A Time For Justice (27 page)

‘
You game for a laugh?’ he asked. ‘Sure thing,’ affirmed
Donaldson.

In the lift Natalie slid her arm through the crook of Henry’s.
She inspected him minutely with big seductive eyes. Then she
smiled. ‘Can I kiss you?’ she asked politely, turning to face him
properly and snaking her arms around his neck, completely ignoring
the other two in the lift. Henry took in her scent again. Its
vapours intermingled intoxicatingly with the liquor which already
clouded his brain and therefore his judgement. He knew he
shouldn’t. ‘I’ve never kissed a hero before,’ she said, drawing his
face towards hers, his mouth towards hers.

His arms went round her waist. She felt so slim. He pulled her
eagerly towards him. She responded, grinding her hips into
his.

They kissed.

Two hours of negotiation, planning details, finance, profits,
routes and couriers had passed before Corelli leaned back in his
chair, stretched and yawned. In the grate a fire burned and spat
ferociously. On a rug in front of it lay Dakin’s two Dobermans,
sleeping soundly.

Dakin smiled. ‘Care for another drink?’ he asked
Corelli.

‘
A small bourbon,’ said Corelli. He stood up and went to the
window, looking out into the darkness that was the Ribble Valley.
Light from the moon made the river itself look silver in the bottom
of the valley.

Dakin handed him a glass. ‘Do you like my house?’

‘
I do,’ said Corelli, ‘and your hospitality and your business
ability.’ ‘Good, I’m glad.’

Dakin held out his glass. Corelli chinked his against
it.

‘
Here’s to the future and shared prosperity,’ said
Dakin.

They each took a sip of their drinks.

‘
There is, however, one problem to be resolved,’ Corelli said
thoughtfully.

‘
What’s that?’ Dakin sounded guarded. ‘I thought we’d covered
everything. ‘

‘
Oh, we have, businesswise. Now, the man the police arrested
...’

Hinksman,’ nodded Dakin.

‘
As part of our arrangement, and to show your good will
towards me, I should like you to ensure that he does not remain in
the custody of your fine police department any longer than
necessary - if you see what I mean.’

Donaldson was still awake when the knock came on the door of
his hotel room. He was savouring the feel and warmth of a woman in
his bed, even though she was virtually a stranger. But that didn’t
matter to him at that moment. He felt good and relaxed and proud
that he’d been able to perform so well after all this
time.

The knock came again.

He wasn’t sure whether he’d actually heard it the first time,
or even if it was his door. He glanced at his watch. Just gone
four. Puzzled, he eased his left arm gently from under the sleeping
shoulders of Alex and sat up slowly on the edge of the bed so as
not to disturb her.

There was another knock, louder, slightly more urgent this
time. He pulled on a pair of shorts and went to the door. He opened
it to see Karen standing there in the corridor.

She was crying. Her eyes were pools of clear water. Streams
ran down her cheeks. She looked lost and beautiful. Donaldson’s
heart went out to her when he saw how misshapen her mouth became as
she cried and tried to hold it back, and how much her shoulders
juddered with each sob.

‘
Karen,’ he said.

‘
Karl, I’m sorry - I just needed someone. I need to talk to
somebody. . . I haven’t got any friends.’ She almost choked on the
word friends. ‘I feel so alone ... I want to talk to you. I’m
cracking up, I think. My head, it’s just spinning round and round
... won’t stop. I need someone to hold me. You don’t mind, do
you?’

‘
No, I don’t.’ But he couldn’t help looking over his shoulder
back into the room.

Karen saw the glance and followed it with her own
eyes.

Disturbed by the noise, Alex was sitting up in bed yawning.
The sheets had tumbled to her waist.

‘
You’ve got someone in there,’ said Karen. It wasn’t an
accusation. There was sadness in her tone.

‘
Yeah,’ Donaldson said. ‘I mean ... she’s nothing. I’ll get
rid of her - she can go.’

