Big City Jacks (24 page)

The steamy basement underneath the bar reeked of beer, cigarettes and rotting vegetables. But at that moment, the only thing Ramon's sense of smell could distinguish was that of his own blood . . . and that was difficult enough as his nose had been virtually obliterated, broken by an iron bar, smashed to a pulp. Both his eyes were blackened and swollen, huge now, puffed-up and closing a little more all the time. Not that he could see much anyway because his left eyeball had burst, was oozing blood and puss down his cheek. Below his flattened and bloody nose, his mouth was a mess. Lips split wide open, teeth missing or loose, although before the teeth had gone he had bitten part way through his tongue. His lower jaw was hanging loose, too. Again, a blow from the iron bar, rather like a double-handed tennis shot which, whilst breaking the jaw just below the joint, had sent powerful shock waves coursing through his cranium – almost, only almost, knocking him unconscious.

His head lolled forwards into his chest and nothing seemed to make sense any more. Pain seared through his torso following the beating he had received. His fingers had been broken one at a time, snapped back like twigs, making Ramon howl with screams he never knew he could voice. His kneecaps had also been the focus of a lot of attention from the iron bar, both having been smashed.

Snot and blood bubbled out of his distorted nose.

But the screaming was over. Although his body was in the most extreme agony, he did not have the reserves to even moan anymore. Every last bit of juice had been beaten out of him remorselessly.

All he wanted now was release. He either wanted to be allowed to die, or to be taken to a hospital and pumped full of morphine.

His head was yanked upright.

‘Can you hear me, Ramon?' came the whisper in his ear.

Blood dribbled out of his mouth. He did not have the strength to respond.

‘Can you hear me?'

From somewhere, a muffled gasp escaped from his broken lips.

‘Tell us the truth, my friend. Tell us the names of the people you conspired with, the people you allowed to steal our property. Just tell us.'

His head was held upright.

‘Tell us the truth. You betrayed us, didn't you? You sold us out, didn't you?'

‘No,' he managed to say.

‘Liar.' His head was dropped, chin bouncing, the pain from the broken jaw arcing through his head like a million volts of electricity.

Lopez stood upright. He was stripped naked to the waist, sweat glistening on his pale, muscular body. ‘He's a tough one,' he said to Mendoza, wiping himself down with a towel, ‘which is why we recruited him in the first place.' Mendoza was sitting astride a chair, leaning on it, watching the proceedings in a detached way. ‘One of his good traits,' Lopez said.

‘He's admitted nothing,' Mendoza observed. He lit a cigarillo, blew lazy smoke rings.

‘I never expected him to,' Lopez explained.

Mendoza regarded his second in command suspiciously for a long moment. A nerve twitched on Lopez's face. Then he gave a nod, stood up and said, ‘Kill him – and then if we have to go on killing to get it back, so be it.'

He walked out of the basement, leaving Lopez and Ramon alone.

‘With pleasure,' Lopez said under his breath. He picked up a 9mm pistol from the top of a nearby beer keg and placed the muzzle against Ramon's temple. Something in the injured man made him stir, made him realize what was about to happen. He raised his head and twisted agonizingly to look through his blood-encrusted eyes at Lopez.

‘What?' Lopez said. He leaned forwards so he was close to Ramon's face.

‘You,' the victim said, once, and managed to gob into Lopez's face, a horrible, thick mixture of liquids. Lopez recoiled, wiping his face angrily. Then, without further hesitation, he shoved the gun into Ramon's left ear and pulled the trigger twice in quick succession, blowing away the opposite side of Ramon's face as the bullets spun out of his skull.

Spinks never made the putt. If he had not been interrupted he would probably have knocked the ball into the hole, which would have made it a par on the eighth. Instead, when he saw the two men by the green and his brain registered who they were, he ran.

Unfortunately for Spinks, his lavish lifestyle did not include fitness training. Consequently he was overweight – not grossly so by any stretch of the imagination – but enough to ensure he did not have the speed or the stamina to outrun the interlopers.

