A crime-scene photographer pushed past and began taking shots of the two dead men. He was followed by another with a camcorder. Crack! With a noise like a firework, a huge arc lamp exploded into life, illuminating the scene, shining right into Myrna’s eyes.
‘ Fuck!’ she hissed angrily. She turned sharply away, blinking, literally seeing stars. Then, vision regained, she heaved Tapperman out of her way and walked over to talk to Steve Kruger.
She arrived at the moment before the plastic undertaker’s bag was zipped up with him inside. Briefly she saw his horrendous head injuries. Kruger had taken three bullets smack in the face. They had been of a type designed to explode on impact, and succeeded in removing both the front and back of his head, splattering his brains everywhere. The man who had killed him had been good.
Myrna reeled at the sight. She had to reach out for a car to lean on to support her woolly legs.
With Steve Kruger dead she suddenly felt she didn’t want to go on living. She cursed the cruelty of it all and wished she had actually told him she loved him when she had the opportunity. If only she hadn’t been so pigheaded.
Now there was no chance.
She clung shaking to the car, tears pouring out of her eyes as a migraine dug cruel fingers into her skull, mercifully blocking out the scene.
Chapter Eleven
‘ I’m gasping for a drink and a fag,’ Danny said. It was noon and not too early for either by any means. ‘I need something to steady my nerves. I’m shaking like a leaf.’
‘ Right,’ said Henry, ‘let’s do it. We deserve it.’ He picked up his personal radio, turned it on and clicked the volume onto low — just in case.
They left his office and went to the lift. As the doors opened, the Police Constable who had taken the report of Claire Lilton missing from home again stepped out, almost barging into Danny.
‘ Been looking for you, Danny.’ He waved the completed MFH report in her face. ‘It’s that little cow you’ve been dealing with… she’s gone AWOL again. You know — that Claire Lilton.’
‘ When?’ Danny asked, a little knot of concern in her stomach.
‘ Sometime last night or early hours of this morning. What do you want me to do about it? Circulate it or what?’
Danny’s mind, which was really somewhere else, made a snap decision. ‘Just drop the report on my desk. I’ll see to it later — thanks.’ She stepped into the lift next to Henry who was holding the doors open. They closed; descent commenced.
‘ Claire Lilton: shoplifter and persistent misper?’
Danny glanced at Henry, quietly respectful that a busy DI should know this. Henry prided himself on knowing most things.
‘ Yeah, that’s the one,’ she nodded. ‘Been a real pain for a few weeks now, but I can’t get to the bottom of why she’s going. Something odd at home, I suspect.’ She looked away from Henry, suddenly realising she was slightly in awe of him. Not only did he know things that most DIs wouldn’t give a toss about, but there were not many police managers who would have had the bottle to do what he had just done on her behalf. Taking on Jack Sands — a tough, well-respected man’s man so admired by so many gullible people — and confronting him head on. No, not many people would have done that. No wonder his team worked their backsides off for Henry Christie.
They walked out of the police station towards Blackpool town centre. It was a clear, sunny day. Danny breathed the warm fresh air into her lungs, expanding them to their full capacity. Out of the corner of his eye, Henry, the perfect manager, saw Danny’s ample chest rise and fall.
Danny giggled. For a second he thought she had clocked him giving her the eye, but when he looked at her he saw he was mistaken. With her chin lifted high, she was staring dead ahead, a look of sheer happiness on her face.
‘ I don’t know if it’s done the trick, Henry, but I feel as if a great weight has been plucked off the top of my head — and it’s all down to you. The look on Jack’s face when you showed him the star and told him you’d found it taped under one of his desk drawers — and that you’d been accompanied at the time. He looked like he wanted to disappear down a plughole. It was a picture. Thanks, Henry.’
She grabbed his elbow, stopped him in his tracks and planted a kiss firmly on his cheek.
‘ Thanks,’ she said again, genuinely.
‘ All part of the service,’ he replied, colouring up slightly. He was very glad it was merely an innocent kiss of thanks. He knew that had there been anything more to it, he would probably have been daft enough to try and follow it up and get himself into lumber yet again.
They carried on walking and reached the corner of Bank Hey Street, one of Blackpool’s busiest shopping streets.
‘ What you got then?’ the weasel-faced man asked. His name was Benstead. ‘C’mon, I don’t have time to fuck around. I’m a busy man.’
A slightly breathless and ruffled Trent glanced cautiously around the smoke-filled taproom of the pub. Although there were only a few people in it, every one of them, Benstead included, had a cigarette on the go. The ceiling was a dark brown, nicotine-stained colour. ‘Here?’ Trent asked Benstead.
‘ Yeah,’ the little man nodded. ‘Here. But, y’know — be discreet. Don’t flash everything round for every Tom, Dick ‘n’ Arsehole to see. Show me under the table, out of sight. Right?’
Trent nodded and took a long draught from the pint of mild in front of him. He was very tense, hyped up. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, then took a small paper bag out of his pocket. He edged to one side and shuffled the contents out onto the space on the tatty benchseat between him and Benstead.
A driving licence and some credit cards.
‘ Is that all?’ Benstead sneered. ‘I thought you’d robbed fuckin’ Barclaycard headquarters from the way you were talking.’
‘ Yeah, that’s all,’ Trent said. All but the ambulance driver’s cash card.
‘ Where’d you get ‘em from?’
‘ Why?’
‘’ Cos I want to know. It’s all relevant to the price, innit? Things that’re really hot, I don’t spend much money on. You know — high-profile stuff. It’s the bog standard things that interest me.. things with a bit of a shelf- life.’
‘ Oh, right,’ Trent said, understanding. He wiped his face with his hand, momentarily holding his fingers under his nose, inhaling deeply.
Inwardly he gasped. God! He could smell her! It was wonderful.
‘ Oh right,’ Trent said again. ‘These things are only lukewarm — almost cold, really. Come from a break-in down south yesterday.’
‘ Mmm.’ Benstead picked up one of the credit cards by its edge and tilted it to the light. Suspiciously his eyes rose to Trent. ‘You sure?’
Trent took another drink of beer. ‘Very sure.’
‘ Hmm,’ the dealer murmured dubiously. ‘Even warm stuff’ — he pronounced ‘warm’ as ‘worm’ — ‘don’t last long, a day, maybe two, in the right hands.’ He dropped the credit card back onto the seat and picked up the driving licence in the same careful way. ‘Now driving licences go on much further, and a driving licence and credit card in the same name…’ He pondered and regarded Trent. ‘How much?’
‘ I don’t fucking know. Name a price.’
Benstead clicked his tongue thoughtfully. He already had a buyer in mind for this little lot, a guy who had a nice line — nationally — of defrauding car-hire companies by renting good quality motors and selling them on to a ringer. He would love this combination. Probably worth fifteen hundred.
‘ Fifty quid.’
‘ Don’t take me for a fool. I may not have the sell-on contacts, but I know you do. These are worth good