Karen suddenly took control of herself. She shook her head.
‘Don’t bother, Karl. I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have come without
phoning first. It was stupid. But I expected ... Oh, it doesn’t
matter.’

She turned and walked towards the lift.

‘
Karen - wait!’ He started to panic.

The lift doors opened immediately. Half-naked at his doorway,
Donaldson watched helpless as she left.

‘
Karen,’ he shouted. ‘Karen, I love you.’

As though she hadn’t heard or didn’t give a damn, she stepped
into the lift, but did not turn round to face him. Her back stayed
towards him.

The doors closed. The lift hissed and began to
descend.

Donaldson closed his eyes and dropped his head forwards into
the palms of his hands.

Chapter Sixteen

Henry slithered into work at nine the following day, not
feeling particularly well nor particularly proud of himself. He’d
got home just after 4 a.m. and sneaked into bed in a drunken stupor
in the belief that he’d managed it without waking his wife; as the
reality of the sober world hit him he realised there was no way
this could have been the case.

Kate, however, hadn’t said a word. She’d been her normal
cheerful self, waking him up prior to setting off for her own work.
She’d kissed him gently and placed a glass of orange juice on the
bedside cabinet.

With his aches and pains and breakages, it took him about
twenty minutes to get dressed.

He grabbed a coffee in the canteen which he intended to drink
in the office. On his way to the lift he was waylaid by Natalie in
police uniform. Henry took comfort from the fact that she looked
worse than him - but she was on the early shift and could have only
managed an hour or so’s sleep at most. It didn’t stop her being
gorgeous though. And that perfume...

‘
Did you enjoy last night, hero? I did,’ she said.

‘
Yes, yes I did,’ Henry coughed. He vividly remembered the sex
in the car. It was a long time since he had fucked in a back seat.
He’d forgotten how difficult it was. But it had been good, fast and
exhausting. Different. A change.

‘
What about tonight?’ she asked.

‘
Oh, I don’t know,’ he said. ‘Commitments, y’know?’ He knew he
should have said no, quashed it there and then, but could not bring
himself to do so.

She nodded understandingly. ‘Give me a call if you get free.
I’ll be in all night.’ She tiptoed up and gave him a less than
subtle peck on the cheek which was witnessed by several
others.

I can handle this, he thought as he made his way to the
office. No probs. I can handle this.

Donaldson was already in the office, sifting through
paperwork, a visitor’s badge on his lapel. Much to Henry’s disgust
he looked positively healthy.

‘
Mornin’,’ Henry croaked and sat down heavily, jarring his
ribs painfully. ‘I feel about nine thousand years old.’ He rooted
through the drawers in his desk for an aspirin. He knew they were
there somewhere.

‘
Howdy,’ said Donaldson.

‘
Good night?’ Henry enquired of him, knowing he’d taken Alex
back to his hotel room.

‘
So so,’ he said. ‘Good points and bad points.’

‘
Oh,’ said Henry. He couldn’t work up the energy to pry. He
found and devoured two pills, swallowing them with his coffee. He
wiped his mouth and said, ‘To business. Let’s try and find out what
Mr Dakin’s been up to recently, and also where he and Mr Corelli
are holed up.’

‘
I have an idea where they might be today,’ said
Donaldson.

‘
Oh?’ said Henry. He was about to ask when the phone
rang.

‘
DS Christie - can I help you?’ It wasn’t a good line for some
reason. ‘Sorry, just hold on a second.’

Some of the other detectives in the office were laughing and
talking quite loudly, making it difficult for him to hear. He
shouted, covering the mouthpiece first: ‘Will you lot shut your
gobs! I can’t hear a fuckin’ word. And it is the Chief Super on the
line.’ Silence clamped quickly down. Henry returned to his phone
conversation. He wrote furiously and listened intently.

A few moments later he hung up.

‘
Well, Karl, sorry about this, mate, but I’ve been taken off
this investigation as of now. We’ve got another murder - a double
one, in fact.’

Henry drove all the way east across the county of Lancashire
to the Rossendale Valley. He had two Detective Constables from his
office as company. All three men had been assigned to the Murder
Squad.