Jackman's lifestyle, as Cromer's did, consisted of regular exercise. They trained daily at an exclusive gym in the heart of Manchester, meeting at six thirty a.m. for a three-quarter-hour's workout, including aerobic and strength training. Each man was extremely fit, as they knew they had to be in their line of work. It kept them one step ahead of their competitors, who, more often than not, were about as fit as . . . well, Spinks.

Spinks panicked. He threw down his putter and legged it.

Jackman, the faster of the pair, got to him as he leapt into the first bunker. For fun, he rugby tackled Spinks, driving into him like a steamroller, forcing all the breath out of him and landing on him in the sand, pushing Spinks's face down into the neatly raked surface and making him eat a mouthful of it.

The girlfriend watched the proceedings in complete silence.

Cromer dealt with her. A few quiet words and she slotted her putter into her golf bag and walked away without even a backward glance.

Jackman dragged the disarrayed Spinks to his feet and, whilst holding him up by the scruff of the neck, brushed him down.

‘You fucking twats . . .!' Spinks started to yell, gasping for breath.

Jackman punched him hard in the lower belly and let go of the collar at the same time, letting Spinks double over on to his knees, every bit of air expelled from him.

When he had almost recovered, Jackman hit him twice more then he and Cromer led him towards the clubhouse car park, meek and mild, not an ounce of fight left in him.

‘That's a good fella,' Cromer cooed patronizingly as they eased him into the back seat of his Bentley. ‘Let's have a nice ride.'

Henry seemed to have inherited the inspector's office at Rawtenstall police station. He knew it was only a temporary state of affairs but even so it was useful to have a little bolt hole where he could retreat to and get his mind around things, not just in relation to the murder investigation.

Inwardly he seethed about Anger and Carradine. Old buddies, one looking out for the other. Promising things and then having the temerity to flounce around, sneering at Henry, going out for lunch, then returning together and asking him how things were progressing.

Henry could have punched Anger. He didn't, remaining cool, calm and bubbling.

‘Twats,' he muttered in the confines of the inspector's office, then repeated the word for emphasis.

He sat back in the swivel chair again, staring out through the narrow window, watching the public go about their day-to-day business.

‘Right,' he said eventually. ‘Brain in gear, please.'

SIOs do not exclusively run one investigation at a time. Quite often they are required to steer two or three murders at once, which can be difficult and stressful. At the moment, Henry was fortunate in having only the one, but he still had a watching brief to perform over the fatal accident at Blackpool. In truth he had let that slip a little, knowing that the DS to whom he had entrusted it was more than capable of cracking it without Henry's assistance.

However, Henry needed to keep in touch.

Using an internal phone he called Rik Dean on spec and amazingly managed to get in touch.

‘Anything happening?' he asked after the pleasantries.

‘Roy Costain has definitely gone to ground,' Dean informed him. ‘We've had one or two sightings – he's managed to evade us so far, but he's definitely in town.'

‘Have the family helped at all?'

‘Bunch of shits – no they haven't. Very obstructive, nothing coming from them at all. I put an FLO in with them, but they're not having it. Still reckon they're going to sue the cops.'

‘Not surprising. They don't know right from wrong,' Henry said wearily. ‘I definitely need to come and see Troy again. I said I would, but I got side-tracked.'

‘Actually I haven't seen Troy for a day or two.'

‘Right, OK,' Henry said, winding up the conversation. ‘If I get a chance I'll be over later.'

Henry hung up.

Next job was to chase up the DNA results and the firearms analysis. The former should be done by now, the latter, he knew, could take longer. He got on the phone to Jane Roscoe in the MIR down the corridor to ask just exactly what had been done.

‘Seen that ad on telly?' Tony Cromer asked Spinks. They were in the Bentley, Cromer at the wheel, Spinks in the rear. Jackman was following behind as they drove away from Whitworth down into the Rossendale Valley. Spinks sat hunched over, hurt and frightened. He knew better than to attempt anything with Cromer. Instead he responded miserably.

‘What ad would that be?'

