by Henry’s big hand on the back of it, his nose hovering less than an inch above his urine.
Henry bent low again. ‘I have no time to mess about here, Mark. Things have got very serious and you have to cooperate with me.’
‘Did that bitch tell you where I was?’
‘None of that matters any more. Just clean up your mess and let’s get moving.’ Henry ratcheted Mark’s arm another inch up his back. A hiss of pain exited from between his clenched teeth.
‘OK, OK,’ Mark relented.
‘And after you’ve done that, we might go and scoop up the shit you left in some poor bugger’s shed last night, at the same time as returning his bike to him, eh?’
‘It’s definitely Petrone,’ Donaldson was saying. He had a mug of filtered coffee in his hand and was standing in Henry’s back garden, looking out across the adjoining field on which sheep grazed and a pair of noisy Canadian geese pecked at the ground next to a pond. He was on the phone to Don Barber down in London. ‘Confirmed with my own eyes.’
‘Well, at least it’s some revenge for Shark’s death.’ Barber said, referring to the undercover FBI agent.
‘You could look at it that way,’ Donaldson conceded, ‘but it’s one less avenue for me to get to the American.’
‘Any leads as to who might have whacked him?’
‘I mentioned this witness before, who they’ve got in custody now. It’ll be interesting to find out exactly what’s been seen or otherwise.’
‘Where is he in custody?’
‘Preston at the moment, but being brought back to Blackpool.’
‘OK, keep me posted, Karl.’
‘Will do, boss… there is one thing.’
‘That would be?’
‘I’ve decided to review all the murders between the Petrones and the Marinis that happened since the Majorca shootings, if that’s OK.’
Barber hesitated slightly. ‘To what end?’
‘Mm, maybe nothing, just an aside the SIO up here said to me. I just want to have a look at the patterns to the killings, see if anything strikes me as odd.’
‘In what way?’
‘Again, not sure yet, but the SIO has a vague theory that we might not just be up against the Mafia… as I said, it’s a vague one.’
‘Don’t spend too much time on it.’
‘I won’t.’
Donaldson chucked the last dregs of the coffee over the fence and returned to the house. Kate had been studying him from the kitchen. He handed her the cup and said thanks, but wilted under her knowing eyes.
‘Please don’t say you’ve been unfaithful,’ she said, ‘not you.’
Had Donaldson been accused of murder, not even the most experienced interrogator in the world, not even torture, would have made him reveal a thing. But the hurt, accusing glint in Kate’s eyes turned his stomach over and he had to hold himself back from prostrating himself at her feet and begging forgiveness for his transgression.
‘No,’ he said haughtily. ‘Can I use the study now?’
‘I should bloody well think so.’
Mark Carter scowled at the remark made by Henry and rammed the mop head into the bucket.
‘Finished.’
‘Right, let’s get going.’
He made Mark carry the bucket down the corridor to a tap and sluice sink where he poured the urine and water away, then rinsed mop and bucket.
‘You had a shower?’
‘Do I look like I’ve had a shower?’
‘You look like shit, actually. Come on, now you’ve cleaned up your mess, let’s clean up the mess that’s you.’
Karl Donaldson slid his laptop out of its case, plugged it in, switched it on. It was a new one, state of the art, and was up and running in seconds. He connected to Henry’s broadband system.
Firstly he checked his personal emails, then wished he hadn’t.
There were four new ones, three from travel agents he subscribed to, the fourth from an unknown sender that the computer marked with a red flag warning and the perceptive words, ‘This could be dangerous’. He clicked on it, saw it was from someone called ‘VanLang’. At first he thought it could have been one of the many he received from online Viagra sellers — not that he needed any — but when he opened it he found it was from his sexy neighbour in Malta.