On the moors above Rossendale there are many quarries, both
used and unused. These workings scar a bleak but beautiful
landscape. It was to an old stone quarry above the town of
Whitworth in the most easterly part of the valley that Henry drove
that day.

He knew the way well. He’d served in that part of the county
as a young uniformed PC on the beat and returned occasionally, to
see friends made in that era of almost twenty years ago. It was an
area he knew quite well and missed. He often thought of it with the
affection of distance and time. The harsh winters, the placid
summers, the contrast of hill and valley - all things lacking in
the western half of the county.

The road he took now was rough and pot-holed. Only cautious
driving prevented the bottom being ripped out of the car. However,
they arrived at the scene without mishap.

It was a bustle of hectic police activity - cars, vans and
cops milling everywhere. But thankfully no blue flashing lights.
Henry did not wish to add to the apparent chaos and parked well
away, walking the remaining distance, much to his companions’
muttering annoyance. The only place a detective likes walking to is
a pub.

A Detective Chief Inspector from the Division strode out from
a cluster of worried CID men and greeted Henry, shaking hands. ‘Oh
good, my Murder Squad,’ he said. However, he seemed more concerned
with money matters than catching a killer.

‘
Bad do, this, lad,’ he said glumly in his cloth cap accent.
‘The bloody division’s on its last legs financially and I don’t
know where the money’ll come from to finance this. Bloody bankrupt
us, it will. Headquarters’ll have to dig in for this.’

The economic aspects of the affair didn’t particularly
concern Henry. If he’d wanted to juggle figures, he’d have become
an accountant. That was his argument. All he knew was there had
been an alleged double murder and he wanted a chance at catching
the culprit. The money would come from somewhere. It
always did. It had to.

He commiserated with the DCI. Then: ‘What’ve we got,
sir?’

‘
Two mutilated bodies down disused quarry workings,’ said the
DCI. ‘Found a couple of hours ago by a man who’d been shooting
rabbits in the area. No idea, as yet, who they are. Man and a woman
by the looks. Doctor says they could’ve been here for up to a week.
Decaying quite quickly now, apparently. Trail’s cold here, I’d
say.’

‘
What about the mutilation?’

‘
They’re both face down at the moment, but it looks pretty
extensive from what we can see.’

‘
Jealous lover?’

‘
Nope, looks like a professional job.’

‘
Hell,’ said Henry, heart sinking. ‘Makes it more difficult.’
Then his spirits soared again. ‘Never mind, the cost might ruin the
county for good and we’ll all be made redundant so it won’t matter
anyway.’

‘
Very funny,’ murmured the DCI. But there was the glimmer of a
smile on his face.

He led Henry towards two disused workings which had been dug
side by side many years before behind a dilapidated redbrick
stone-crusher. Both workings were roughly the shape of huge
upturned and sunken ice-cream cones, about 30 metres across. They
were partially filled with rainwater, old tyres, junk and the
rotting hulks of abandoned cars that had been pushed over the
edge.

The two bodies had been discovered in the right-hand
excavation in relation to Henry’s approach.

He carefully went to the edge and looked over.

From where he stood it was a sheer drop to the water’s
surface, but to his right was a grassed pathway clinging to the
inner circumference of the working which led down to a ledge about
twenty feet below the rim. It was a wide ledge and he could see it
clearly. It was the scene of the crime.

‘
This area is used a great deal by kids on scramblers,’ said
the DCI into Henry’s ear. ‘Surprises me they haven’t been found
earlier.’ Henry raised his eyebrows. ‘If you don’t look, you don’t
see.’

‘
No, suppose not,’ admitted the DCI.

There were the only two living people on the ledge at the
moment. One was the Scenes of Crime photographer, who was combining
stills and video shots of the scene. The other was the Home Office
pathologist, Dr Baines. He was dressed in an all-in-one disposable
paper suit, with plastic gloves and plastic shoes. He looked like a
painter and decorator.