‘Oh, God, it's for some car or other. Anyway, this guy sees an advertising hoarding for this car . . . I think it's a Peugeot or something . . . then he looks at his own car, which is a pile of shit . . . gets in his car and starts bouncing it off walls, y'know, ramming it, reversing it, scraping it, until eventually it kinda takes on the shape of the Peugeot in the hoarding . . . do you know which one I mean, now?' He glanced over his shoulder.

‘Can't say I do . . . anyway, why're you telling me this? What interest is it to me? I want to know what's going on, what're you two goons playing at?'

Henry was back in the MIR chatting to one of the detectives on the squad who was reporting in about the status of the actions he had been allocated. Roscoe and Carradine were huddled together at a desk, ostensibly discussing MIR management issues, though Henry believed they were gossiping about him. Not good. He definitely was becoming paranoid.

‘OK, good stuff,' Henry said to the DC. He looked up as the support-unit sergeant came into the room, dressed in her search overalls and looking like a cat with a mouse. ‘Hello, Hannah,' Henry said, noticing she had a small, clear plastic bag in her hand and a video cassette in the other.

‘Can I have a word?' she said. Roscoe and Carradine's eyes turned to her as they stopped their little scrum down. ‘Think I might've found something.'

They drove into an old mill yard in Stacksteads, a township situated on the long stretch of road in the valley bottom between Bacup and Rawtenstall.

Once there had been many mills in the area, now most had been demolished; those remaining were either derelict or had been converted into factory units. None produced cotton any more.

This particular mill had a long, proud history, but it was now deserted and falling to pieces. Rufus Sweetman had bought it at a knock-down price with the intention of converting it into classy apartments. It stood by the trickle of the River Irwell and may have had some development potential, but Sweetman had owned it for three years and had done nothing with it.

The yard at the rear of the mill was bounded on three sides by twenty-foot-high stone walls and on the fourth side by the mill itself. The entrance to it was by way of a gap in the walls which had once been a proper gate.

Cromer drove the Bentley into the yard, stopping in the middle, gawking up at the multi-storey mill which in its day had produced millions of yards of cotton material. Behind, Jackman parked up the second car at the entrance to the yard.

‘Ahh, some history here,' Cromer said. He shook his head sadly. ‘All gone now. Everything produced by chinks and wogs these days . . . sad . . . what do you say, Spinksy?'

Spinks sat upright and tight in the back seat, mouth clamped shut, a premonition of horror to come shuddering through his veins. He could not speak.

Cromer patted the steering wheel. ‘This is a lovely bus, y'know? Really smooth. Can't quite hear the clock ticking, though . . . ahh, no wonder, it's digital!' He laughed at his joke, twisted his head and looked over his shoulder at his captive with an evil smile.

There was complete silence between the men, the only sound being the gentle, very muted rumble of the huge powerful engine under the bonnet.

‘What's going on?' Spinks squeaked, his mouth a dry cave.

‘Someone's taken something that doesn't belong to them.'

‘Like what?'

‘Something that belongs to me boss.'

‘Like what?' Spinks asked desperately.

‘Like a lot . . . I mean a lot . . . of drugs.'

With that, Cromer snapped the automatic gearbox into drive. He rammed his foot down on the accelerator. The heavy car surged forward like a sports car half its weight, the front end lifting regally as power transferred to the wheels. Cromer held on tight, bracing himself.

Spinks let out a noise somewhere between a gasp and a scream as he saw the mill-yard wall getting closer and closer as the car sped towards it.

‘Jesus fucking . . .!' he uttered. Something inside him did not believe that Cromer would do it. No one, no one, in their right mind would, whatever the reason, drive such a beautiful piece of machinery head first into a three-foot-thick stone wall. Surely.

Cromer did.

The car, still accelerating, hit the wall with a sickening thud, throwing Spinks out of his seat, sending him sprawling through the gap between the front seats. Before he could recover himself, Cromer selected reverse and the wheels were skidding as the car began a journey towards the opposite wall.

‘You idiot!' screamed Spinks.

The Bentley connected.

Then Cromer was in drive again, but instead of going for another straight-on hit, he went for forty-five degrees, slamming the car into the wall so as to destroy the front offside headlights.

Then back in reverse.

‘This is my fucking car, you prick!' Spinks shrieked.