shirt, underneath which were four passports, which he picked up and came to Henry’s side. The PC was wearing latex gloves, so he kept hold of the passports and opened the first one of them for Henry to see, so he didn’t have to touch it. It was Russian and on seeing the holder’s photograph, Henry went icy cold. He looked at Henry for a reaction.
‘Next one,’ Henry said.
The PC did the same for that one and the next two. There was another Russian passport, an EU one from Malta and a Turkish one. The photographs were all of the same person, all slightly different, and the names were all completely different.
They belonged to the man who had forced Henry and Flynn off the road and then tried to murder them by spraying them with bullets — but had met his own violent end at the hands of Steve Flynn.
Henry’s lips parted with a pop: ‘Vladimir Kaminsky.’
‘There are two guns underneath the bed with ammunition.’
Henry said, ‘The room opposite?’
‘Three passports from three different countries, all belonging to the same man — but not this one.’
‘Let me see.’
Henry crossed the corridor into the opposite bedroom and inspected the find.
Three passports, two more guns. Each passport with a different name, but all belonging to the man who had killed Joe Speakman, wife and dog, and who had almost blasted Henry to pieces, had it not been for Steve Flynn. Yuri Gregorov.
‘Brilliant job, guys,’ Henry said. He turned to the sergeant, beaming like the father on the day that his son scored his first hat trick for the school football team. ‘Same applies to these passports, as the mobile phone; bagged and sealed in the safe, only me to access. Deal with the weapons as you would normally.’
Henry then rushed out to his car.
The floorboards in the store room were unsealed, planed wood, which is why it had been virtually impossible to clean away the blood that had soaked in. And there had been a lot of it.
Flynn stood and looked at it, his mind working through it and constantly returning to the one fact that made him feel weak: the memory of the snippet of conversation that he’d had with Diane, just a throwaway remark. Two pieces of information that Diane had revealed to him openly and innocently.
One, that Colin had once worked for Harry Sunderland as a driver; two, that this property had been bought from Sunderland.
Flynn’s face remained impassive despite the fact that his brain was coming to conclusions that were deeply unsettling him.
‘Utter bollocks,’ he said out loud. He looked at the tooth again and thought, ‘Surely not.’
Grim-faced and angry, Henry screwed the HQ pool car down the M6, leaving plumes of unhealthy looking blue-black smoke behind him, reminding him he needed to check the oil.
He still hadn’t heard back from the divisional commander. The man was someone he knew quite well and respected. Henry could not imagine he would buckle under pressure from any solicitor, slick or otherwise. And Henry could not work out why he himself had not been contacted about any of this. That was an extra worry. Was he being cut out of the circle, and why?
The mobile phone was slotted into the crux of his right shoulder and ear as he tried to call Blackpool police station. There was no Bluetooth or hands-free connection in this basically appointed car, so it was back to breaking the law. It rang out for ages before someone in comms answered and Henry asked to be put through to the chief superintendent.
The man’s secretary answered and fielded off Henry’s insistence to be connected to him. He tried to keep his cool as he spoke to the lady who was a very effective firewall. In the end he gave up and ended the call, then tried to call Rik Dean, holding the phone in his left hand, steering wheel in the right, and thumb-tabbed through his contacts list to find Rik’s number and trying to keep the car safe at 80 mph.
He found the number, pressed call and jammed the phone between shoulder and ear again, waiting for the connection. Which never came: number unobtainable.
In frustration, Henry threw the phone onto the passenger seat and almost had a seizure when it bounced sideways off the seat and dropped down into the gap between seat and door with a clunk.
He swore and reached across with his left hand but it was just too far for his fingertips and he had to shoot upright when a car pulled out from the centre lane without warning and Henry had to anchor on, and swerve from the fast lane into the middle to avoid a collision.
The driver of that car was completely clueless that an angry maniac was in the car he’d just cut up.
Henry coaxed more miles per hour out of the vehicle than he thought possible. Hoping there was enough oil in its system to get him to Blackpool without the engine seizing, he overtook the offending car on the inside and gave the other driver a look of incomprehension. The man didn’t even glance sideways at Henry, who was fuming enough to give him the international ‘dick head’ gesture if they’d made eye contact.
Instead he just threw up both hands, grabbed the steering wheel again and shook it, pleading for more speed. None came. Eighty-five was tops.
And then, just to taunt him, his out-of-reach mobile phone started to ring.
Flynn was having breakfast, a bacon sandwich and large mug of coffee from the dockside cafe. He sat on a table outside, even though the morning was chilly, and watched the activity along the quayside at Glasson as the day came to life. A large yacht was working its way through the sea lock, the water draining down to the level of the dock. He watched the boat gradually disappear from view into the lock, until just the tip of the mainmast remained visible from where he sat. The lower lock gates then began to open.
Normally he would have loved watching this magnificent sight.
This morning it meant nothing to him as he munched through his tasty — but to him, tasteless — breakfast butty.
He watched the yacht leave the lock and motor slowly towards the dock gates, pass through them into the Lune estuary, where it went out of sight.
Flynn stood up and walked despondently back to the chandlery, knowing he wasn’t going to open up that morning after all. He stood outside the shop and pulled out the clear plastic money bag from his pocket that he’d found by the till, in which was the tooth.
He held it in the palm of his hand, trying to convince himself that there was a simple, rational, non-criminal explanation for the presence of the tooth and the blood stains. Try as he might, he wasn’t that persuasive
He made his decision and got into Alison’s car, which was parked in front of the shop.
Henry hurtled into the custody office to cast his eyes over the prisoner dry-wipe board affixed to the wall behind the custody officer’s desk. As ever, the cells at Blackpool were full to bursting — almost. Henry scanned the names twice and it took a few moments for him to realize that the ones he wanted to see up there — Sunderland and Barlow — were missing.
His knees went to lead and he was rooted to the spot. They had gone. Released. It wasn’t just a terrible joke.
He inhaled a steadying breath, walked past the short queue of prisoners waiting to be booked in, went behind the custody desk and caught the eye of the sergeant, whose face fell as he recognized Henry.
He was booking a prisoner in. He nodded worriedly at Henry and said, ‘One minute, boss.’
Henry walked into the tiny office behind the desk and stood waiting for him to finish up. The sergeant appeared a few minutes later. The expression on his face told Henry he knew everything.
‘What happened?’ Henry demanded.
‘I couldn’t do anything,’ the sergeant pleaded.
‘Just tell me what happened.’
‘I came on at six and the chief super and a solicitor came in and told me to release your two prisoners.’
‘On what grounds?’
‘Unlawful arrest. Not working expeditiously enough to investigate the case.’
‘And you let them go?’
‘I’m not going to say no to the chief super, am I? But they’re still on police bail — back in a week. I had to argue for that.’
‘By which time they’ll be long gone.’ Tight-lipped, Henry said, ‘Not your fault.’
